“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended.” – Elon Musk tweeted and suspended Kathy Griffin’s Twitter account.
Comedian Kathy Griffin earned her ban on Twitter by changing her account’s name to Elon Musk and mocking the billionaire. It is not a new addition to Twitter’s policy. Since years ago the social media’s policy includes this. However, it is new for banning to take place immediately without even a warning.
Elon Musk Bans Comedian Kathy Griffin For Impersonating Him – Is This The Free Speech He Promised?
Elon Musk might have an exclusive right over this feature of banning accounts for impersonating people. There are no reports of banning other accounts for impersonating different people. Just a selective two. Might be a selective rule. You impersonate Elon Musk – you receive a ban. You impersonate someone else – no problem at all.
The other two accounts that Elon Musk banned were the impersonated Andy Ngo, who actually called Elon Musk to report that he is being impersonated, and someone named ‘Keanu Reeves’, who mocked Elon Musk for the ‘new’ policy.
“Here are the verified two accounts that I’ve seen suspended for impersonating someone other than Elon Musk: Someone impersonating right-wing provocateur Andy Ngo, who appealed to Musk personally. A guy impersonating Keanu Reeves, who did it to troll Musk’s new policy.” – Ben Collins, the NBC News Author shared a tweet noticing this.
Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, accounts with his name started appearing constantly. People are mocking the new CEO for the acquisition and writing tweets in his ‘tone of speech’, making them sound as authentic as possible.
Kathy Griffin also tried to do this, but maybe crossed the line when she ‘portrayed’ Elon Musk as someone who would vote Democrat.
“I’ve decided that voting blue for their choice is only right.” – Kathy Griffin wrote as Musk.
Elon Musk has been under massive criticism ever since he acquired Twitter. People criticize the way he runs Twitter and complain about his content moderation. At first thought, the idea of free speech sounds very good. However, when you give it a deeper thought you realize that it might create a potentially very dangerous situation. Imagine giving a platform for spreading their voice to people that have no good intentions. We can expect nothing else but hate speech and cyberbullying might , the situation might get very dangerous.
“Twitter user numbers are increasing significantly around the world since the announcement of the deal. And these are very early days. As Twitter becomes by far the most reliable source of truth, it will be indispensable.” – Elon Musk tweeted on Monday.
“Kathy Griffin was actually suspended for impersonating a comedian.” – Elon Musk posted. “But if she really wants her account back, she can have it. For $8.”
Elon Musk’s amendments to Twitter will not be only in design and in the policy. Immediately after stepping into the office of a CEO, he fired three of the top executives. Furthermore, he announced layoffs to about 75% of the total employees at the company.