More than a dozen writers who had published negative articles on Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk have been abruptly suspended.
The suspensions were abruptly announced late on Thursday as Musk accused media outlets of putting his family in risk by “doxxing,” or revealing nonpublic information about his whereabouts.
Journalists from the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Intercept, and Voice of America are among those who have been suspended.
Doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not okay, but criticizing me all day long is totally fine, Musk wrote on Twitter. He also added that “journalists’ as well as everyone else” are subject to the same doxxing laws.
Musk then charged that journalists had broken the platform’s rules by publishing “essentially assassination locations.”
Flight tracking information gathered by the Federal Aviation Administration is openly available online and frequently disseminated by commercial websites like FlightAware and Flightradar24.
Several of the suspended journalists, including Drew Harwell of the Washington Post and CNN’s Donnie O’Sullivan, had written on Twitter’s suspension of the flight-tracking accounts and Musk’s jet, even if the precise reasons for each suspension were unclear.
Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, told NPR that the service will ban “any accounts that breach privacy standards and put other users at risk,” but she would not go into specifics about any particular choice.
Concern over the suspension was voiced by the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and supporters of press freedom.
Harwell’s suspension “undermines Elon Musk’s claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform committed to free speech,” according to Sally Buzbee, editor-in-chief of the Washington Post.
According to Jameel Jaffer, director of the press freedom advocacy group Knight First Amendment Institute, Musk has demonstrated that he is unqualified to lead the powerful social media platform.
Now that Musk has made it plain that they are present at his pleasure and that he would evict them if they break his arbitrary lines, is it reasonable for reporters to be here? Jaffer tweeted something.
Musk, a self-described ardent supporter of free speech, has vowed to promote a range of viewpoints on Twitter and address what he perceives to be the platform’s liberal slant under the platform’s previous management.
Musk has reduced Twitter’s personnel, changed its moderation procedures, and reinstated previously banned accounts, including that of former US President Donald Trump, after acquiring the platform in a $44 billion transaction last month.
