Austin Stack and Jamie Bryson are among those who are hopeful new Twitter boss Elon Musk will wipe out anonymous trolls

The billionaire has repeatedly expressed his support for “absolute free speech” and a belief that as long as something is legal, it should be allowed to be shared on Twitter and stay there. He has also said he wants to prevent Twitter from becoming a platform for hate and division and has made it one of his goals is to "defeat" Twitter spam accounts.

In a message aimed at Twitter’s advertisers that “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences” and that the site would follow “the laws of the land” and that it “must be warm and welcoming to all”.

In the past Musk has spoken in favour of expanding the verified status of accounts which makes it clear to Twitter users that this is the actual person or official representative for the account.

Austin Stack, whose prison guard father was murdered by the IRA, said he would welcome a move to verified accounts.

He said: “Only recently I was the subject of defamation by an anonymous account which was then deleted. I have also been the subject of ongoing abuse and trolling by these unverified

accounts. I am all for free speech but free speech must be accompanied by a right to know who is actually speaking."

Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson is also keen for anonymous accounts to end.

He said: “I think all users of Twitter should have to provide formal identification in order to use the platform. There are mountains of accounts set up, and many of them run often by a small amount of people, for the purpose of trolling- often with a clear political motive.

“It’s time to put an end to these cowardly anonymous trolls, and orchestrated campaigns- including sometimes being orchestrated by particular political parties who actively seek to recruit ‘online activists’, which is a fancy way of described orchestrated trolls”

“I would hope all political parties, particularly Sinn Fein, will call for all social media users to be subject to verification.”