'Criticizing me is totally fine but...' Elon Musk after Twitter suspends top journalists' accounts

By Team Newsable | First Published Dec 16, 2022, 11:50 AM IST

Twitter has suspended the accounts of Donie O'Sullivan from CNN, Drew Harwell from the Washington Post, Ryan Mac from The New York Times, and Aaron Rupar from The Independent. All the suspended reporters have in recent months written about Twitter's owner, billionaire Elon Musk, and changes at the platform since he bought it.

Twitter Inc. suspended a number of journalists' accounts, including those from the New York Times and the Washington Post, and displayed "account suspended" messages for them on the website. All of the journalists who have been suspended recently have written about Twitter's owner, billionaire Elon Musk, and the platform's changes as a result of his acquisition. The platform claims that it is suspending accounts that pose a threat to others' well-being as part of its new privacy policies.

Musk posted in response to a Tweet about the account suspensions: "Same doxxing rules apply to "journalists" as to everyone else," a reference to Twitter rules banning sharing of personal information, called doxxing.

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"Criticizing me all day is absolutely OK, but doxxing my real-time whereabouts and putting my family in danger is not," he continued. Twitter on Thursday deactivated an account that was live-tracking Musk's private plane, a month after Musk declared that he was committed to free expression and would not restrict the account.

Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

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The official account of social media company Mastodon (@joinmastodon), which has emerged as an alternative to Twitter since Musk bought the company for $44 billion in October, was also suspended.

Reporters from the Times Ryan Mac (@rmac18), Post Drew Harwell (@drewharwell), CNN Donie O'Sullivan (@donie), and Mashable Matt Binder (@MattBinder) all had their accounts suspended. The account of independent journalist Aaron Rupar (@atrupar), who covers U.S. policy and politics, was also suspended.

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