As Twitter’s CEO, Elon Musk must keep Donald Trump’s ban from Twitter in place for good to protect Twitter and our democracy.

In a letter sent today, CREW urged Musk to maintain Twitter’s permanent ban on Donald Trump and recommended additional steps to protect Twitter from being used to undermine democracy, including adding representatives from the good government and democracy protection space to his proposed content moderation council.

Trump’s ban from Twitter followed the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, after many posts that helped incite the attack, which violated Twitter’s guidelines. CREW urged Musk to preserve these guidelines and keep in mind growing concerns about Twitter’s commitment to community safety. Since his ban, Trump has continued to spread the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent and has vilified and targeted government actors on his own social media platform, Truth Social. By keeping him banned from Twitter, Musk would help ensure that Twitter is protected from the violence, extremism and misinformation Trump spread on Twitter before his ban, and that he is spreading on his own platform now.

With Donald Trump poised to announce his candidacy for president imminently, addressing concerns about Trump being able to return to the platform is of even more importance. Musk must lead by example and commit to keeping Twitter from providing a platform to spread misinformation and incite political violence. Permanently keeping Trump off of the platform is the first step.

Read the letter here.

Header photo by Dan Taylor under a Creative Commons license

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