FOURTH UPDATE, Saturday, 3:35 PM PT: Journalists’ account may have been reinstated, but that doesn’t mean they are functional.
CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan appeared on the network Saturday and noted that he did not post a direct link to @ElonJet at all and has declined to remove a tweet in dispute. “There is an option to appeal, so that is what I am doing. We’ll see what’s happening,” O’Sullivan said. He said Drew Harwell of The Washington Post also is appealing.
“We’ll see what happens. It is all getting a bit absurd,” O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan’s tweet, posted on Thursday, read, “Earlier today, the Mastodon account tweeted a link to the ElonJet account on its platform. Linking to ElonJet accounts on other platforms is against Twitter’s new rules that were put in place yesterday.” The tweet then had a link to “another Twitter account which had been banned, which had posted a link to ElonJet.”
THIRD UPDATE, Saturday, 6:23 AM PT: Elon Musk has reinstated some of the journalists Twitter suspended on Thursday.
“The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now,” Musk wrote on Twitter. Some of the reporters, including Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, have pointed out that they were not “doxxing” Musk but reporting on an ongoing dispute between the Twitter owner and the author of @ElonJet, which shared information about the movements of Musk’s private jet based in publicly available FAA data.
Others, though, were not reporting on that story or linking to an @ElonJet account that had been set up at Mastodon, a Twitter rival. Linette Lopez a columnist at Business Insider who has been critical of Musk’s business. On MSNBC on Friday, Lopez said that she believes she was suspended because she has reported on a lawsuit in which Musk was accused of “doxxing” someone and “Elon didn’t want people to see him as a hypocrite.”
In announcing the reinstatement, Musk cited the results of an online poll he took asking whether to reinstate the accounts “now” or “in 7 days.”
Among the accounts restored were those of Harwell, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The New York Times’ Ryan Mac. Voice of America’s Steve Herman and journalist Aaron Rupar. The accounts of Keith Olbermann and Lopez.
On MSNBC, Lopez said, “Elon has always been this way. He was always doxxing people. He was always silencing his critics.”
SECOND UPDATE, Friday, 6:50 AM PT: An official at the EU has weighed in on Elon Musk’s move to suspend journalists who have covered him and Twitter.
Vera Jourova, vice president of values and transparency at the EU, warned of sanctions.
She wrote on Twitter, “News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying. EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct. @elonmusk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”
Melissa Fleming, who leads global communications for the United Nations, wrote, “Deeply disturbed by reports of journalists being arbitrarily suspended from Twitter. Media freedom is not a toy. A free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful disinformation.”
Musk contends that an account that shared personal tracking data of his private jet posed a threat to himself and his family. Some of the journalists suspended had covered Musk’s move to suspend the account @ElonJet and that of the author, who used publicly available flight data.
Meanwhile, names of other journalists who have been suspended along with those from outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN. Steve Herman, chief national correspondent for Voice of America, the U.S. government funded news outlet, also had his account suspended. He has been known for his straightforward news updates and had posted the group Accountable Tech’s critical reaction to Musk’s decision.
FIRST UPDATE, Thursday, 9:30 PM PT: Elon Musk weighed in on Twitter’s suspension of journalists who reported on his dispute with a user who covered his private jet travel, claiming that the reporters posted “my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates.”
“You doxx, you get suspended, end of story,” Musk said in a Twitter Spaces conversation with journalists on Thursday.
But one of the journalists who was suspended, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, told Musk, “You are suggesting that we’re sharing your address, which is not true.” He said that they posted a link to @ElonJet, the account that had used publicly available data to report on movement of Musk’s private aircraft. He noted that the @ElonJet account is now banned on Twitter.
“We have to acknowledge you are using the same exact link-blocking technique that you have criticized as part of the Hunter Biden-New York Post story in 2020,” Harwell said.
“You doxx, you get suspended,” Musk said, before then leaving the conversation.
Musk recently instituted a policy restricting accounts that post real-time tracking data, amid his upset with the @ElonJet account. Musk had early suggested that he would allow the account to remain on the platform, as he touted himself as a free-speech absolutist.
