After a spate of policy decisions that drew flak over the past few days, Twitter's new CEO, Elon Musk, is now reportedly mulling stepping down as the Head of the social media giant.
On Sunday, Musk broke the internet after he started yet another poll on his twitter handle asking netizens if he should step down from his post. "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll," Musk asked in one of the tweets.
"Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won't happen again," he said in another tweet. Later, while the poll was on, he wrote "As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it."
Flurry of policy changes:
This poll comes after Twitter on Sunday announced a major policy shift, stating that it would suspend accounts indulging in cross-posting content i.e those being used to promote other accounts on other specific social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Mastodon.
"We recognise that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter," Twitter Support tweeted.
"Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post," it added.
"Posting links or usernames to social media platforms not listed above are also not in violation of this policy," the tweet clarified noting that policy change applies only to the pin-pointed social media platforms.
This decision sparked immediate reactions among Twitterati.
In a similar sudden policy shift, earlier, Twitter suspended accounts of prominent journalists who wrote about Elon Musk and the 'Twitter files' controversy. Declaring the ban, Musk had told listeners on an audio chat, "You doxx, you are suspended. That's it. End of Story."
The ban raised alarm, with press freedom activists accusing Musk of curtailing free speech and censoring press on the microblogging website. In fact, on Friday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres said he was "very disturbed" by the decision to suspend accounts of journalists on Twitter, and called it a "dangerous precedent."
"We are very disturbed by the arbitrary suspension of accounts of journalists that we saw on Twitter," Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said during a press briefing.
On Thursday, Elon Musk-led Twitter had suspended the accounts of several journalists from prominent news organisations including CNN, NY Times, NBC news etc. with the site showing "account suspended" notices for them. After severe public backlash, however, the accounts were restored a day later.
