Twitter owner Elon Musk is defending his chosen censorship model for the social network after touting new restrictions on users who don’t report impersonating others, signaling new rule changes.
On Sunday night, Mr. Musk announced a complete ban on all users from impersonating others without calling them a parody, prompting people to impersonate the CEOs of SpaceX and Tesla on Twitter.
The new head of Twitter insisted that he believes in freedom of speech.
“My commitment to free speech extends to not banning an account after my plane, even if it’s an immediate risk to personal safety,” Mr Musk said on Twitter on Sunday.
Comedian Kathy Griffin tried Mr. Musk’s approach and changed her screen name to Mr. Musk. Twitter suspended her account soon after, and Mr Musk responded with a series of tweets, quipping that she had indeed been “banned for pretending to be a comedian”.
“But if she really wants her account back, she can have it,” Mr Musk said on Twitter. “For 8 dollars.”
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk says Twitter revenue is down despite no change in censorship policy
The $8 price reflects Mr. Musk’s planned monthly fee for verifying all accounts willing to pay, making the status symbol that conveys a user’s authenticity and authority available to a larger potential audience.
Mr Musk’s idea to boost revenue also comes amid Twitter’s workforce cuts last week.
Despite the personnel and policy changes taking place at Twitter, most of the existing censorship policies have not undergone sudden changes, according to the company.
Twitter’s head of security and integrity, Yoel Roth, said on Friday that the company has restricted access to internal tools for some of the company’s employees due to security concerns amid layoffs. He said most of the “2,000+ content moderators” focused on early reviews are not affected.
“More than 80% of inbound moderation was completely unaffected by this access change,” Mr Roth said on Friday, posting a screenshot of the October data. “The daily volume of moderation actions we take has remained stable throughout this period.”
However, Twitter’s content moderators may soon receive new censorship guidelines. Mr. Musk posted a link to the company’s existing rules on Monday, noting that they will change over time.
• This article was based in part on reports from the TV company.
