“Chief Twit” Elon Musk announced on Friday that he was restoring three controversial accounts that had been suspended for violating Twitter’s posting rules, but noted that he had not come to a conclusion on what to do about former President Donald Trump’s ban from the platform.
Musk tweeted that conservative commentator Jordan Peterson, Christian parody site Babylon Bee, and liberal comedian Kathy Griffin’s accounts had all been reinstated as of Friday afternoon.
Peterson was suspended for violating the company’s “hateful conduct” policy for promoting violence against actor Elliot Page, over the Academy Award winner’s transition from female to male in both real life and in the third season of Netflix series “The Umbrella Academy.”
“Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician,” Peterson tweeted on June.
The conservative YouTuber was only suspended by the platform, but refused to comply with the terms of reinstatement, which involved deleting the post.
“I’ve essentially been banned from Twitter. I say ‘banned’ but technically I’ve been suspended,” he said in a video on the channel. “But the suspension will not be lifted until I delete the ‘hateful’ tweet in question, and I would rather die than do that.”
Peterson thanked Musk for his reinstatement immediately. “Really. Thank you sir,” he wrote.
“Probably best to reinstate Trump too. Let him do what he needs to do, and let the people decide. Right out in the open. Where such things should be decided.”
Peterson used his release from Twitter jail to blast Reuters in the first hours of the restoration of his account, for using the term “youths assigned female” to describe young women in an article about the gender imbalance of transgender minors seeking medical care.
“Reuters should be utterly ashamed of what it has become–enabling this criminal medical and psychological enterprise with its Orwellian language,” he tweeted.
He also released a viral five second video that has more than a million views, where he scowled at the camera in a three-piece suit and sneered: “Up yours woke moralists, we’ll see who cancels who.”
Conservative satire site Babylon Bee was also pardoned by Musk on Friday. Their Twitter account was banned in the spring over similar circumstances to Peterson’s, when they posted an article that named Biden’s transgender Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine, “Man of the Year.”
Minutes prior to Musk’s announcement, Babylon Bee somehow realized their account was once again working and tweeted: “We’re back. Let that sink in.”
CEO Seth Dillon told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that Musk is under “pressure” from advertisers, but has “has hope” for the sake of the nation that Twitter will be able to restore free, legal speech.
“The left’s insane ideology needs to be propped up by silencing people on the other side, especially people who mock them, who expose their foolishness,” he said on Friday.
“I think Musk saw that as being problematic. It’s part of the reason why he decided to step in and take some action.”
Left wing comedian Kathy Griffin, who was suspended for altering her Twitter page to make it appear as Musk’s, was allowed back after on Friday, after violating the social media site’s terms of service.
While impersonating the Tesla CEO, Griffin wrote: “I must admit, when the Republicans come fore our birth control, I’m going to have more kids than even I can handle! So for my daughters and girlfriends… #VoteBlueToProtectWomen,” two days before the midterm elections.
After suspending the D-List star on Nov. 6, Musk tweeted that “Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended.”
Griffin jumped back on the platform the same day, posting from her deceased mother’s account. “I’m back from the grave to say … #FreeKathy,: she posted.
In a follow-up the stand-up comic wrote: “Apologize in advance for all the comments you’re gonna have to read about how ugly I am, and they’re probably gonna throw you in there, too. Oh, by the way this is KG. I’m tweeting from my dead mother’s account. She would not mind.”
In the same post reinstating the banned accounts, Musk wrote that a “Trump decision has not yet been made,” but tweeted a 24-hour poll asking Twitter users if he should reinstate the former president.
He added the Latin phrase “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” which translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” The survey has millions of responses.
In a follow up he added that the new Twitter policy “is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” which applies to individual tweets, not entire accounts.
“Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter,” he explained.
“You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”