Musk's New Twitter Poll on Snowden, Assange

Twitter's new owner Elon Musk on Sunday polled users on whether whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange should be pardoned by the US government.

"I am not expressing an opinion but did promise to conduct this poll. Should Assange and Snowden be pardoned?," Musk's tweet read.

Both Assange and Snowden have been living in exile after leaking confidential and sensitive information exposing alleged wrongdoings and surveillance by US military and intelligence, reports NDTV.

While Assange is currently attempting to block his extradition from London to the US, Snowden was granted Russian citizenship in September by Vladimir Putin and reportedly received a Russian passport.

The poll received over 5,60,000 votes within an hour of posting, with most users voting in the affirmative. Over 79.8 per cent of users voted yes to pardoning the two whistleblowers.

Since taking over the micro-blogging site, self-proclaimed "free-speech absolutist" Musk has been frequently conducting similar user polls.

From feedback on revised Twitter rules to reinstating previously blocked accounts, Musk has been using these polls for major decisions about the social media website.

"Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?," he had tweeted, while considering reinstating banned accounts of former US president Donald Trump and controversial rapper Kanye West.

After responses from over 3.1 million users, Musk declared that "amnesty" would begin in a week.

"The people have spoken. Vox Populi, Vox Dei," he said using a Latin adage meaning "The voice of the people is the voice of God."

Source: Agencies