Journalist Aaron Rupar, who got a note that his account was permanently suspended, wrote in a Substack post that he had “no idea what rules I purportedly broke.” He said that he published a newsletter on Wednesday featuring an article about Musk’s “reactionary populism” and also tweeted that Musk himself “seemed to violate Twitter’s policy against posting footage of someone without their consent.”
Twitter’s action drew a chorus of criticism, not just CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, which employ some of the suspended journalists, but from lawmakers.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) wrote directly to Musk on Twitter, “You’re a public figure. An extremely controversial and powerful one. I get feeling unsafe, but descending into abuse of power + erratically banning journalists only increases the intensity around you. Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism. Maybe try putting down your phone.”
Musk tweeted out a poll asking users when he should unsuspend the accounts. When the respond “Now” was the top choice, Musk then wrote, “Sorry too many options. Will redo poll.”
PREVIOUSLY, 6:15 PM: Twitter on Thursday abruptly suspended the accounts of several journalists including from the Washington Post, CNN and the New York Times as well as media pundit Keith Olbermann. All have covered Elon Musk in the past.
The news began percolating this evening as the Twitter accounts of the journalists got the “Account Suspended” treatment on their feeds.
Among those whose access to the social media site has been blocked are the Washington Post‘s Drew Harwell, the New York Times‘ Ryan Mac, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The Intercept’s Micha Lee, Mashable’s Matt Binder and independent journalists Tony Webster and Aaron Rupar. Olbermann’s account was also suspended, with his last tweet captured by other Twitter users showing him working to support Rupar and other reporters.
The Twitter account of rival social media platform Mastodon was also suspended tonight.
According to the Washington Post, where Harwell is a technology reporter, the accounts began going offline around 7:30 p.m. ET. The Post said most of the journalists impacted had recently covered Musk’s dispute with a Twitter user who tracked Musk’s private jet travel.
@ElonJet, run by Florida college student Jack Sweeney, used publicly available flight tracking to inform followers of the location of Musk’s Gulfstream jet. Sweeney said @ElonJet was suspended by Twitter on Wednesday and his own account followed today.
The above info was reported among others by the now-suspended O’Sullivan, a CNN correspondent covering the intersection of politics and technology.
“The impulsive and unjustified suspension of a number of reporters, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, is concerning but not surprising,” a CNN spokesperson said tonight. “Twitter’s increasing 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.”
Added the New York Times‘ external communications director Charlie Stadtlander: “Tonight’s suspension of the Twitter accounts of a number of prominent journalists, including The New York Times’s Ryan Mac, is questionable and unfortunate. Neither The Times nor Ryan have received any explanation about why this occurred. We hope that all of the journalists’ accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action.”
Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of The Washington Post, said, “The suspension of Drew Harwell’s Twitter account directly undermines Elon Musk’s claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech. Harwell was banished from Twitter without warning, process or explanation, following the publication of his accurate reporting about Musk. Our journalist should be reinstated immediately.”
Rupar confirmed the suspension tonight on his Substack page, which included a screenshot from Twitter saying his account had been permanently suspended. “I have no idea what rules I purportedly broke,” he wrote. “I haven’t heard anything from Twitter at all.”
In a response to a tweet critical of the suspensions, Musk wrote, “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.”
The trending topic “Thursday Night Massacre” emerged as the suspensions came to light. Musk has not commented on the move on his own Twitter account.
At a D.C. event of FCC commissioners and telecom professionals, Commissioner Brendan Carr, who has been outspoken about free speech on platforms, said that he was not familiar with the circumstances of the suspensions, but told Deadline, “One person should not get to decide who participates in the digital town square.”
Carr was critical of Twitter’s past decisions to sanction Donald Trump and other voices on the right, but he tweeted just on Wednesday, “There is no single person that should have carte blanche to determine the ideas that can be discussed in the digital town square. That is why Congress should pass pro-speech reforms that prohibit discrimination by Big Tech based on political, religious, or scientific viewpoints.”
Erik Pedersen contributed to this report.