Time.news – Donald Trump is back on Twitter. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” announces Elon Musk. Even if Trump doesn’t want to, but who knows how long he will be able to resist the temptation. Vox Twitter, Vox Dei: returns to the platform, as announced by Musk and does so 680 days after the last post, written before his account was suspended and then permanently blocked.
@realDonaldTrump is back online, visible to all, with zero account followersie, before the second life began, 1.3 million followers, the remaining diehards of the more than seventy million who had followed him until January 8, 2021.
It was enough for Musk to announce the reopening of the account, for those 1.3 million loyalists to grow by another million within half an hour. All this is happening in a frenetic way, after the survey that Musk had launched among users, to whom he had asked on Friday if Trump should have returned.
The people have spoken.
Trump will be reinstated.
Voice of the people, voice of God. https://t.co/jmkhFuyfkv
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
The social consultation, which lasted twenty-four hours and closed today, was viewed, according to Musk, by more than 130 million users and voted by more than 15 million. Of these, 51.9% said yes. “The people have spoken,” Musk said. “Former President Trump Gets Readmitted.” “Vox Populi, Vox Dei”, he concluded.
What it could mean in practice is not clear: will it return? Will he stay away from it, as his follower count continues to soar? In fact, as the minutes go by, they have already risen to 2.7 million. When you consider that this story involves the biggest ‘troller’ of social media, Musk, and the biggest ‘troller’ of politics, Trump, anything is possible.
In the hours preceding the readmission, the tycoon had reiterated that he would not return. He had thanked Musk for the initiative, but had also given him a low blow: “I have no intention of returning – he declared, speaking on video at an event of Republican Jews – Twitter is full of problems, it has a lot of fake accounts and bots”.
Then on his private platform, Truth, he reiterated the concept: “You can vote, but we won’t go anywhere. Truth is special”. Perhaps the tycoon did not like Musk’s endorsement of Ron DeSantis. So, long live Truth, even if with a big question mark: the Trumpian platform does not hold a candle to the comparison.
His posts arrive in the newsrooms an hour late, while in the golden age of Twitter he would have made the newsrooms stop after a few seconds. With the official presidential bid 2024 returning to the platform followed by all the leaders of the world and by the financial, economic and political elite, it is a very powerful call, too powerful, almost necessary.
“Welcome @realDonaldTrump,” tweeted the Republican profile of the House Judiciary Committee, the one that twice impeached the former president.
“2023 – added the representative of Texas, Troy Nehls – will be a great year. And 2024 will be even better”. Paul Gosar of Arizona wrote, “He’s back.” “I’m disgusted,” Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley commented. Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, the organization in defense of African Americans, has asked advertisers to leave the social network: “In Musk’s Twittersphere you can incite an insurrection on Capitol Hill that has led to numerous deaths and still have the possibility to propagate hate messages and conspiracy theorists. Any advertiser funding Twitter should immediately suspend advertising campaigns.”
Trump knows that if he types on his cell phone he can reopen his account again. He may have already done that. The old account is there again, just a click away, open, with a photo of her frowning face and in the background a picture of a Pennsylvania rally of Maga supporters, Make America Great Again.
It is as if Trump were in the situation of pulling back the curtain of the papal window and observing St. Peter’s Square filling up. Will it finally appear? A single message would unleash supporters and blow up the net. After all, this is what Musk is looking for: global attention and interactions, but his is also a choice that represents a crossroads.
If Trump returns to tweeting, dozens of large companies will leave the social network, because they do not want to merge their brand with a platform that seems increasingly out of control. The policy of censoring hate messages would be undermined.
If Trump is at the crossroads, Twitter is close to the abyss: since Musk bought the platform on October 27, thousands of people have abandoned their profiles, advertisers have left, the service has gone into confusion. Thousands of employees were fired, another thousand left of their own accord, all the apparatus that managed the security of the data of millions of users has been dismantledtechnical problems begin to emerge, and others could start as early as the next few hours with the start of the World Cup, the most important event on the planet that will multiply interactions.
With the staff reduced to the bone, the risk that everything goes haywire is real, as is the risk that ‘verified’ accounts with the blue check with Donald Trump written may arise: just pay eight dollars a month in subscription to get the check that divides the official accounts of celebrities from the peons of the network.
Just leaving Twitter HQ code review pic.twitter.com/pYcXRTJm14
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
The same system that in recent days has led to the creation of a fake profile of George W. Bush who confessed how much he missed killing Iraqis, and a fake Tony Blair, but with a blue check, who commented: “Me too”.
The @realDonaldTrump is currently unique and still growing. Now the followers are more than three million. Trump is back, the World Cup begins, and the server could crash. Musk is convinced that this will be the turning point, but he does not say in what sense.