Twitter CEO Elon Musk reinstated former-President Trump’s Twitter account over the weekend, causing waves of condemnation and outrage from reporters and several organizations.
Vox’s Kara Swisher appeared to tie the reinstatement of Trump to the shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.
“Only one tweet today since this platform is degenerating by the cell in real time and I don’t have the energy for the screaming numpties today. See the two news stories below? They are inextricably related,” Swisher tweeted.
LIBERALS ON TWITTER FUME AFTER MUSK REINSTATES TRUMP TO PLATFORM: ‘GOD HELP US’
She also insinuated that Russians played a role in Trump’s account being reinstated when Musk held a poll on Twitter asking users if Trump should be allowed back on the platform.
“Look the guy who did the Trump troll, I mean, poll for Elon,” she wrote with a gif of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Author and business professor Scott Galloway suggested on CBS’ “Face the Nation echoed Swisher’s assertion that the poll was bogus.
“I think these polls are mostly a gimmick, and I would argue the people haven’t spoken, the GRU has spoken,” he said. GRU is a Russian military intelligence service.
Galloway added, “Twitter has become a playground for bad actors and fake bots, this poll is meaningless, this decision is meaningless.”
A guest essay for The New York Times shared fearful theories of what may happen to America is Trump begins using Twitter again.
Missouri State University professor and co-author of “The Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage,” Brian L. Ott, wrote a New York Times opinion piece headlined, “I Studied Trump’s Twitter Use for Six Years. Prepare for the Worst.”
He suggested that Musk’s decision to bring back Trump’s account would be his worst yet.
“But nothing Musk has done and undone is nearly as concerning as his decision to suddenly reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account,” he wrote.
“As someone who has been studying Mr. Trump’s Twitter use since before he was elected president, I believe that his return would mean the heightened spread of both misinformation and disinformation, the proliferation of degrading and dehumanizing discourse, the further mainstreaming of hate speech and the erosion of democratic norms and institutions,” Ott wrote. “But there is something else: Mr. Trump’s return to Twitter could escalate the likelihood of political violence.”
He continued, “For Mr. Trump, the desire for revenge has long involved symbolic violence in the form of speech that aggressively demeans and dehumanizes others. Such speech risks sparking material violence,” he warned. “For Mr. Trump, the desire for revenge has long involved symbolic violence in the form of speech that aggressively demeans and dehumanizes others. Such speech risks sparking material violence.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson reportedly called upon advertisers to halt their business with Twitter.
“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,” Johnson added.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt reacted to Trump’s reinstatement by suggesting he could become a threat to “democracy” and appeared to theorize about the end of Twitter.
“For @elonmusk to allow Donald Trump back on Twitter, ostensibly after a brief poll, shows he is not remotely serious about safeguarding the platform from hate, harassment and misinformation,” he wrote.
Greenblatt added that “@elonmusk’s decisions over the last month have been erratic and alarming, but this decision is dangerous and a threat to American democracy. We need to ask — is it time for Twitter to go?”
Musk responded by poking fun at the Anti-Defamation League’s name, “Hey stop defaming me!”
