November 20, 2022

"'The people have spoken,' Mr. Musk said on Twitter. 'Trump will be reinstated.' He added the Latin phrase 'Vox Populi, Vox Dei'..."

"... which roughly means that the voice of the people is the voice of God.... Mr. Trump, who did not immediately return a request for comment, had announced on Tuesday that he planned to seek the White House again in 2024. Whether Mr. Trump will agree to return to Twitter is not clear. He has started his own social network, Truth Social, in which he has a financial stake. Mr. Trump is obligated to make his posts available exclusively on Truth Social for six hours before sharing them on other sites, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He can post to any site immediately if the messages pertain to political messaging, fund-raising, or get-out-the-vote initiatives....'I like Elon, but I’m staying on Truth,' Mr. Trump said during a Fox News interview after Mr. Musk’s takeover...."

The NYT reports in "Elon Musk Reinstates Trump’s Twitter Account/Mr. Musk, who had asked Twitter users about whether to bring back the former president to the service, said, 'The people have spoken.'"

Am I the only one who thinks Musk would have brought Trump back even if the vote went the other way? 

He presented the poll without saying anything about committing to do what the majority wanted. Since the vote came out in Trump's favor, it was easy to say the people have spoken. But it's also easy to imagine how he would have finessed it if Trump fell short or even if there was a big majority against him. This is about free speech! The majority doesn't get to dominate the minority. A majority against him would be an argument in his favor. I could think of 20 ways to say Trump lost the poll but I'm letting him back in....

43 comments:

Big Mike said...

Am I the only one who thinks Musk would have brought Trump back even if the vote went the other way?

Nope

Mark said...

Didn't he just promise advertisers that he wouldn't reinstate anyone until he had a policy and people in place?

Reeks of desperation.

tim maguire said...

While I don’t pretend to know what Musk would have done, posting a poll like that creates some obligation to respect its results. Reinstating Trump after a poll that said no would have been awkward and would undermine the seriousness of any future polls.

Dave Begley said...

How could this vote be close in America? Worrisome!

My brother’s life is fully devoted to censorship. He rationalizes it as stopping hate speech and calls for violence. He wrote last week that Biden had accomplished plenty of good things in two years and Tucker Carlson has called for violence.

Living in San Francisco has ruined his mind.

PB said...

A minor majority? That what Democrats call a mandate for radical change even they win, but a call for bipartisanship when they lose.

tim in vermont said...

Trump's speech on January 6 calling for the protesters to calm down and go home, that was suppressed by Twitter's ban, and has been denied by the J6 troofers.

https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1594210628948103171

Free access to content like this is why they are so angry that they have lost control of Twitter.

tim in vermont said...

Mark is upset that users now have access to the truth of what Trump said to his supporters on J6.

tim in vermont said...

“You have to go home now. We have to have peace.” — Donald Trump, J6

gilbar said...

Tell me Again? HOW you Could call for having someone back that Advocated KILLING trump (like Kathy Griffin), and NOT allow trump back too? I mean, other than being honest

Beaneater said...

This is only tangentially on-topic, but I know Althouse enjoys language issues, so I will dare.

As someone who works in the realm of translation, I am always annoyed when I read a translation introduced by, "which roughly means..." There's a reek of, "I could translate more exactly, but you plebes don't deserve it or wouldn't understand it." Take the case at hand: if "the Latin phrase 'Vox Populi, Vox Dei'... roughly means that the voice of the people is the voice of God", what does it mean exactly? I'm no Latin scholar, but I'm pretty sure that Vox Populi, Vox Dei means exactly "The voice of the people is the voice of God" in modern American English (inasmuch as any translation can be called exact). So what is that "roughly" even doing in the sentence that Althouse quoted, other than a sort of intellectual virtue signaling?

readering said...

I voted. Guess that means I was added to Twitter's Content Moderation Council, announced late last month for this purpose.

Shouting Thomas said...

