After Elon Musk said polls will decide major new policies, @TwitterSafety posts a poll on whether accounts primarily promoting other platforms should be allowed
Should we have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms?
@twittersafety
Context & Ripple Effects
Musk had already used a poll for the Donald Trump reinstatement question despite previously describing a content moderation council as the vehicle for such decisions. @TwitterSafety's poll extends that participatory mechanism to a rule governing accounts that promote rival social platforms.
The move also lands as Musk's own leadership poll was decided by a 57.5% vote to step down, underscoring how quickly poll-based decision-making had become central to Twitter's governance.
First-order effects
Accounts used chiefly to advertise other social platforms are immediately placed under a proposed restriction, while @TwitterSafety makes users the electorate for whether that rule is adopted.
Twitter shifts a distribution and moderation-policy question from an internal policy process to a public poll, following Musk's stated approach to major policy changes.
Second-order effects
The policy-poll approach creates pressure to define who may vote: Musk subsequently endorsed restricting policy votes to Blue subscribers, which would make subscription status part of platform governance.
Other social platforms that rely on Twitter accounts for promotion face a potentially narrower route to reach Twitter users if the proposed rule wins approval.
Platform governance risks becoming more directly tied to product access and audience mobilization, rather than the moderation council process Musk had previously outlined.
The trend: Twitter is moving toward owner-directed, poll-mediated platform governance, with voter eligibility and manipulation resistance becoming core policy infrastructure.
@TwitterSafety This is literally the Twitter Safety account. Your job is to make sure Twitter is safe. Before I answer this question, can someone explain to me how a Twitter user saying they are on another platform would make Twitter less safe?
The Twitter Safety account using polls in this way just seems... oddly wrong Wouldn't be surprised if this tweet was posted by Elon Musk himself https://twitter.com/...
@brianstelter Doubtful. Twitter polls can & have been manipulated in ways that suggest they shouldn't be associated truth of any kind. https://www.rollingstone.com/ ...
This is just pathetic. And keep in mind that Elon fired so many people that it's likely him posting from all of these accounts. https://twitter.com/...
Conflicting info by the hour as changes are made on a whim, and now policy decisions decided by polls?? What could go wrong?! Just a thought, but maybe he shouldn't have fired most of the employees, the people with expertise to make informed decisions on important changes. 🤷🏼 htt…
87% of people in this poll have voted no so far. Thank you @TwitterSupport for giving journalists data points for how dumb your policy decisions are https://twitter.com/...
The most hilarious part of new Twitter is when Elon's temper tantrum decisions get walked back, the people who furiously defended them as genius start having to break their backs bending over backward to explain why Twitter not implement them was the plan all along. https://twitt…
@Techmeme @TwitterSafety This is Alice-in-Wonderland level fantasy. Twitter is Musk's. No one should presume any vote, or voice, other than his means anything.
Yet another poll asking advice on how to run Twitter, and an admission the owner has zero clue about how real people use and feel about this site, and the Internet in general. For a man that has a problem with Apple's walled garden, he sure seems happy to create his own. https://…
This one is going to be blowout. Imagine thinking people will support your efforts to limit competition. All other social media platforms allow you to post tweets. https://twitter.com/...