Elon Musk says Twitter will create content moderation council

New York, Oct 29: A day after closing the Twitter deal, Billionaire Elon Musk announced he would form a "content moderation council" at Twitter to assess future policy on posting and on reinstating banned accounts.

"Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints," he tweeted. "No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes."

On Thursday, Musk tweeted "the bird is freed", a jokey reference to the firm's logo, shortly after he said he made the purchase "to help humanity, whom I love".

Musk wrote a message to reassure advertisers that social messaging services wouldn't devolve into "a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!" "The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence," Musk said in the message.

Musk, a self-styled ''free speech absolutist'', has been critical of Twitter's management and its moderation policies, as reported by news agency PTI.

''At least one of the executives who was fired was escorted out of Twitter's office," a report in the New York Times reported.

The deal's closing removes a cloud of uncertainty that has hung over Twitter's business, employees and shareholders for much of the year, the CNN commented.

After initially agreeing to buy the company in April, Musk spent months attempting to get out of the deal, first citing concerns about the number of bots on the platform and later allegations raised by a company whistleblower.