In other censorship news, Scott Adams’ Dilbert comic seems to have been cancelled or disappeared via a DNS attack. Anybody know where I can find it?

Adams has been running anti-ESQ and anti-quota themes in Dilbert for weeks. He’s also been attacking pharma for profiteering and pushing dangerous products. On his livestream, he has been criticizing vote fraud since the 2020 election. This week, he suggested a very clever campaign strategy for Trump. Adams is, I think, a back room advisor to Trump on “persuasion” strategy.

Adams hinted that he knows that Chappelle is a Trump supporter. That was what I took out of Chappelle’s SNL bit. Chappelle phrased the joke about Trump opening the door to expose the oligarchs and fraudsters cleverly to make it appear he was mocking Trump. He wasn’t. He was praising him. That’s the way I heard it.

Dave Begley said...

Beaneater.

The word “est” should be included, but it was a slogan so it makes some sense to drop a word.

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm no Latin scholar, but I'm pretty sure that Vox Populi, Vox Dei means exactly "The voice of the people is the voice of God" in modern American English (inasmuch as any translation can be called exact). So what is that "roughly" even doing in the sentence that Althouse quoted, other than a sort of intellectual virtue signaling?"

I think the "is" is what's inserted but not there literally. Literally it's "voice of the people/voice of God." What does it mean to put 2 phrases together like that? You have to make an inference that the speaker is equating the 2 things.

Ann Althouse said...

"In other censorship news, Scott Adams’ Dilbert comic seems to have been cancelled or disappeared via a DNS attack. Anybody know where I can find it?"

He's still on Twitter. If he had a problem, wouldn't he tweet about it.

As for the Dilbert website, doesn't he control that? But you're asking if it's been hacked somehow?

If you check the "wayback machine," you can see it. Here's how it looked on Friday: https://web.archive.org/web/20221118111928/https://dilbert.com/

I had trouble getting today though.

stlcdr said...

Twitter disclaimer “for entertainment purposes only”.

Prior to Elon, they (/them) wanted to make it something seriously authoritative, which it never could be.

Also, those who voted against (trump coming back) are perfectly accepting of the results? Or was it rigged?

Ann Althouse said...

"I had trouble getting today though."

It says: "The requested service is temporarily unavailable. It is either overloaded or under maintenance. Please try later."

Maybe today's cartoon is incredibly popular

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Somebody (tagging Elon Musk) tweeted

“This man is a genius.
The Trump poll was a bot trap.”

Musk responded: 😉

wendybar said...

SEE what happens when you can actually SEE the truth, and not the Propaganda Nasty Nancy and her goons are spewing....

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!
2:38 PM · Jan 6, 2021

Read the rest. Very enlightening to see the truth at long last. Thank you Elon!!!



https://redstate.com/terichristoph/2022/11/19/donald-trumps-january-6-tweets-resurface-in-a-big-way-smack-libs-in-the-face-n661558

Ficta said...

What Lem said. It may have been other things as well, but I'm pretty sure that poll had a technical purpose. It was also brilliant marketing.

Roger Sweeny said...

"I could think of 20 ways to say Trump lost the poll but I'm letting him back in...."

Proof that you were a law professor.

Temujin said...

Lem nailed it at 8:06.

There is no good reason to ban Trump. If you want to ban misinformation, start by banning The White House. Nowhere on earth is there more daily misinformation doled out than from that single building.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

He’s just holding a vote to prove that progressives can no longer silence independents and conservatives on Twitter. It shows the popular vote is not in fact owned by the minority who call themselves Democrats.

Lea S. said...

I agree he probably would've reinstated him anyways. The poll not only tested for bots, but got an avalanche of engagement--15 million users voted! Not to mention how many people were checking on the results throughout the day, writing about it, etc.

It was well played. VERY well played.

Brian said...

Lem said:

Somebody (tagging Elon Musk) tweeted

“This man is a genius.
The Trump poll was a bot trap.”

