Ex-Twitter employees horrified by Musk reinstating Trump account: ‘Incredibly upsetting’ A former advertising sales manager who worked at Twitter until last week tells Fortune that the tweet may come back to bite Musk, and cause the site’s biggest advertisers to suspend—or continue suspending—their marketing on the platform. He and his team were earlier bombarded with questions about what Musk’s policy was on Trump’s return, with concerns from advertisers assuaged only when Twitter sales staff could point to Musk’s Oct. 28 declaration that no decisions would be made without oversight of an independent council.
“I saw the question asked, especially early after the acquisition,” he says. “But Elon’s promise of not making decisions like that until he had convened a content moderation council before reinstating any banned users seemed to help. Of course, now we know how that turned out.”
Melissa Ingle, a former senior data scientist working as a contractor for Twitter focused specifically on civic integrity until earlier this month, tells Fortune that the reinstatement of Trump undoes the platform’s hard work. “Elon Musk’s decision to let Trump back on the platform is incredibly upsetting,” she says. “We all worked very hard to keep the platform safe for people to use.”
Ingle is concerned that the former president will act as a lightning rod, attracting others who seek to spread disinformation and sow division. “Donald Trump attracted and amplified the most extreme content and conspiracy theories,” she says. “He was banned because he instigated an insurrection and tried to interfere with the free and fair elections of our country. His return is an example of the growing toxicity and abuse on the platform since Musk’s acquisition and will have serious consequences for our democracy.”
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a former president of the usa, it's unsafe
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