Elon Musk said on Wednesday that Twitter will not allow anyone who has been kicked off the site to return until it puts procedures in place on how to do so, a process that will take at least a few weeks. This means that people banned from the site for violating Twitter's rules on harassment or violence or elections and misinformation related to COVID will not be able to return before next Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections.

This pledge came after Musk, who took control of the social media site last week after buying it for $44 billion, tweeted that he met with a few civil society leaders "about how Twitter will continue to fight hate," harassment, and enforce election integrity policies. Jessica Gonzalez, a lawyer and co-executive director of the Free Press group who attended the meeting, said those present asked Musk not to reinstate banned users before the midterm. Also, attendees—including leaders from the NAACP, Anti-Defamation League, and Color of Change—requested that Twitter have a transparent process about how it plans to restore accounts. Musk publicly stated that he would allow former President Donald Trump to return to the site, although Trump—who routinely promotes his own platform Truth Social—has given no indication whether he will return.

Additionally, Gonzalez said attendees also asked Twitter to enforce existing election integrity measures and encouraged him to listen to a variety of people—especially racial minorities and those targeted by hate and harassment campaigns, adding: "He agreed to all these things in our meeting, but actions speak louder than words. I have held many meetings with tech CEOs. I have been let down by many empty promises. And with Elon Musk in particular, he has shown inconsistency, saying one thing one day and something else the next. So we intend to hold him fully accountable for these promises and more."

For his part, Musk said last week that he would not make major decisions about content or restore banned accounts before setting up a "content oversight board" with diverse viewpoints. He reiterated this point on Wednesday, adding that the board he will form will include "community and civil rights groups that face violence fueled by hate."

No group representing the LGBTQ community was present during Tuesday's meeting, and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Musk intends to meet with any. In this regard, the Tesla billionaire executive has previously said he supports transgender people but criticized the use of different pronouns. In a tweet this summer referring to Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, who was banned from his account after a post about transgender actor Elliot Page that seemed to violate Twitter rules, Musk said the platform "goes too far in crushing dissenting opinions." Also, a spokesperson for the advocacy organization GLAAD said the group remains in contact with Twitter and expects to continue providing feedback and research on LGBTQ safety on the site, as with every other leading platform. Twitter and other social media platforms have long been filled with misinformation about voting and elections, as well as the COVID-19 vaccine. The platform maintains its own misinformation labels for the midterm 2022 and tries to debunk tweets containing misinformation with links to reliable information.