Musk says he’ll begin reinstating banned Twitter accounts this week

Newly-minted CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, announced on Thanksgiving day via Tweet that he will begin reinstating previously banned Twitter accounts next week after polling users on whether to do so earlier in the week.

On Wednesday, Musk posted yet another poll on his Twitter account, asking his followers to weigh in on whether the platform under his leadership should reinstitute access to Twitter for users who had been banned for various reasons, pending they had not broken the law or engaged in “egregious spam.”

When the poll closed 24 hours later, 72 percent of respondents had voted to reinstate the banned accounts.

Announcing the poll results on Thursday while many Americans were celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday, Musk Tweeted, “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”

The Latin phrase, which translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of God,” has been a favorite of Musk’s since he took over the platform. He has Tweeted the saying repeatedly as he has publicly made decisions about how to run the site.

Last week, Musk asked users whether he should bring back former president Donald Trump after being booted from Twitter following the January 6 Capitol attack last year.

Users voted in much greater numbers on that poll, with over 15,085,458 compared to this week’s 3,162,112 votes. Users narrowly voted to reinstate Trump, but less than 24 hours later Trump rebuffed the invitation, saying in a statement he believes Twitter has “a lot of problems going on.”