Musk responded: 😉

There also seemed to be some sort of "follow" issue. Users that tried to follow Trump were consistently being "unfollowed". I expect there might have been some shadow banning built into the code that was causing problems as well.

https://twitter.com/bitbitcrypto/status/1594152780478189570

Brian said...

What Lem said. It may have been other things as well, but I'm pretty sure that poll had a technical purpose. It was also brilliant marketing.

Yep. And now there is additional marketing and DAU increase as everyone wonders if and when Trump tweets.

I'm reminded of the scene in Private Parts

DINKY DAU 45 said...

'I dont really care, Do you" Melania!

Gusty Winds said...

Trump has 85.9 million followers in the first 15 hours of his account being restored, and he hasn't even tweeted anything. That's 21% of total twitter users.

It's a sign of Trump's new irrelevancy.

Yancey Ward said...

I agree with Althouse- I think Musk would have reinstated him regardless of the poll result. Of course I am also disappointed that the margin was so close- that by itself is disturbing.

Sofa King said...

I'm pretty sure Althouse is wrong on the facts here. Musk posted "vox populi vox dei" right after he started the poll, not after it was over.

Rusty said...

I'm gonna bet that twitter stock opens up tomorrow.

Drago said...

DINKY DAU 45: "'I dont really care, Do you" Melania!"

Like Melania we dont really care about your daily leftist lies and hoaxes.

I hope that helps.

Sofa King said...

Rusty considering it's a private company I will take the other side of that bet

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm pretty sure Althouse is wrong on the facts here. Musk posted "vox populi vox dei" right after he started the poll, not after it was over."

Why didn't you look it up? You're wrong. I'm right.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1594131768298315777

Drago said...

Lem Former Twitter Aficionado: "Somebody (tagging Elon Musk) tweeted

“This man is a genius.
The Trump poll was a bot trap.”

Musk responded: ��"

Strange. I have been assured by Dumb Lefty Mark that Musk has no idea what he is doing and is incapable of running a successful company.

But then it seems like only yesterday our Dumb Lefties swore up and down that Net Neutrality (remember that Full Blown Lefty Crisis?) would kill millions!

Millions!

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Daily Mail is reporting that Trump told Elon; "Thanks, but no thanks". I guess he's decided to stick with Truth Social.

tim in vermont said...

So Trump was banned six minutes after posting his call for people to respect the Capitol Police and go home, but J6 wasn’t a false flag.

The reasoning behind his ban is laughable. It’s not what he actually said, but how some people were interpreting it; the flimsiest of pretexts.

Read it for yourself.

https://mobile.twitter.com/thevivafrei/status/1594172065321750529

Chance said...

2022 sign of the times.

We collectively doubt the results of irl political elections…

BUT

don’t wonder about Elon’s poll results generated by a company/app he owns.

Rabel said...

Sofa, it's probably best to just let it go.

Ann Althouse said...

Meade tells me I'm wrong, that he "saw it well before the voting ended."

In which case, I'll say either:

1. It was first posted when the pattern was clear and he could assume the outcome. The percentages were stable over time, I'd noticed.

OR

2. Just because it's the voice of God doesn't mean he's bound. He has free will and he defies "God" in the form of a bunch of people saying "no."

Ficta said...

He tweeted Vox Populi Vox Dei 6 minutes after the poll started and then again when it was done:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593769469741932544?t=ZTne6LTypjehcputUyMKNw&s=19

Rusty said...

Sofa King said...
"Rusty considering it's a private company I will take the other side of that bet"
Delisted
So, no bets.

Sean said...

I am glad that someone suggested a good reason for the poll (bot trap). I thought it was dumb since these decisions are made by company policy and not user votes. At best I figured Musk realized he is on a platform geared to ridiculous stunts, and came up with this one to get attention.

In the end it is all about manipulating people regardless of intent.