On Sunday, one of Twitter’s more high-profile posters dipped his toe in the social media waters just to see what might happen.
“Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked,” rapper Kanye West, known as Ye, tweeted Sunday afternoon.
Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked
— ye (@kanyewest) November 20, 2022
West’s tweet comes one day after the reinstatement of former President Donald Trump.
Freedom of speech is everything; if you cannot speak your mind, you are not free. It’s that simple.
Bravo 👏🏼 @elonmusk for restoring @realDonaldTrump and your efforts to make Twitter a true Free Speech platform.
The liberty of humanity is at stake.
— Dr. Simone Gold (@drsimonegold) November 20, 2022
West had been banned from Twitter, and on other platforms, in October after posting he was “going death con 3 [sic] On JEWISH PEOPLE,” according to CNN.
“You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,” he also posted in a since-deleted post.
Do you think Kanye should have been reinstated?
Yes: 98% (43 Votes)
No: 2% (1 Votes)
West’s comments cost him deals with Adidas, Gap, Balenciaga and Vogue, but West never apologized for his comments, noted the Daily Mail.
Musk said in late October that West’s account had been restored before he bought Twitter, according to People. Some tweets from early November were on the account, but nothing had been posted since Nov. 4.
Twitter owner Musk has allowed multiple people who were once banned back on Twitter, including Jordan Peterson, Kathy Griffin and The Babylon Bee, but on Friday Musk indicated he would draw the line at Alex Jones.
No
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
Trump’s return was criticized Sunday by House Democrat Adam Schiff of California, a frequent target of Trump’s who attacked Musk’s reign at Twitter.
“It just underscores the erratic leadership of Twitter now under Musk, but also the security concerns, with security people fleeing Twitter and what that means for the protection of Americans’ private data,” Schiff said, according to The Hill.
In looking down upon the changes at Twitter, Parmy Olson wrote in an Op-Ed published in The Washington Post that Musk “is creating a platform for unfettered free speech that is light on consequences for the worst behaved. But he also seems to be getting swept up in what Twitter’s algorithms do best: an addiction to getting more attention on Twitter.”
“For Musk, all the extra activity on Twitter points to success. But it’s actually not going to help Twitter’s financially precarious situation with advertisers, many of whom have suspended ads on the platform because of concerns about spotty content moderation and toxic posts,” Olson wrote.
Olson said that unfettered free speech will degrade Twitter.
“Twitter is not quite the hellscape that 4chan is, but with so few people left to weed out the toxic posts that break its rules just as one of the site’s biggest rule-breakers comes back, it is heading in that rather unpleasant direction,” Olson wrote.
