Twitter's new CEO Elon Musk on Sunday asked people through a Twitter poll if they thought the US government should pardon WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Edward Snowden. The poll received 1,108,637 votes in close to three hours of posting. Over 79 percent users voted yes to pardoning the two whistleblowers.
After disclosing private and sensitive information about alleged wrongdoings and surveillance by the US military and intelligence, Assange and Snowden have both been living in exile. Snowden was given Russian citizenship by Vladimir Putin in September and apparently acquired a Russian passport yesterday, while Assange is still seeking to prevent his extradition from London to the US.
Earlier this week, Musk launched a poll on the microblogging site to get public opinion on
"general amnesty" to suspend accounts, days after reinstating former US president Donald Trump's handle.
"Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?" he asked in the Twitter poll.