Elon Musk poll: Amid the topsy-turvy situation at Twitter, its new boss, billionaire Elon Musk, on Monday, asked its followers whether he should continue or should leave his position. In a poll floated on the microblogging site, Musk asked his followers, "Should I step down as head of Twitter?" and added he would abide by the results of the poll. In a subsequent tweet, he warned his followers to vote carefully in the poll, as he might implement the mandate. "As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it," he warned. As of writing this article, nearly 58 per cent of respondents voted against Musk.
The major development came nearly two days after he faced a flurry of backlash globally following his decision to suspend some of the journalists from the platform. Even the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticised the move and he was 'very disturbed' by his decision and called it a "dangerous precedent".
Chaotic takeover
It is worth mentioning ever since the SpaceX CEO took over the platform following dramatic circumstances at the San Francisco-based headquarter, he has been making major changes in Twitter policies. Within hours of his taking charge, he fired the Indian-American CEO Parag Agrawal and later kick out other top employees from the organisation. Later, he announced the paid subscription model, wherein the verified accounts have to pay for the "blue checkmark" which is often called the "blue tick".
This created a major setback for both the platform and Musk, as several companies lost billions of dollars due to impersonating their accounts. This resulted in Musk temporarily suspending his idea but later came up with a new plan wherein he categorised the verified accounts as per the genre.
Musk dismantles its Trust and Safety advisory group
Last week, he dissolved its Trust and Safety Council. The safety council at the microblogging site comprised a group of 100 independent civil, human rights organisations that had been keeping an eye on the hate, suicide, self-harm, abusive and sexual content posted on the platform. It was formed in 2016 following massive reports of abusive and harmful content on the platform.
While speaking to the news agency the Associated Press, some of its members revealed that the decision was taken hours before a scheduled meeting with Twitter representatives on Monday night. Some of the members said that they received a mail wherein the organisation informed them about the dismantling of the Council. The email said Twitter was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights” and the council is “not the best structure to do this.”
