- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
- Gilded canopy restored at Vatican basilica
- Zverev scrapes through, Djokovic cruises to Shanghai Masters last 16
- Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Putin: Bob Woodward book
- Gauff answers critics: 'It's hard to win all the time'
- Neural networks, machine learning? Nobel-winning AI science explained
- China says raised 'serious concerns' with US over trade curbs
- Boeing delivers 27 MAX jets in September despite strike
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free in 2025 after cleared of other sex crimes
- Italy seek Nations League consistency as Germany continue rebuild
- From boom to budgeting as reality bites for Saudi football
- Stock markets diverge as Hong Kong sinks, oil prices fall
- US trade gap narrowest in five months as imports slip
- Stay and 'you are going to die': Florida braces for next hurricane
- England 96-1 after Salman's century lifts Pakistan to 556
- Hollywood star Idris Elba champions African cinema in Ghana
- Djokovic rolls Cobolli to make Shanghai Masters last 16
- Milan's Hernandez receives two-game suspension after referee rant
- Geoffrey Hinton, soft-spoken godfather of AI
- Ex-Barcelona and Spain great Iniesta retires aged 40
- Duo wins Physics Nobel for 'foundational' AI breakthroughs
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free in 2025 after cleared of separate sex crimes
- China slaps provisional tariffs on EU brandy imports
- Ex-skipper Skelton eyes Wallabies November return
- Spanish great Iniesta leaves indelible legacy after retirement
- Indian Kashmir elects first regional government in a decade
- Hong Kong stocks crash, oil prices retreat on fading China boost
- Man City accuse Premier League of 'misleading' claims after legal case
Second coming of once-banned conspiracy theorists after Twitter amnesty
A conspiracy theorist urging Americans to burn voting machines, an anti-Muslim activist posting a photo with a gun, a retired general who called for a coup -- Elon Musk's Twitter has reinstated thousands of once-banned accounts.
Twitter has turned into what campaigners call a cesspool of misinformation, hate-filled conspiracies and racial slurs amid what appears to be reduced content moderation in recent weeks following mass layoffs and an exodus of key staff focused on user safety.
Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist who completed his $44 billion buyout of the influential platform in October, has further stoked alarm by restoring what one expert estimates are over 27,000 accounts once suspended for fuelling falsehoods, harassment and violence.
"Restoring these accounts will make the platform a magnet for actors who want to spread misinformation," Jonathan Nagler, co-director of the New York University's Center for Social Media and Politics, told AFP.
"And there will likely be less moderation of hate speech, making the platform less hospitable to many users."
Those reinstated include far-right activists, anti-Muslim extremists as well as others peddling election conspiracies and Covid-19 misinformation, according to an analysis by the non-profit Media Matters of dozens of restored accounts with millions of combined followers.
Among those allowed back is former US President Donald Trump, who was handed a "permanent" ban by Twitter after his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump has so far resisted the offer to return and remained on Truth Social, a platform he founded where his following pales in comparison to his Twitter account with 87.7 million followers.
- 'Misinformation superspreaders' -
Many other reinstated influencers have actively returned to the platform, including flamboyant anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller and Mindy Robinson, a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy movement whose first tweet after being restored included a picture of herself with a gun.
Also reinstated was controversial former kickboxer Andrew Tate, who is notorious for his misogynistic remarks. After a heated Twitter exchange with environmentalist Greta Thunberg, Tate was recently arrested in Romania for alleged human trafficking and rape.
After thanking Musk for restoring his account, election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell called on his followers to "melt down the electronic voting machines and turn them into prison bars."
Former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who once appeared to endorse the idea for a Myanmar-style coup in the United States, also thanked Musk on Friday -- the second anniversary of the January 6 insurrection -- after his account was restored.
"Under Musk, misinformation superspreaders are emboldened, and readers have less information about the reliability of the sources feeding them news and information," Jack Brewster, from the media watchdog NewsGuard, told AFP.
Musk's interventions, he added, "have the effect of catering to the extreme -- on both sides of the aisle -- and obscuring readers' path to high-quality information."
Twitter has not publicly said how many accounts have been reinstated.
Several advocacy groups, including Media Matters and Accountable Tech, pointed to data gathered by Travis Brown, a software developer based in Berlin.
Brown has compiled an online list of more than 27,000 reinstated Twitter IDs since Musk's takeover in late October. Brown told AFP that the list was incomplete and the actual number of restored accounts could be higher.
- 'Dangerous decisions' -
In a tweet in mid-December, the company said that "permanent suspension was a disproportionate action for breaking Twitter rules."
"We recently started reinstating accounts that were suspended for violations of these policies and plan to expand to more accounts weekly over the next 30 days."
Apparently seeking to allay the concerns of advertisers and users on the platform, it added that Twitter remained "fully committed to preventing harmful content and bad actors."
But in a test of that commitment, the platform recently saw an explosion of anti-vaccine conspiracies after NFL player Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during a match.
Tweets mentioning "died suddenly" –- a phrase that references an anti-vaccine film –- spiked on the platform, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
Some of those peddling the conspiratorial phrase were once-banned accounts that have been restored, CCDH told AFP.
Musk has sought to shake up the money-losing company after his acquisition.
The South African-born billionaire has said his interventions at Twitter have saved the company and announced that he would step down as chief executive once he finds "someone foolish enough to take the job".
"Fixing Twitter requires more than just replacing Musk," Nora Benavidez, from the nonpartisan group Free Press, told AFP.
"It requires a series of measures to reverse dangerous policy decisions Musk has made, reinvest in content moderation and enforcement, and restructure the governance of the platform."
P.Silva--AMWN