Twitter to have a 'content moderation council': Elon Musk

Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, says that the company is creating a council to make essential moderation decisions in the company. In a Friday tweet, Musk said the "council" will have "very diverse views" and that "no major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes." Several hours later, he clarified his statement with a quote tweet, explaining, "To be super clear, we have not yet made any changes to Twitter's content moderation policies," accelerating the experience of becoming a Twitter executive media.

Part of Musk's professed rationale for buying Twitter hinged on making it a platform for "free speech," and he has said he would consider allowing controversial figures like former President Donald Trump to return to the platform. With Friday's announcement, he appears to be putting that kind of decision in the hands of a council.

The tweet does not contain details about what kind of views Musk seeks on the council, how many people will be on it, how they will be appointed, or how it differs from the content policy and moderation teams that already exist at the company.

However, Musk made it clear that he disagrees with the operation of the existing moderation systems on the platform; when he took control of the company, he fired several executives, including policy chief Vijaya Gadde, whose decisions he publicly criticized in the run-up to buying the company.

Other social media companies have tried a seemingly similar approach: Meta has its oversight board, which purports to be an independent organization that governs Facebook's platform and moderation decisions. However, critics have raised questions about how much power the board has to enforce its decisions. There is also a web of potential legislation that could dictate how tech companies can moderate their platforms, limiting the kind of moderation decisions Twitter and other platforms can make, whatever "free speech" ideals they pursue.