Elon Musk, the champion of freedom of expression, the same one who criticizes the expulsion from Twitter of a president who incited violence and the coup d'état, that same battering ram of supposed pluralism has decided to suspend the accounts on Thursday night of relevant, high-profile journalists who have been covering the information of the company and its owner.
In some messages it was pointed out that the accounts were “permanently banned”. His attitude rather imitates authoritarian and despot rulers, Vladimir Putin style, than the supposed leader of a company in the country of democracy. Freedom of expression yes, but when it does not affect the master.
In arguing the suspension, Musk accused reporters of posting "basically murder coordinates" for him and his family. Various media analyzed the tweets of those affected and in no case did they find traces of that complaint, nor the slightest proof.
On the list of those canceled are Ryan Mac (The New York Times), Donie O'Sullivan (CNN), Drew Harwell (The Washington Post), Matt Binder (Mashable), Micah Lee (The Intercept), Steve Herman (Voice of America) and independent journalists such as Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann and Tony Webster, among others.
This measure was adopted by the social network without any type of alert or explanation. The suspensions came a day after Twitter changed its policy on sharing "live locations" and terminated at least 25 accounts that had used public flight data to track the locations of private planes, including Musk's.
Some of those suspended wrote about those accounts that tracked planes or had tweeted those accounts. Others had simply provided critical coverage of Twitter's torrent of information and its chaos since it changed ownership.
Musk argued in a tweet that the rules applied to journalists "the same as everyone" and suggested, without any evidence, that journalists had revealed information about his family, called doxxing (collecting and posting someone's personal information). .
"Criticizing me is correct, but doxxing my location in real time and endangering my family is not," he tweeted.
“It's impossible to square Twitter's free speech aspirations with the purge of critical journalists,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the America Civil Liberties Union. “The First Amendment – he stated in his statement – protects Musk's right to do this, but it is a terrible decision. Those accounts must be reinstated immediately.”
The Mastodon account, a platform described as an alternative to Twitter, was also suspended. Twitter accounts operated by NBC whistleblowers were unable to tweet any links to pages on that other platform.
"The impulsive and unwarranted suspension of a number of reporters is concerning but not surprising," CNN said in a statement. “Twitter's increasing instability and volatility must be alarming to anyone who uses the platform. We have asked Twitter for an explanation," the chain added.
The Washington Post stressed that Harwell, its journalist, whose most recent information includes the monitoring of Musk's private plane and another about the increase in conspiracy theories on Twitter, discovered in the afternoon that he could not enter his account, if no one pre-warning process. "She has been suspended after her accurate and contrasting reports on Musk," this newspaper explained. "Our journalist must be incorporated into the network immediately," requested this header.
"Tonight's suspension of prominent journalists' Twitter accounts is questionable and unfortunate," said Charlie Stadtlander, the Times spokesman. He regretted that neither the company nor his suspended informant had received any explanation of what had happened. "We are confident that all accounts will be reinstated and that Twitter will provide satisfactory justification," he demanded.
