The handling of Trump's reinstatement.

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I oppose that course of action, though I think it's a subject reasonable people can disagree on.

However, I think the way it happened was pretty clearly bad and capricious:

  1. Declare that he should be reinstated.

  2. (If rumors are true) tell Trump privately that his account will be reinstated.

  3. Declare that no reinstatements will happen before a new content moderation council convenes.

  4. Spontaneously do a poll about whether the account should be reinstated, without any word on said council having convened or any evidence that opposing viewpoints have been seriously looked at and considered, nor without any clear statement that the results of the poll are binding regardless of the outcome.

  5. Express agreement that bots are spamming the poll, in response to comments making such an accusation when the poll started to get a higher percentage of No votes than it did initially.

  6. Reinstate the account, purportedly because of the poll results (which were 52% Yes vs. 48% No).

I don't think account bans and reinstatements should be subject to majority vote. If they are, I think that should be stated before knowing the outcome of the vote, and the person running things shouldn't signal without evidence that votes going a certain way are fake (indeed, if a large fraction of votes are bots, then it calls that process into question regardless of which way they're going).

Either way I think there should be care, clarity, and consistency about the process of account banning and reinstatement, and I also think, as much as possible, it's a process where former presidents shouldn't get special treatment.

That all seems to not have been the case here.

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