Musk Restores Journalist Twitter Accounts After Backlash

Topline

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Saturday reinstated accounts of high-profile journalists he had suspended after he claimed they violated the platform’s policy on personal privacy—which they hotly denied—as the billionaire comes under fire for an apparent crackdown on the platform despite his pledge to ease Twitter’s content moderation.

Elon Musk reinstated Twitter accounts he had suspended for posting information about the location of … [+] his private jet after drawing heavy criticism.

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Key Facts

Musk’s decision to bring suspended journalists back came after he closed a Twitter poll asking when accounts that “doxxed my exact location in real-time” should be allowed to return, with 58.7% responding the suspension should be lifted immediately, and 41.3% saying it should happen in seven days.

He announced the decision—which was uniformly condemned by media companies and earned a warning of possible European Union sanctions—saying in a tweet early Saturday morning, “The people have spoken.”

Musk had previously backed up his decision in a brief call that included journalists suspended from the site, saying the suspensions were of accounts that had linked to another one that shared information about the location of his private jet, although he quickly left the call after he faced questions from one of the banned reporters, Washington Post’s Drew Harrell.

Earlier on Friday, Twitter also shut down its Spaces audio feature, after suspended journalists turned to it as a loophole to maintain a Twitter presence.

Musk suggested in a tweet he could bring back Twitter Spaces, when asked about taking part in a potential call about his cryptocurrency dogecoin, saying, “Things are rather intense right now, but maybe closer to Christmas”—then he tweeted on Friday that Twitter was “fixing a legacy bug,” and tweeted that he brought it back Friday afternoon.

Musk also suspended an account prompting Twitter users to join rival social media platform Mastodon, though it did not provide an explanation for the suspension—Mastodon, however, had tweeted a link to the account that tracked Musk’s jet.

Crucial Quote

Musk, who also owns electric automaker Tesla and SpaceX, tweeted in response to the pushback: “If anyone posted real-time locations & addresses of [New York Times] reporters, FBI would be investigating, there’d be hearings on Capitol Hill & Biden would give speeches about the end of democracy!”

Chief Critic

European Union officials also warned on Friday they could impose sanctions on Twitter, including billion-dollar fines and a potential ban across EU member states, calling it “worrying” that the world’s second richest person had conducted “arbitrary” suspensions of journalists, and that the move could violate the European Commission’s Digital Services Act, which was recently established to protect online free press and is set to take effect in 2024.

Key Background

Musk banned journalists including former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan and independent writer Aaron Ruper, claiming they violated Twitter’s policies by linking to an account that tracks real-time information about the location of his private jet—an account that Musk had once used as an example of the type of free speech he would allow on the site, even if it revealed information he didn’t want to be released. Musk, who repeatedly emphasized his intention to lift Twitter’s moderation policies and reinstate suspended accounts when he completed his $44 billion purchase of the social media giant in October, has faced backlash for firing employees in charge of content moderation and has been accused of allowing hate speech to spike on the site. In the two months since he completed his purchase, major advertisers have pulled their ads from the platform, even after Musk pledged not to allow it to descend into a “free-for-all hellscape.”

Tangent

On Friday, Musk also reinstated the account of MyPillow founder and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, whose account was banned for spreading baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election. It’s the latest suspended account Musk has brought back. Last month, he reinstated the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), who was suspended for spreading misinformation about Covid-19, as well as former social media star Andrew Tate, who was suspended in 2017 when he argued victims of sexual harassment should “bear responsibility.”