Elon Musk, Twitter’s CEO, has declared a “universal pardon” for previously suspended users. The new zillionaire proprietor has reinstated entry for thousands of previously barred users. His overly carefree attitude has enticed some of Twitter’s most despicable users to rejoin the platform.
How many previously canceled or restricted Twitter accounts have been reinstated? Programmer Travis Brown of Germany has been keeping an open Github list of the Twitter handles and user identities of suspended users. Since October 27th, approximately to 12,000 accounts on Brown’s list have been reactivated. Every day since November 8th, hundreds of dormant accounts have been reactivated. Around 2,50 accounts were reinstated on November 21st.
Tip of the iceberg
And it’s possible that these reports are only the beginning. Somewhere about 62,000 users with far more than 15,000 followers are reportedly being reinstated by Musk, as revealed by Platformer.
Several of the most blatant spamming accounts, profiles that exchange infringing content, and pornographic content providers are among the previously suspended accounts, as well as some that promoted vaccination disinformation (a sort of falsehood that Musk no longer has much time for). To be explicit, a significant fraction of the banned accounts had just been banned and were about to have their bans lifted. Some previously banned accounts have been unbanned as well. As part of Musk’s disastrous plan to increase Twitter subscribers, the platform re-verified Richard Spencer as well as Jason Kessler.
On Friday, NBC broke the news on Brown’s initiative and a database that revealed multiple far-right profiles that had been reinstated. A few of the profiles were also connected to the radical QAnon conspiracy. In spite of having founded the prominent white supremacist organization Identity Europa and popularizing the infamous phrase “you will not supplant us,” Patrick Casey is returning to Twitter.
The List Includes
Twitter has also handed a second opportunity to Andrew Anglin, who has been on the loose since 2019 after being ordered to pay $14 million for his role in a scheme of doxxing and bullying of Jewish Montana homeowners. On Friday, Anglin was reinstated to the site after being banned in 2013; he has since removed all of his previous contributions.
Meanwhile, some accounts belonging to the alt-right have been revived, while others belonging to left-wing activists who were apparently targeted by right-wing operations have been removed. The Insider revealed on Tuesday that the profiles of people like anti-fascist scholar Chad Loder had already been deleted. Loder referenced a conversation between Musk and right-wing leader Andy Ngo on his Mastodon page. Musk encouraged Ngo to publicly push other users to report accounts that Ngo believed to be “Antifa.”
