Connect with us

Business

Elon Musk Reinstates Donald Trump’s Twitter Account

Published

on

Former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account has been reinstated on the platform.

Fidel Info reports that The account, which Twitter banned following January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, was restored after Twitter CEO and new owner Elon Musk posted a poll on Twitter on Friday night asking the platform’s users if Trump should be reinstated.

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted Saturday night. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Latin for “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”

The final poll results on Saturday night showed 51.8% in favor and 48.2% opposed. The poll included 15 million votes.

The much-anticipated decision from the new owner sets the stage for the former president’s return to the social media platform where he was previously its most influential, if controversial user, with almost 90 million followers and tweets that often moved the markets, set the news cycle and drove the agenda in Washington.

Trump has previously said he would remain on his platform, Truth Social, instead of rejoining Twitter, but a change in his approach could hold major political implications. The former president announced this month that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, aiming to become only the second commander-in-chief ever elected to two non-consecutive terms.

Asked on Saturday what he thought of Musk purchasing Twitter and his future on the platform, Trump praised Musk but questioned whether the site would survive its current crises.

“They have a lot of problems,” Trump said in Las Vegas at the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting. “You see what’s going on. It may make it, it may not make it.”

Still, Trump said he liked Musk and “liked that he bought (Twitter.)”

“He’s a character and I tend to like characters,” the former president said of Musk. “But he’s smart.”

Throughout Trump’s White House tenure, Twitter was central to his presidency, a fact that also benefited the company in the form of countless hours of user engagement. Twitter often took a light-touch approach to moderating his account, arguing at times that as a public official, the then-president must be given wide latitude to speak.

But as Trump neared the end of his term – and increasingly tweeted misinformation alleging election fraud – the balance shifted. The company began applying warning labels to his tweets in an attempt to correct his misleading claims ahead of the 2020 presidential election. And following the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, the platform banned him indefinitely.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said at the time. “In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action.”

The decision followed two tweets by Trump that, according to Twitter, violated the company’s policy against the glorification of violence. The tweets, Twitter said at the time, “must be read in the context of broader events in the country and how the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks.”

The first tweet – a statement about Trump’s supporters, who he called “75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me” – suggested that “he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election,” Twitter had said.

The second, which indicated he did not plan to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration, could be viewed as a further statement that the election was not legitimate and could be interpreted as Trump saying that the inauguration would be a “safe” target for violence because he would not be attending, according to Twitter.

Soon after Trump’s Twitter ban, he was also restricted from Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, which could also restore his accounts as soon as January 2023.

On November 18, Musk tweeted that he had reinstated several controversial accounts on the platform, but that a “Trump decision has not yet been made.”

“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” he said at the time. “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from the rest of the Internet.”

Musk had previously said he disagreed with Twitter’s permanent ban policy, and could also return other accounts that had been removed from the platform for repeated rules violations.

“I do think it was not correct to ban Donald  Trump; I think that was a mistake,” Musk said at a conference in May, pledging to reverse the ban were he to become the company’s owner.

Jack Dorsey, who was the CEO of Twitter when the company banned Trump but has since left, responded to Musk’s comments saying he agreed that there should not be permanent bans. Banning the former president, he said, was a “business decision” and it “shouldn’t have been.”

NAACP President Derrick Johnson called on advertisers still funding Twitter to immediately stop all ad buys.

“In Elon Musk’s Twittersphere, you can incite an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which led to the deaths of multiple people, and still be allowed to spew hate speech and violent conspiracies on his platform,” Johnson said in a statement. “If Elon Musk continues to run Twitter like this, using garbage polls that do not represent the American people and the needs of our democracy, God help us all.”

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Business

ASSBIFI Orders Banks To Resume Work

Published

on

The Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurers, and Financial Institutions has declared that banks must start operating as of Monday, February 20, 2023.

Fidel Info reports that the association made this disclosure while delaying the start of its planned strike action on Monday.

As you may remember, the shortage of the naira had led to a number of instances of protests and the destruction of bank facilities all around the nation.

