Twitter CEO and owner Elon Musk has reportedly begun "The Big Bang," a new initiative that will see thousands of previously banned accounts reappear on the social network.
It's reported that a total of around 62,000 banned accounts with more than 10,000 followers are being reinstated — and one of them has more than five million. While the exact names of the accounts are unknown, it's a move that isn't expected to go well.
Big Bang Theory
Twitter is in the middle of more turmoil this week following the news that Musk intends to go to war with Apple. But a recent Twitter poll asking if banned accounts should be allowed back on the platform resulted in Musk's desire to offer amnesty all-round. People inside Twitter are calling this "The Big Bang," and Platformer reports that it's a move that is likely to cause yet more unrest among Twitter workers.
The report says that Twitter employees only found out about the move via Musk's tweets. Twitter "is hemorrhaging engineering talent," employees say, with some concerned that the haphazard approach to policy-making will see yet more leave.
There are other reasons for Twitter employees to consider leaving, too. Platformer reports that Musk has told employees should expect another round of "code reviews" like the one that saw some engineers fired recently. Musk also wants team managers to be able to write software as well. It's already been suggested that Musk intends to lay off more engineering managers over the coming days.
The continued loss of engineering talent already has some people concerned about the brain drain underway at Twitter. Some teams have been decimated, leaving valuable knowledge of internal Twitter systems lacking — with the potential for system outages already a real one.
It isn't clear how Musk is choosing which accounts to reinstate, or whether he even knows — or cares — why they were originally banned in the first place. But what is clear is that once back onto the platform, their chances of being banned again seem minimal given Musk's "free speech" stance.
