Topline
Twitter suspended accounts late Thursday belonging to rival social media platform Mastodon and several journalists who had reported on Twitter’s new management, in the latest apparent crackdown by Twitter’s billionaire owner Elon Musk, despite earlier promises to take a hands-off approach to moderating the social network.
Twitter suspended the account of rival platform Mastodon on Thursday evening. (Photo by JOEL … [+]
Key Facts
A note saying “Account suspended” appeared Thursday on the @joinmastodon profile, which had more than 100,000 followers as of Sunday and is listed on Mastodon’s website as its Twitter account, though Twitter didn’t explicitly state which rule the account broke.
Mastodon earlier in the day tweeted a link to an account on its own platform tracking the location of Musk’s jet, just a day after a similar account was banned from Twitter.
Musk announced new Twitter rules in a tweet Wednesday evening following the jet tracker’s ban: “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.”
A litany of tech journalists and frequent Musk critics were also booted from Twitter late Thursday, including Washington Post journalist Drew Harwell, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Ryan Mac from the New York Times, Intercept staffer Micah Lee, Matt Binder from Mashable, writer Aaron Rupar and former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann.
It’s unclear what rules the journalists were accused of violating, but several of them appeared to tweet about the Musk jet tracker—or about Musk generally—immediately before they were suspended.
Neither Mastodon nor Twitter immediately responds to requests for comment from Forbes.
Key Background
Musk promised he would allow all speech permissible by law on Twitter prior to completing his $44 billion deal to buy the company. Shortly after taking over Twitter, Musk drew attention for reinstating former President Donald Trump and several other high-profile conservative figures, but many of Musk’s other recent actions have not been in line with that ideal. The account tracking his jet shared publicly available information, and Musk also tweeted last month he would let it remain online: “My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.” The billionaire has repeatedly said over the past few days the account was threatening his family, and has vowed to take legal action against the 20-year-old University of Central Florida student who ran the account. The account has appeared to bother Musk for at least a year: Late last year, Musk offered the account’s operator $5,000 to stop tracking his jet, according to CNN.
Tangent
Mastodon launched in 2016 but gained widespread attention after Musk’s acquisition of Twitter as a potential alternative for those abandoning Twitter, especially users on the political left. Mastodon’s network runs off a radically different model from Twitter’s, though, as users sign up for different servers that essentially operate as their own communities. The process has caused widespread complaints of confusion among many new users.
Further Reading
Mastodon Isn’t A Replacement For Twitter—But It Has Rewards Of Its Own (Forbes)
Twitter Suspends Account Tracking Elon Musk’s Private Jet (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/12/15/twitter-suspends-rival-mastodons-account/