White House says reversal of Trump's Twitter ban 'private decision' for Elon Musk to make

Hours after Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted at the return of former US President Donald Trump on the social media platform Twitter, the Biden administration on Wednesday said it would not interfere in the matter and added it's is a private decision of the microblogging site. While speaking to the reporters on Tuesday, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki clarified that the microblogging site is a private firm and hence it has its own sets of rules and regulations. However, she stressed that the decision would not change the Biden administration's goals to protect free speech and combat disinformation.

"It's the decision by a private sector company to make on who will or will not be allowed on their platforms," she said. 

"What I will say, broadly speaking, is that our effort is to, of course, make sure that freedom of speech is protected across the country, but that also these platforms are not used for forums for disinformation," added Psaki. 

Notably, the 45th US President was banned from Twitter for inciting violence and spreading fake information, resulting in right-wingers storming the US Capitol alleging election fraud on January 6, 2021. During an interview with Fox News last month, Trump said that he had no intention of rejoining the microblogging site even if his account was restored. He had said he would focus on his own platform, Truth Social, despite knowing the social media application has been in controversy since its launch earlier this year.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey voiced his agreement 

However, Musk, who took control of microblogging major Twitter for a whopping $44 billion earlier last month, during a virtual conference on Tuesday, said Twitter’s ban of Trump following the Capitol riots was a morally bad decision and foolish in the extreme. “I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice," said Musk. The same has also been echoed by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. In a Tweet following SpaceX CEO's opinion over Trump's ban, he said, "generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don’t work.”

Image: AP