Not for expected is less news: Twitter has reactivated Donald Trump’s account, the former president of the United States, thus reversing what is probably the most controversial decision made by the social network in all its years of existence. Or at least the most controversial until the arrival of Elon Musk at his address, given everything that has happened in recent weeks, and that has caused a barrage of headlines in this regard.
As you will remember, after the infamous assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Twitter decided to suspend, first temporarily and then permanently, the account of the then outgoing president. Both his initial encouragement of the insurrection against an alleged electoral fraud that was never proven, and the attack on his outgoing vice president, Mike Pence, for deciding to stay within the law and not in the coup attempt that was being producing, led those responsible not only for Twitter, but for many networks and other online services, to expel Trump from his services.
The controversy splashed that decision from the beginning, and it is logical because it opened a debate in which they faced each other. the responsibility of social networks on the one hand with their ability to make a message visible or invisible. I already described it as absolutely sinister at the time and I don’t hesitate to repeat it, but almost two years later, I reread Jack Dorsey’s reflection on it and I still totally agree with his opinion. And this is not choosing between black or white, it is soaking up the entire intermediate gray scale until finding the position that each one finds most sensible.
Twitter, at that time, defended his decision tooth and nail, confirming shortly after that Trump’s expulsion was “forever” and, although the former president tried at least twice to recover his account through the courts, both in July and October of that same year, last May the courts agreed with Twitter. After all, the social network is a private service and, therefore, you can make the decisions you want in this regard.
However, and almost coinciding on dates, Elon Musk had already started The culebron the Twitter purchase process, and one of the first issues on which he spoke was precisely about that, when he answered a question about it, stating that once he was the CEO of the company, he would allow the return of Donald Trump .
Months later, with the purchase operation already completed and in the permanent fire that the social network seems to have become, Musk has decided, after a survey he did on his profile, to restore Donald Trump’s access to his Twitter account, that it is already operational, although the former president has not yet (at the time of publication of this news) published anything in it.
We must remember that, given the impossibility of returning to Twitter, Trump decided to launch Truth Social, his own social network. So, the question is what will happen now. Will you continue using your own platform or will you prefer to return to Twitter? And if the second option is given, what will happen to Truth Social, now that its raison d’être (the Twitter block) has ceased to exist?
It is striking, although it makes sense, that this decision was adopted when the former president has already officially announced his intention to run in the Republican Party’s primary process to try to recover the presidency of the United States in the 2024 elections. There will be those who opine that it is an essential measure, given this new situation, and those who think that it will only serve to intoxicate the debate. And both parties are probably somewhat right..
