Elon Musk has suspended several personal accounts belonging
to journalists on Twitter, for allegedly sharing information regarding the whereabouts
of his private jet. The Twitter chief executive first suspended the @ElonJet
account belonging to Jack Sweeney and other accounts managed by him that were using
publicly accessible data to track locations of private jets. Musk later
expanded the suspensions to accounts owned by journalists who began sharing
tweets of the situation.
Musk even started a poll where he asked Twitter users when he should unsuspend the accounts. He later joined a Spaces chat with some of the journalists involved in the situation, as well as the @ElonJet account, where he informed them about the reasons that led him to his decision.
Here is Elon’s full appearance in @katienotopoulos’ spaces with banned journalists tonight pic.twitter.com/1xPFtrVjf6
— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) December 16, 2022
The journalists who have their accounts suspended on Twitter include Ryan Mac of The New York Times Donie O’Sullivan from CNN, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, The Intercept’s Micah Lee, and Mashable’s Matt Binder, Aaron Rupar, and Tony Webster.
In the Spaces chat, Musk accused the journalists of their
attempts to get around the bans by posting links to the @ElonJet account whose
owner had created accounts on Facebook and Mastodon after being banned on
Twitter. The Twitter chief executive upon being queried by Drew Harwell on
his decision, replied with “You dox, you get suspended. End of story.”
Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022
Soon after, Twitter released a policy update, highlighting the
prohibition of sharing of “live location information, including information shared
on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes,” on the
platform. Additionally, Twitter is prohibiting posting links to Mastodon,
including Mastodon.social, Mastodon.lol, Mastodon.xyz, Mastodon.au, Mastodon.ie,
Mastodon.scot, Mastodonapp.uk.
While Musk can now be seen reacting angrily to the issue of the
location of his private jet being shared in real time, he had previously stated
that his commitment to free speech extended even to not banning the account that
followed his plane. “Even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” he
added.
