Newly-minted Twitter CEO Elon Musk is trying something new by having followers “vote” on some major policy decisions. I can’t tell if that is genius, or crazy!
He tweeted on Sunday afternoon with a poll asking Twitter users, “Should I step down as head of Twitter?”
He added, “I will abide by the results of this poll.”
Interesting….But perhaps what is more interesting, is that out of 17,502,391 votes, 57.5% of the people want to remove Musk, while 42.5% sided with keeping him in control.
I wonder if Musk will stay true to his word and appoint another head for the platform, or if he will choose to remain in his current position.
This poll was not the first of the day. Earlier on Thursday he announced a temporary suspension on “journalists” who were doxxing his family by releasing information on their whereabouts.
He defended his decision by stating, “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.”
However, Musk lifted the suspension after he tweeted a poll late Thursday night asking people if he should “unsuspend accounts who doxxed my exact location in real-time” and the results were 58.7% votes in favor of lifting the suspension “now” while 41.3% voted to lift the suspension “in 7 days.”
Shortly after midnight on Saturday, Musk followed up to the poll with a response that read, “The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now.”
The people have spoken.
Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now. https://t.co/MFdXbEQFCe
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2022
On Sunday, Musk announced that Twitter would also temporarily suspend accounts who were promoting other social media platforms.
“We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter,” said a Twitter spokesperson in now deleted tweets. “Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.”
However, Musk later announced that he would be reversing course: “Policy will be adjusted to suspending accounts only when that account’s *primary* purpose is promotion of competitors, which essentially falls under the no spam rule.”
Musk revealed after the botched policy rollout, “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”
“The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive,” he added. “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”
“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive,” Musk concluded. “There is no successor.”
Well that is ominous!
