Elon Musk has reinstated the Twitter accounts of several journalists who were suspended over a controversy over the publication of public data about the billionaire’s plane.
The reinstatements came after the case sparked harsh criticism from government officials, advocacy groups and news organizations around the world on Friday, with some saying the platform was endangering press freedom.
A Twitter poll that Musk later conducted also showed that a majority of respondents wanted their accounts restored immediately.
“People spoke. Accounts that ‘doxxed’* my location will now have their suspension reversed,” Musk wrote in a tweet this Saturday (17).
*English term for the act of posting private information about someone, usually with malicious intent
Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. A check by the wire service showed that the suspended accounts, which included journalists from the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post, have been reinstated.
Officials in France, Germany, Britain and the European Union have previously condemned the punishments.
The episode, which a well-known security researcher has labeled the “Thursday Night Massacre”, is being hailed by critics as new evidence that Musk, who considers himself a “free speech absolutist”, is eliminating speech and the users he personally doesn’t like.
Shares in Tesla, the Musk-led electric car maker, fell 4.7% on Friday and posted its worst weekly loss since March 2020, as investors increasingly worried about its distraction and a slowing economy. global.
Roland Lescure, the French industry minister, tweeted on Friday that following Musk’s suspension of journalists’ accounts, he would suspend his own Twitter activity.
Melissa Fleming, head of communications for the United Nations, wrote that she was “deeply disturbed” by the development and that “freedom of the press is not a toy”.
The German Foreign Ministry warned Twitter that the folder had problems with measures that threatened press freedom.
Understand the suspensions
The suspensions came about over a disagreement over a Twitter account called “ElonJet” that tracked Elon Musk’s private plane using publicly available information.
On Wednesday (14), Twitter suspended this and other users who tracked private jets, despite the social network’s owner having previously stated that he would not suspend ElonJet in the name of freedom of expression.
Shortly after, the company changed its privacy policy to prohibit sharing “live location information”.
So, on Thursday night (15), several professionals, including the New York Times, the CNN and the Washington Post, were suspended from Twitter without notice.
In an email to Reuters overnight, the social network’s head of trust and security Ella Irwin said staff had manually reviewed “each and every account” that violated the new privacy policy by posting direct links to the ElonJet account. .
“I understand that the focus seems to be primarily on journalist accounts, but we apply the policy equally to journalist and non-journalist accounts today,” Irwin explained in the email.
THE Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing noted in a statement on Friday that Twitter’s actions “violate the spirit of the First Amendment and the principle that social media platforms will allow the unfiltered distribution of information that is already in the public square.”
Musk accused the communicators of posting his real-time location, which are “basically the murder coordinates” of his family, according to him.
The billionaire briefly appeared in a Twitter Spaces audio chat hosted by journalists, which quickly devolved into a contentious discussion over whether the suspended reporters actually exposed Musk’s real-time location in violation of the policy.
“If you doxar, will be suspended. End of story,” Musk warned repeatedly in response to questions. “Dox” is an English term for the act of posting private information about someone, usually with malicious intent.
Drew Harwell of the Washington Post, one of the professionals who had been suspended but was still able to participate in the audio chat, countered the idea that he had exposed Musk or the exact location of his family by posting a link to the ElonJet .
Soon after, BuzzFeed reporter Katie Notopoulos, who hosted the Spaces chat, wrote that the audio session abruptly stopped and the recording was unavailable.
In a tweet explaining what happened, Musk said: “We are fixing a bug. It should work tomorrow.”
*contributed by Reuters’ Hyunjoo Jin
Source: CNN Brasil
A journalist with over 7 years of experience in the news industry, currently working at World Stock Market as an author for the Entertainment section and also contributing to the Economics or finance section on a part-time basis. Has a passion for Entertainment and fashion topics, and has put in a lot of research and effort to provide accurate information to readers.
