Twitter is facing a swirl of controversies ever since the new CEO, Elon Musk, acquired the social media platform. The ‘self-proclaimed’ free–speech evangelist is reported to suppress the media through suspending journalists from the platform. Earlier the European Union condemned the move and now the United Nations also reported its concerns.
BBC reported that the United Nations’ under secretary general for global communications, Melissa Fleming said that the reports about the journalists being suspended from the social media platform was ‘deeply disturbed.’ She said, “Media freedom is not a toy”.
Fleming added that for democratic societies, a free press is like a cornerstone and it is also a key tool in order to fight against the potential harmful disinformation.
The United Nations is not the only prominent agency which criticized Twitter’s action. On Friday, European Union commissioner, Vera Jourova also called out the issue and threatened the social media company with sanctions under the new Digital Services Act of Europe. She said that the respect of freedom of media and its fundamental rights is necessary.
Even though Mr. Musk hasn’t directly addressed the bans, he did tweet that “criticizing me all day long is entirely ok, but doxxing my real-time whereabouts and endangering my family is not.”
Later, the software billionaire created a poll asking people whether they thought the accounts should be unfrozen “immediately” or “in seven days,” implying that the decision might be changed sooner rather than later.
He continued by saying that the same doxxing standards apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” referring to the practice of publishing private information about people online. The suspensions were deemed “questionable and unfortunate” by a representative for the New York Times.
The suspensions follow Mr. Musk’s threat to bring a lawsuit against the proprietor of a profile that tracks his private jet.
He said that a “crazy stalker” had tracked down and approached a car carrying his kids in Los Angeles via live location sharing.
The German Foreign Office issued a warning to Twitter after the suspensions, saying that “press freedom cannot be switched on and off at will.”
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/12/18/twitter-facing-backlashes-after-suspending-journalists/