Elon Musk sparks conflicting opinions with his power over Twitter

By Klaudia Hostynska and Lorena Cristea

Elon Musk has brought a wide range of controversial opinions to Twitter, after allowing Donald Trump, Kanye West and Tiktoker Andrew Tate back on the social media platform.

Musk, who is currently the owner of the social media platform, conducted a twitter poll on November 19 where he asked his followers whether former US president Trump should be allowed to come back on.

“I think everyone should be allowed to voice their opinion, even if the opinion is a negative one,” said Konstantin Kiss, 27, a local restaurant manager in the Holloway area.

This opinion was closely followed by Gabriel Boros, 22, who works at a local Tesco. He said: “The return of them three on a dying platform does not reflect or mean anything.”

Trump, West and Tate are widely known for speaking openly on problematic and sensitive topics, which makes others particularly unhappy that they have been unbanned. Trump in particular is controversial has he has been fingered as a prime instigator of the January 6th insurrection, using social media to call followers to action.

“They are not a good example for the society and something like this should not be accepted because they do not share anything good for society’s values,” said Marian Gogolos, 21, a student.

Social media for good

Social media ideally should be used in a fair and positive way, said Victoria Thompson, 22, another student. “It is all money related, they should not be allowed that privilege because of the controversy that they all caused,” she said, showing that their posts aren’t received in a good way due to the belief that it is all about money instead of public interest.

Elon Musk has been strongly criticised for allowing the three back on the platform. “I don’t want to know about people like this,” said Martin Bachanek, 41, a Holloway-based bike shop owner.

Teagan Rowland, 18, is a student with a much stronger opinion when it comes to banning celebrities. Teagan said: “If you are going to ban someone, you might as well go through with it, there is no point banning someone and then unbanning them later on.”