Twitter suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists who recently wrote about its new owner Elon Musk.
On this occasion, the CEO of Tesla stressed that the rules that prohibit the publication of personal information they apply to everyone, including journalists.
Responding to a tweet about account suspensions, Musk, who described himself as a fan of free speechtweeted:
“The same rules of doxxing apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” referring to social media rules that prohibit the sharing of personal information, the so-called doxxing.
Musk’s tweet referred to the suspension by Twitter, which took place on Wednesday, by @elonjet, an account that tracked his private jet in real time using publicly available data.
Musk had threatened legal action against the account manager, saying his son had been wrongly followed by a “full stalker”.
It is unclear whether all the journalists whose accounts were suspended commented or shared news on @elonjet.
“Criticizing me all day is fine, but doxxing my location in real time and putting my family in danger is notMusk tweeted.
Among the accounts of journalists suspended Thursday is that of the Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell (@drewharwell), he wrote on social media platform Mastodon posting links to “publicly available and lawfully acquired data”.
Musk and doxxing: journalists suspended from Twitter
Among the other doxxati also the journalist Ryan Mac del New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of Cnn, Matt Binder by Mashable, Micah Lee on the Intercepts.
Independent reporters were also suspended Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann e Tony Webst.
Tesla’s number one wrote last month that his commitment to free speech extended “also not to ban the account that follows my plane, even if this it is a direct risk to personal safety“.
Yesterday, however, she tweeted that there would be a seven-day suspension for doxxingfollowing up with a poll asking Twitter users to vote on when to reinstate doxed accounts.
The suspensions echo Twitter’s frantic actions since Musk took over leadership, including the rapid dismissal of top management and thousands of employeesthe price fluctuation of the subscription service Twitter Blue and the restoration of banned accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump.
Twitter ora relies heavily on automation to moderate content, eliminating some manual revisions and favoring distribution restrictions rather than removing some speech altogether.
In recent days, Elon Musk has also made headlines for the disinvestment of new additional Tesla shares, for a value of $3.6 billion, which led the US asset management giant number one in the world to confirm itself among the “Biggest Losers”.