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| Twitter is banning many journalists accounts and Musk explains why |
On Thursday, Twitter suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists who wrote about its new owner, Elon Musk, for violating rules for disclosing personal information.
In response to tweets about the account's suspension, Musk tweeted that "journalists follow the same investigative rules as everyone else," citing Twitter's rules against sharing personal information with others.
On Wednesday, Twitter @elonjet, an account that uses publicly available data to track Musk's private jet in real time, commented. Musk threatened legal action against the account manager, claiming that a "crazy stalker" had been stalking his son, believing him to be Musk.
"I totally accept being criticized all day long, but I don't accept real-time investigations or putting my family in danger," Musk added on Thursday.
The account was suspended after Musk repeatedly promised to uphold free speech on the platform, which he bought for $44 billion in late October. It reinstated the account of former President Donald Trump, who was suspended for inciting the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol.
"I hope even my harshest critics are on Twitter because that's what it's about," Musk wrote in a tweet in April.
Especially after the company laid off half of its workforce after Musk's acquisition, and hundreds more chose to leave rather than the long hours Musk imposed on them, Twitter has very few Likes employees left.
The company now relies heavily on automation to moderate content, removes some manual reviews, and tends to prevent objectionable content from being distributed without blocking it outright, Ella Irwin, the company's new head of trust and security, told Reuters earlier this month.
The banned accounts include reporters from The New York Times and CNN, as well as journalists from tech websites and freelance journalists.
A New York Times spokesperson said: "Today's suspension of the Twitter accounts of several prominent journalists, including Ryan Mack of The New York Times, is suspicious and unfortunate."
The newspaper added, “Neither the Times nor Ryan have received any explanation for the reasons for this. We hope that all reporters’ accounts will be restored and that Twitter will provide a satisfactory explanation for this action.”
CNN said the "reckless and baseless" comments were disturbing but not surprising. The network said it has reached out to Twitter for an explanation and will reassess its relationship with the platform based on that response.