On Sunday, Olusoji Oluwole, the association’s president, announced it.

He did, however, issue a warning that anytime their lives are in danger, members should immediately close their gates and doors to consumers.

He said: “Following the recent unwarranted attacks on members of ASSBIFI, other bank workers, and the destruction of several branches across various states, we were forced to issue a stay-at-home order to our members to safeguard their lives, and properties of their various organisations.”

“Based on the outcome of our discussion, we hereby release the following statements: while our members will resume at their functional branches immediately, the safety and security of their lives remain paramount to us and we continue to demand that visible and adequate security is provided in all operational areas. particularly places that are traditionally known to be volatile.”

“In the event of any threat of attack by the public without visible protection, they have been advised to shut down and move to safe locations until such a time that their safety can be guaranteed,” he said.

He did, however, caution members to evaluate the level of security in their settings before starting operations.

Oluwole stated that the association is worried about the inflammatory and threatening remarks made when banks initially refused to take old N1000 and N500 notes due to instructions from the banking regulator, the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Continue Reading

Business

FG Announces A Delay In Port Harcourt Refinery Operations

Published

on

The Port Harcourt Refinery, whose activities were originally planned to begin in December 2022, will now begin before the end of the first quarter of 2023, according to the Federal Government.

Fidel Info reports that On Monday in Abuja, during the Federal Ministry of Information’s series on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd. ), regime scorecard, Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, revealed this.

Giving reasons for the delay, Kyari said, “The promise was to start the fuel plant, which is the 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) component of this activity by the last quarter of 2022, but it is not practical. So, we will start it off in the first quarter of 2023, otherwise, every other process is ongoing.”

Giving further details on the state of the refinery, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said, “The rehabilitation of the 60,000 barrels per day is being completed and it is going to be started in the first quarter.”

Speaking on the FG’s planned stop to the importation of petroleum products into the country in 2023, Sylva noted that the Dangote refinery, which has a 650,000 barrels per day capacity, and modular refineries across the country, were contributors to the plan.

He said some modular refineries such as the Waltersmith modular refinery, where the NNPC has a 30 per cent stake, and the Duport modular refinery, where NNPC also has a 30 per cent stake, would also start operations in 2023, promising a significant reduction to the importation of petroleum products.

Sylva also noted that fuel subsidy was not sustainable, adding that petroleum product prices should be market driven in Nigeria like in other countries where products sell higher than Nigeria’s current official PMS price at N180 per litre.

The Minister had, in November 2022, announced that the Port Harcourt Refinery, which has been undergoing refurbishment at the cost of $1.5 billion, and which is projected to be delivering 60,000 barrels per day of refined crude, would commence operations by the end of December 2022.

Continue Reading

Business

Here’s Why Canada Banned Nigerians From Buying Real Estate Properties

Published

on

Following an increase in real estate market values, the Canadian government has made it illegal for foreigners to purchase property in the nation.

Fidel Info reports that the law was passed by the North American nation after the Covid-19 pandemic began, but it became effective on Sunday, January 1, 2023.

Canada made this decision, which will only be in effect for two years, because some MPs thought that buyers were to blame for driving up the supply of properties for investment purposes and driving up prices.

The appeal of Canadian homes, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party last year, is drawing profiteers, powerful corporations, and international investors.

Ottawa also clarified in late December that the ban will only apply to city residences and not to recreational properties like summer cottages.

During the 2021 election campaign, when home ownership was out of reach for many Canadians due to skyrocketing prices, Trudeau offered this short-term, two-year policy.

According to the campaign site, “This is leading to a real problem of underused and vacant housing, rampant speculation, and skyrocketing prices. Homes are for people, not investors.” 

Following their 2021 election victory, the Liberals quietly introduced the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act.

Major markets such as Vancouver and Toronto have also introduced taxes on non-residents and empty homes, as per Associated Press report.

However, in the law, an exception has been made for the immigrants and permanent residents of Canada who are not citizens, as per reports from the country.

Continue Reading

Trending