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Former US President Donald Trump's Twitter account has returned, although no tweets have been posted from the account. Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, launched a poll a few days ago asking users to unban Trump or not, which gained 15 million votes to reinstate Trump on the platform.
Trump's Twitter account was restored after Musk tweeted to indicate he would be. After declaring that "the people have spoken, and Trump will be reinstated," Musk immediately unbanned Trump's account.
The people have spoken.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
Trump will be reinstated.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei. https://t.co/jmkhFuyfkv
After Trump tweeted in support of the riots at the US Capitol in January 2021, Twitter deleted his account. According to Jack Dorsey, the company's CEO, the former American president's account was blocked for breaking Twitter rules. According to the dominant social media platform, Trump's account was suspended because it had broken Twitter's "Civic Integrity" rules.
To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021
Trump tweeted, "The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future." on January 8, 2021. In no way, shape, or form will they receive disrespectful or unfair treatment.
"To all those who have asked, he will not be going to the inauguration on January 20," he added in a subsequent tweet shortly after. Twitter concluded that user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately and permanently suspended from the service after comparing the language in these Tweets to the Glorification of Violence policy.
Twitter's then-CEO, Jack Dorsey, stated that he was not proud of or celebrating the decision to ban Trump from Twitter or the events that led up to this point. Twitter took the step and chose the greatest information based on risks to physical safety, both on and off, after issuing a clear warning.
I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?
— jack (@jack) January 14, 2021
Twitter was forced to prioritize public safety because of an unprecedented and unacceptable situation. Twitter's policies and enforcement are primarily motivated by the undeniable reality of offline harm caused by online discourse.
Everyone assumed that once Musk acquired control of Twitter, the billionaire would unban Trump's account as his first move. As Musk had been quite vocal about Trump's ban on Twitter when he didn't buy the platform and had stated that he wouldn't have suspended Trump in the first place, many people assumed it would happen under his leadership.
Musk initially declared that he would not reinstate any banned accounts when he took over Twitter less than ten days ago. On November 199, he began a poll on Twitter, and later in a post, he claimed 134 million people had seen the poll and nearly 15 million had participated, with 51.8% of respondents favoring restoring Trump's account.
Trump's return to Twitter under Musk was always a question of time since he had already made multiple allusions to reintroducing the former US President, and now it has happened.
