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Twitter has suspended the accounts of several prominent reporters who cover Elon Musk, including Ryan Mac of\u00a0The New York Times,\u00a0CNN\u2019s\u00a0Donie O\u2019Sullivan,\u00a0The Washington Post\u2019s Drew Harwell,\u00a0The Intercept\u2019s Micha Lee,\u00a0Mashable\u2019s\u00a0Matt Binder, Aaron Rupar, and Tony Webster.<\/p>\n
This evening, Musk logged into a Twitter Space to try to explain why, and\u00a0ran a poll\u00a0asking when the journalists should be unbanned \u2014 in both instances, things didn\u2019t exactly go his way.<\/p>\n
The reporters who have been banned all seem to have recently tweeted about Musk\u2019s\u00a0attempts to crack down on the sharing of the whereabouts\u00a0of his private jet. Apparently, though, accounts that can\u2019t post can still join a Twitter Spaces live audio chat. In a Space that included Harwell, Binder, and the ElonJet account, Musk eventually tried to explain himself.<\/p>\n
In that conversation, Musk accused the journalists of \u201cban evasion.\u201d Once the ElonJet account had been banned from Twitter, its owner set up accounts on Facebook and Mastodon. By posting links to those accounts, he argued, the journalists were trying to get around his ban.<\/p>\n
The Washington Post\u2019s\u00a0Harwell asked Musk how Musk\u2019s decision to ban accounts sharing the other ElonJet sites \u2014\u00a0as well as journalists reporting on the incident \u2014 was different from Twitter\u2019s earlier treatment of a\u00a0New York Post\u00a0story about a laptop containing Hunter Biden\u2019s personal information. In 2020, Twitter made a moderation decision to block links to\u00a0The New York Post\u00a0story.<\/p>\n
Details on\u00a0that moderation decision were released on Twitter earlier this month\u00a0\u2014 with Musk\u2019s support. (In April,\u00a0he tweeted that\u00a0suspending\u00a0The New York Post\u2019s\u00a0account because of the story \u201cwas obviously incredibly inappropriate.) Musk even teased the release of the information by saying,\u00a0\u201cThis will be awesome\u201d and tweeting popcorn emoji. In the course of the release, Twitter co-founder\u00a0Jack Dorsey\u2019s email address was revealed.<\/p>\n
Musk replied to Harwell by saying, \u201cYou dox, you get suspended. End of story, that\u2019s it.\u201d He then left the space.<\/p>\n
In an email to\u00a0The Verge,\u00a0Twitter\u2019s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, pointed\u00a0to a policy update\u00a0the company made yesterday prohibiting the sharing of \u201clive location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout commenting on any specific accounts, I can confirm that we will suspend any accounts that violate our privacy policies and put other users at risk,\u201d Irwin said in the email. \u201cWe don\u2019t make exceptions to this policy for journalists or any other accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a tweet\u00a0earlier in the evening, Musk said of the bans: \u201cThey posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service\u201d\u00a0he said. The ElonJet account in the links he objected to automatically shares publicly available information on the flight path for Elon Musk\u2019s private jet. (It does not list the passenger manifest.)<\/p>\n
Accounts like ElonJet \u2014and the similarly suspended CelebJet and RUOligarchJets \u2014 are frequently used by climate activists to highlight the egregious effect private jets have on the environment.\u00a0Musk, Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and Taylor Swift have all come under fire this year\u00a0for using jets when alternative means of transportation could be used with less deleterious effects on the environment.<\/p>\n
Musk has long had issues with the location of his private jet being shared in real time. At one point, he went\u00a0so far as to offer\u00a0thousands of dollars to the manager of the @ElonJet account to take it offline. On Wednesday, he\u00a0implied in a tweet\u00a0that the account had been used by a \u201ccrazy stalker\u201d to find and climb on the hood of a car carrying one of his children. (It is unclear how the location of the jet led to a car.) He then\u00a0tweeted a video\u00a0of the alleged stalker and his license plate with the caption: \u201cAnyone recognize this person or car?\u201d<\/p>\n
That same day, Twitter\u00a0suspended the @ElonJet account, the account belonging to its owner Jack Sweeney, and\u00a0other accounts he managed\u00a0that were tracking the locations of private jets using publically accessible data. Today, the enforcement was ratcheted up to include journalists tweeting about the situation.<\/p>\n
Source: The Verge<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Featured Video\n<\/p>\n\n
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