Following its suspension of @ElonJet, Twitter abruptly suspended the accounts of several journalists from CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post and more.
Liberal journalist Aaron Rupar, Ryan Mac of the Times, Drew Harwell of the Post and CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, who have all covered Twitter owner Elon Musk, were booted off the social media platform Thursday night. The accounts for Keith Olbermann, Twitter competitor site Mastodon, and Mashable’s Matt Binder were also suspended. More followed, including The Intercept’s Micah Lee and the anarchist news site, It’s Going Down. Flight tracker @absbexchange was also gone as well as reporter Steve Herman of Voice of America.
Freelance journalist Tony Webster was also chopped, posting the confirmation on Mastodon: “My Twitter account has been suspended,” he wrote alongside a screenshot of his suspended account. In a follow-up post he wrote: “I have not received any other explanation, nor identification of the rule supposedly violated.”
Rupar also told NBC News that he had “no idea” what prompted the suspension.
However, most of the exiled reporters have written about Musk and the controversies surrounding his takeover at Twitter.
Just a day ago, CNN’s O’Sullivan interviewed the founder of @ElonJet, Jack Sweeney, a 20-year-old college student who revealed more details of Twitter’s attempts to shut down the account. The @ElonJet handle had long rankled Musk, Sweeney revealed in his interview with O’Sullivan. The account was briefly reactivated Wednesday night but was shut down again shortly after.
CNN released a terse statement after the suspension, noting, “impulsive and unjustified suspension is concerning but not surprising. Twitter’s instability and volatility should be of incredible concern for everyone who uses Twitter. We have asked Twitter for an explanation, and we will reevaluate our relationship based on that response.”
Like O’Sullivan, Times tech reporter Mac and Mashable journalist Binder had covered the turmoil over @ElonJet. For his part, Rupar recently penned an article titled, “Elon Musk’s reactionary populism.”
A spokesman for The New York Times told The Washington Post that the suspension was “questionable and unfortunate” in a statement Thursday night. “Neither The Times nor Ryan have received any explanation about why this occurred,” said Charlie Stadlander. “We hope that all of the journalists’ accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action.”
Despite the ban on his official account, Mac was back on Twitter within hours under the handle @MacSilenced—as confirmed by NBC’s Collins—and tweeting, “I was given no warning. I have no email or communication from the company about the reason for suspension. I report on Twitter, Elon Musk and his companies. And I will continue to do so.”
The account of WaPo’s Harwell was suspended after he shared details of how competitor Mastodon’s account was suspended earlier, according to a screengrab shared by reporter Ben Collins.
Olbermann, a sports and political commentator, prompted Twitter users to share the screenshot of Harwell’s last post that got him suspended, another screengrab shows.
Musk replied to a thread late Thursday night claiming: “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” circling the issue back to @ElonJet.
Musk had previously promised to uphold the jet-tracking account, vowing on Nov. 6, “My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.”
But the testy tech titan seems to have changed his mind. “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” he tweeted on Thursday night.
Echoing Musk, Twitter’s head of trust & safety Ella Irwin told Verge editor Alex Heath that the suspensions were about user safety: “Without 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.”
Meanwhile, at least one politician quickly took note of the suspensions. Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA) said in a Twitter post that her team met with Twitter Thursday and that “they told us that they’re not going to retaliate against independent journalists or researchers who publish criticisms of the platform. Less than 12 hours later, multiple technology reporters have been suspended.” She asked, “What’s the deal, @elonmusk?”
