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Elon Musk says he wants to restore journalist accounts that have been blocked by Twitter. “People have spoken,” he tweeted after an online poll saw 59% vote in favor of the bills being returned. “Accounts that dox my location will now not be suspended.”
The decision comes a day after reporters from CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post, among others, were banned from social media for no reason. Must later explained that it was because the accounts had leaked information about his whereabouts. Twitter had recently banned doxen, the distribution of personal information about individuals.
Musk had decided to take this step due to a long-standing feud with the ElonJet Twitter account, which follows his plane closely. The entrepreneur took care to share his exact location because it would have endangered his safety. “Coordinates for an assassination attempt,” he called the shared data.
Freedom of word
Though Musk previously said he was in favor of radical free speech, he suspended the account this week. Shortly thereafter, he briefly came back online on the condition that flight details were shared with a delay, only to disappear again, along with accounts from journalists reporting on the crash.
Musk summed up the policy in a nutshell: “Whoever does that will be suspended.” A Twitter spokesperson pointed out that not only were journalists’ accounts suspended for sharing Musk’s travel data. “I understand that the focus is primarily on reporting by journalists, but we have applied this policy to non-journalists as well.”
‘Worrying’
Around the world, there was disapproval of Twitter suspending journalists because of the information they shared through the medium. “The news that Twitter is arbitrarily suspending journalists is disturbing,” tweeted EU Transparency and Values Commissioner Jourová. “Elon Musk must understand that there are lines that he cannot cross. And the sanctions will come soon.”
“Press freedom is not a toy,” warned a UN spokesman. Because a free press is “the cornerstone of democracy and crucial in fighting disinformation,” he also called Musk’s sanctions “particularly concerning.”
