Twitter has been accused of suspending the accounts of a number of journalists because of their criticisms of Elon Musk.
According to The Telegraph:
Accounts belonging to CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, the Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, Ryan Mac from the New York Times, independent reporter Aaron Rupar and at least five others, were all locked after their owners had written critically about Mr Musk.
It was not immediately clear why the correspondents had been banned, however, it came after the tech billionaire removed the account @ElonJet, which used public air-travel data to map the flights of his private plane.
Mr Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist”, said the account – run by a university student in Florida – risked his personal safety.
A day before his suspension, Mr Rupar, formerly an associate editor at Vox Media until he went freelance in 2021, criticised Mr Musk’s decision. Mr Rupar, who now covers right-wing politicians including Donald Trump, also then published a piece on his Substack page entitled: “Elon Musk’s reactionary populism”.
“Musk, one of the richest people on earth, frames himself as a brave voice of the people fighting against entrenched elites,” it read. “It’s easy to call him an out-of-touch hypocrite, but the populist cosplay of the very rich isn’t just a deception. It’s the implementation of an ugly, more or less explicitly fascist, ideology.”
Mr Rupar, who had nearly 800,000 followers, said he had “no idea” what had prompted the suspension, but received a message when he tried to log in on Thursday evening.
In a reply to users discussing the ban, Mr Musk wrote: “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.
“Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” he tweeted, referring to the term for the online publication of private or identifying information. He suggested without providing evidence that the reporters had posted “basically assassination co-ordinates” in “direct violation of Twitter terms of service.”
He then posted a poll asking users whether the ban should be immediately lifted, last until tomorrow, “7 days from now”, or “longer”.
Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, said on Thursday night: “Without commenting on any specific accounts, I can confirm that we will suspend any accounts that violate our privacy policies and put other users at risk.”
The 51-year-old businessman, who acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October, had vowed to turn the platform into a bastion of free speech.
It came after a week of controversial content moderation decisions by Mr Musk. Internally, he has begun removing critics of his policies from the company.
Twitter also suspended the official account of Mastodon, one of the most popular destinations for people seeking a Twitter-like alternative, and barred users from linking to their Mastodon profiles.
