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Washington (AFP) – Under Elon Musk’s leadership, Twitter recently reinstated tens of thousands of accounts, some of which belonged to conspirators or opponents of coronavirus vaccination, risking reigniting a disinformation phenomenon on the social network.
According to developer Travis Brown, who is quoted by various organizations, more than 27,000 restored accounts have been suspended for misinformation, harassment and hate speech.
Contacted by AFP, he said his list was incomplete and that the number of such accounts could be even higher.
“Resetting these accounts will make the platform a magnet for actors who want to spread false information,” said Jonathan Nagler, co-director of New York University’s (NYU) Center for Social Media and Politics.
“And there will be less restraint in hate speech, which will make the web less welcoming to many users,” he added.
Among the personalities who have returned to the network are “anti-vaccines” such as cardiologist Peter McCullough or Dr. Robert Malone, who was suspended a year ago for warning of the alleged dangerousness of coronavirus vaccines, no verified information to support it.
Since his account suspension was lifted, Malone, who has more than 869,000 followers, has posted several messages with false information about the covid-19 vaccine.
Among the former pariahs once again authorized on the social network there is also the former president of the United States Donald Trump, who however keeps, for the moment, his promise not to return and to only use the social network Truth Social, which he himself created last year. past.
Mike Lindell is one of the most incendiary. Suspended twice in 2021, the CEO of the My Pillow company and staunch Trump supporter demanded, as soon as his account was reinstated, that he “melt the electronic voting machines to turn them into prison bars”.
This is a direct reference to the conspiracy theory that the counting of votes in the 2020 presidential election was rigged with the help of voting machines, which has never been proven.
Also reinstated on Twitter was far-right activist Pamela Geller, presented by the anti-extremist legal organization Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of America’s most outlandish anti-Muslim activists.”
“Reinvest in moderation”
Earlier this week, the creator of The Geller Report posted a message about Muslim students who had complained that a teacher had shown them pictures of the Prophet Muhammad.
“Has he already been beheaded?” he tweeted, referring to the murder of French history and geography professor Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris, in October 2020.
“In the Musk era, ‘superspreaders’ of disinformation are encouraged and readers have less available information about the reliability of sources,” said Jack Brewster of NewsGuard’s media watcher.
In mid-December, Twitter said in a post on its platform that “a permanent suspension for violating (the social network’s) rules was a disproportionate measure.”
Musk then clarified that Twitter “remains committed to preventing dangerous content” on its site, as well as “malicious actors.” “Accounts restored must always follow our rules.”
Twitter came into question this week after an incident involving Buffalo Bills football player Damar Hamlin.
The 24-year-old defender’s cardiac arrest on the pitch on Monday led many Twitter users to link it to the coronavirus vaccine.
“Before the covid vaccines, you didn’t see athletes falling stiff on the field like they are today,” Republican House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted. “It’s time to investigate Covid vaccines.”
While Musk recently said he plans to relinquish leadership of Twitter, the platform “will take longer to fix,” said Nora Benavidez of the Free Press media watchdog organization.
It will be necessary, he warned, to take “a series of steps to reverse Musk’s changes, reinvest moderately and restructure the governance of the platform”.
© 2023 AFP
