Twitter, which has been a steady source of news for a large part of the world for about a decade, is now finding itself at the centre of news since billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company in October 2022. According to latest reports, the social media giant has been banning accounts of technology journalists who have been critical of Musk’s stance on free speech on the platform.
Neither the company nor Musk gave any explanation for why it took down the accounts and made their profiles and past tweets disappear.
The sudden suspension of news reporters followed Musk’s decision Wednesday to permanently ban an account that automatically tracked the flights of his private jet using publicly available data.
In his announcement of the new policy, Musk said, “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info. Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.”
Twitter also on Wednesday changed its rules to prohibit the sharing of another person’s current location without their consent.
Several of the reporters suspended Thursday night had been writing about that new policy and Musk’s rationale for imposing it, which involved his allegations about a stalking incident that affected his family on Tuesday night in Los Angeles.
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Drew Harwell, a Washington Post journalist whose account was also banned by Twitter, said in a tweet, “Free speech is when the world’s second-richest man threatens legal action against a 20-year-old college student for sharing publicly available data he doesn’t like,” in reference to the college-going Jack Sweeney who had been running the account @ElonJet that provided regular updates on where Musk’s private was travelling.
Other notable journalists whose Twitter accounts were banned include Donie O’Sullivan of CNN and Ryan Mac of the New York Times.
