Elon Musk gets Twitter’s Trump ban all wrong

Elon Musk wants to reinstate the Twitter account of former president Donald Trump, the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO said at a Financial Times event on May 10. Musk, who is in the process of buying the popular social media website, said he disagrees with the decision to ban Trump from Twitter for inciting the violent takeover of the US Capitol last Jan. 6, a riot in which 150 law enforcement officers were injured and at least two killed, alongside several rioters.

Musk called the ban a “morally bad decision,” a “mistake,” and “foolish in the extreme.” He added it “alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”

But banning Trump was an apparent success for Twitter, at least for its stated aims. As a private company, Twitter is free to create rules for its users and enforce them—even if those users are world leaders. Before Jan. 6, Twitter repeatedly flagged Trump’s false tweets with warning labels and, in rare cases, removed them outright.

Twitter, citing content-neutral rules, finally banned Trump for inciting violence and praising the actions of insurrections. Despite Musk’s objection that banning Trump was a partisan act aimed at silencing the politician, there is evidence it succeeded in dramatically minimizing misinformation.