‘SNL’ has Trump plead his case to restore banned Twitter account
By Frank Pallotta, CNN Business
It’s been a crazy few weeks for Twitter, and “SNL” made the most of the chaos.
Elon Musk completed his $44 billion deal to buy the company last week, which led to massive layoffs and questions about whether the world’s richest man would restore some banned accounts.
“Saturday Night Live” imagined what that process would look like on Saturday night’s episode.
“On October 27, Elon Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter. On October 28, Musk publicly announced a Content Moderation Council to review previously banned accounts, then promptly fired thousands of Twitter employees. So things are going great,” a narrator read on the NBC variety show. “We now go live to the first Content Moderation Council meeting.”
The meeting was led by Kenan Thompson and Chloe Fineman as Twitter employees listening to the cases of users who had been banned.
“Good morning, everyone. Today, we will decide if suspended accounts will be let back on Twitter,” Thompson’s character said.
Fineman responded, “And who better to do it than us? The only two Twitter employees who haven’t been laid off.”
First up: A woman played by Cecily Strong who was very upset about the Covid pandemic.
“The Covid PLANdemic was created by Big Pharma to silence me. Everybody tries to silence me,” she said. “Ma’am, please speak at a lower volume. I’m sorry, am I too loud for your precious intensive care unit? You aren’t even sick!”
Later in the meeting, this show’s host, Amy Schumer, playing a bot account, came to the podium.
“Hi. Oh my god, your profile is so funny. I love funny guys,” Schumer, dressed in a red dress, said as the bot. “They said I was a bot, which is crazy. I’m all woman and I love funny guys like you. In fact, you should check out this website where me and some other girls hang out.”
The address of the website? “www.sexpalace.bitcoinscam.iraq.”
Thompson said that Schumer sounded too good to be true.
“Oh my god, you’re so funny,” Schumer’s bot said. “I bet you have an awesome social security number.”
But the most notable person to speak in front of the council: former president Donald Trump, played by James Austin Johnson. Trump had his account banned in 2021.
Fineman asked why Trump would come back when he has his own social network.
“Yes, we’ve all moved to Truth Social, and we love Truth Social. It’s very great,” Johnson’s Trump said. “And in many ways, also terrible. It’s very bad. Very, very bad. It’s a little buggy in terms of making the phone screen crack, and the automatically draining of the Venmo.”
Johnson’s Trump then said to let him back on Twitter because he wouldn’t do anything bad this time.
“Except maybe … coup,” he said.
Fineman and Thompson’s Twitter employees agreed saying “might as well roll the dice, right?” before both were also fired via a Musk tweet.
“Yay! We’re finally free!” Fineman said.
The-CNN-Wire
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