Now that Senator Palpatine Has Deleted His Tweet to “Execute Order 66,” We, Twitter, Will Restore His Tweeting Privileges

“President Donald Trump has removed the three tweets from his profile that prompted a temporary lock of his account on Wednesday… The move clears the way for Trump to regain control of his tweeting privileges as early as Thursday.” – CNN, 1/7/21

 

We, the leadership of Twitter, Inc., were saddened to learn that Senator Palpatine violated our terms of service yesterday by using our platform to circulate Order 66, causing the deaths of thousands of Jedi and throwing the entire Galactic Republic into chaos. During this dark moment in our Republic’s history, we felt it was essential to act assertively in response by locking Sen. Palpatine’s account. Now, though, we’re happy to report that the Senator has removed the offending tweet to “Execute Order 66,” as well as his most egregious examples of misinformation against the Jedi Order on our platform, clearing the way for him to regain tweeting privileges later today.

 

To those citizens of the Republic who may be concerned by Sen. Palpatine’s future use of the Twitter platform, after this momentary freeze has elapsed, rest assured that we will continue to monitor the situation and take additional action if necessary. Though we’re first and foremost committed to free speech and our own bottom line, we will continue to flag Senator Palpatine’s tweets as “misinformation” should he continue claiming that all Jedi are traitors to the Republic and therefore must be executed on the spot. You can also be sure that Orders 67, 68, and up will be met by our teams with a similarly forceful response, and, in the unlikely event that Sen. Palpatine begins issuing orders to have entire planets destroyed, we may even consider a permanent ban. Though it’s undeniable that Sith leaders have used Twitter for years to plan today’s attack and generally push our galaxy toward authoritarianism and civil unrest, we believe that these strong measures will ultimately help protect our Republic and save the lives of the few Jedi that are currently hiding in remote star systems across the galaxy.

 

In all, we believe that our words and actions today have sent a strong, unequivocal message to our users, especially Senator Palpatine himself. He’s learned that his egregious actions yesterday crossed a line—a line that even we didn’t know existed, but that public pressure has finally forced us to draw. And so, if the Senator would like to continue using our platform to further his designs as preeminent Sith lord, to subvert our galaxy’s democratic institutions and establish himself as Galactic Emperor, we strongly urge him to resume doing so in more subtle ways.

 

Timidly yours,

The Twitter team