Suspended Twitter Profiles of Several Journalists

Although at the moment of acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk was fiercely fighting for freedom of speech and promised to turn the social network into an ‘inclusive arena of free speech’ and to reinstate the banned, it seems he may have changed his mind.

Namely, the accounts of several American journalists who follow and criticize Musk and his companies’ work have suddenly been suspended. Among those who lost their accounts on Thursday evening are journalists from The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, and several independent journalists.

Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist, told Business Insider that he still does not know why his account was suddenly suspended. A notice at the top of his account states that he is ‘permanently suspended’ and is only allowed to read others’ posts, while tweeting, commenting, or sending messages is disabled.

– This is the only information from Twitter; there is no email or information about which rule I might have violated – Rupar said.

A spokesperson for The New York Times called Twitter’s move questionable, while CNN described it as impulsive, unjustified, and concerning. Donie O’Sullivan from CNN, whose account was among those suspended, emphasizes that this way journalists are intimidated, BBC reports.

The Question of Freedom of Speech or Security?

A Twitter spokesperson highlighted to The Verge that the bans are related to sharing location data. More specifically, the flood of bans is a continuation from the day before when Twitter suspended the account of 20-year-old student Jack Sweeney, who created a tool that automatically posts updates about the location of Musk’s private jet. The company soon after changed its rules to prohibit the posting of a person’s current location.

Musk suggested in his post that the suspensions of journalists are indeed related to this.

At the same time, Rupar told Business Insider that he had not ‘tweeted’ or even ‘retweeted’ anything related to this nor did he plan to post anything that could infringe on anyone’s rights. However, he emphasizes that he had critically ‘tweeted’ about Musk the night before his account was suspended. NBC News journalist Ben Collins compiled a list of at least eight accounts that were suspended on Thursday evening, and almost all the journalists on it had reported on Twitter, covered Musk, or written critically about the billionaire in the days leading up to their suspension.

Additionally, Twitter also suspended the official account of Mastodon, which has emerged as an alternative to Twitter.

All of this might not be so interesting if Musk had not regularly shared frustrations regarding censorship and content moderation on social platforms before the dramatic acquisition of Twitter and promised to create an environment where one can say what they want.

On the other hand, a recent study by the London-based non-profit organization Center for Countering Digital Hate showed that hate speech, specifically the number of racial, homophobic, and anti-Semitic insults, has increased on Twitter after the acquisition. So now the question remains whether these bans are related to the critical posts of journalists or if Musk truly cares about safety, but also whether he should perhaps be concerned about other issues – such as hate speech?