Having pronounced that preserving freedom of
speech was his mission in acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk has now suspended or expelled several journalists who cover him and his businesses, as well as a competitive platform, from Twitter.
The
accounts of Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Donie O'Sullivan of CNN, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The
Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America and independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann and Tony Webster were suspended on Thursday
evening.
The Twitter account of Mastodon, a platform with a growing user base driven by defectors from Twitter, was also suspended.
Musk, who initially said he would not suspend
or ban Twitter users who engage in tracking private jets, including his own (see November 6 tweet above), said the suspensions were implemented because the account owners broke Twitter’s new
rules against such tracking by supposedly having posted links to jet trackers on other websites.
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Musk, who now defines jet tracking as “doxxing” that endangers jet owners and their
families by revealing their locations, tweeted that the rules against doxxing apply to journalists as much as to other users.
“Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my
real-time location and endangering my family is not," he added.
Most of the suspensions will apparently last for seven days — or at least that is what Musk tweeted.
However,
both Rupar and Binder have posted that their Twitter accounts have been permanently suspended, without having been given further information.
“This is the very stuff that he’s
criticized the previous Twitter owners of doing," Binder observed.
After the suspensions, Musk posted a poll asking whether he should reinstate the journalists’ accounts —
only to delete it and post an amended poll after the original poll’s results showed a majority supporting reinstatement.
"The gall of @elonmusk to ban respectable journalists doing
important work from his platform while parading as some sort of champion of free speech is, quite frankly, detestable,” Rep. Yvette Clark (D-NY) fumed in a tweet. “I’d ask if he
feels any shame, but meaningful self-reflection may simply be beyond his capacity."