The day after they were sacked from Twitter, the 10 journalists who were suspended without notice by the social network’s new owner and lord Elon Musk on Thursday night were still unclear about the causes of their scathing veto, the he melted his accounts with no way of answering or defending himself. The consequences, however, were crystal clear: the tycoon’s decision triggered an alarmed reaction from users of the platform, journalistic institutions, associations defending press freedom, the United Nations Organization and authorities from Washington to Brussels, where Vera Jourova, Vice President of the European Commission , said the move violated the EU’s digital services law and threatened with more than words. “There are red lines. And sanctions, soon,” the senior official tweeted on Friday morning.
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In Washington, Democratic Congresswoman Lori Trahan (Massachusetts), member of the House Committee on Good Internet Governance, recalled on Twitter that the company had assured her this week that it had no intention of retaliating against journalists to seize those who criticized the company or its owner. “Less than 12 hours later, several technology reporters were suspended. What’s the problem @elonmusk?” he added.
Melissa Fleming, UN Deputy Secretary-General for Global Communications, said she was “deeply disturbed” by the news. “Freedom of the press is not a toy,” he added. “A free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful misinformation.” The UK and German Governments agreed to express their concern at what happened. And Reporters Without Borders denounced Musk’s management as a “disaster for the right to information,” alongside a risk and a “danger to democracy,” the “arbitrary” leadership of the major internet platforms.
Elon Musk, in a 2019 photo. FREDERIC J. BROWN (AFP)
Beyond these expressions of solidarity, the group of displaced persons, freelance reporters and representatives of media such as the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post or Voice of America, among others, have little in common except that they are all Americans and that they have been public these days critical of Musk. The company didn’t respond to requests for explanation from this and other newspapers, so it had to settle for Musks, who Thursday night accused journalists of divulging private information about his whereabouts without evidence, a practice he equated. Give the coordinates for a murder.”
The Tesla owner, who recently acquired Twitter for $44,000 million, was referring to the closure this Wednesday of the @ElonJet account run by a 20-year-old named Jack Sweeney, who lost his half to Provided a million followers with up-to-the-minute location of the private jet of the world’s second richest man (this was also the week French magnate Bernard Arnault knocked him off the top of this list).
Sweeney, whose private Twitter was also blocked, along with two dozen others who tracked the aerial movements of supermillionaires, obtained this information from public records. Musk promised that his arrival at the company would herald a new era free of censorship. After acquiring it, he said, “My commitment to freedom of expression is such that I will not suspend the account that follows my plane, even though it poses a risk to my security.”
Shortly after the journalists were expelled, Musk, who has repeatedly shown that changing his mind is one of his favorite things to do, tweeted: “Continuously criticizing me is fine, but doxxing [neologismo que define el acto de revelar información personal de otro usuario Internet] my real-time location and my family’s vulnerability.” And he announced the penalty for violating this new Twitter rule: “seven days” from the digital public space.
It also launched a two-stage poll (the first with “too many options”, it was canceled after half an hour) asking users to vote on whether to reinstate those affected immediately or in a week. At 5:00 p.m. in Washington (11:00 p.m. in Spain), with just over six and a half hours until the digital ballot box closed, more than 3.3 million users had voiced their opinion, and 59% were in favor of immediate Pardon.
One of those affected, Steve Herman, chief national correspondent for Voice of America, a US government-dependent news service, is still “in shock” 16 hours after his permanent suspension and is awaiting an explanation, he told THE COUNTRY over the phone . He’s not a tech reporter, he clarified, although he’s been writing “a few stories on Twitter” since August. He had around 112,000 followers with whom he shared his thoughts on the march on social media and comments on the ban to his colleagues when it took place Thursday night. “I think that was the reason for my expulsion. I got carried away by a snowball,” he clarified. When asked if Musk’s allegations that he recklessly disclosed personal information about the tycoon’s movements were true, the reporter emphatically replied, “That’s completely false.”
The veteran journalist explained that he didn’t know much about the poll that settled his continuity on the social network (“I don’t care; Musk will do exactly what he wants”) and that he was “ready” to return to it back “But not at any price”.
Voice of America sent that newspaper a statement in defense of its reporter, as did The New York Times, whose technology specialist Ryan Mac was “not available for interviews.” “The suspension of the Twitter accounts of several prominent journalists is questionable and unfortunate. Neither the Times nor Ryan have been given an explanation as to why this happened. We hope all accounts are recovered and Twitter provides a satisfactory explanation,” Melissa Torres, a spokeswoman for the New Yorker newspaper, said in an email.
Washington Post editor Sally Buzbee took to Twitter Thursday to call for the return of her employee Drew Harwell and to “denounce an act of censorship that directly undermines Musk’s promise to operate Twitter as a platform for freedom.” Expression”. For its part, CNN said in a statement that “the impulsive and unwarranted suspension of several journalists, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, is worrying but not surprising”. Later, Oliver Darcy, a media columnist for the TV network, published one Article in which he considered that the incident “raises serious questions about the future of press freedom on Twitter, a platform that serves as a reference for its role “public space”, “digital”.
In addition to those named, the list of 10 expelled was completed early Friday afternoon with Mashable blog’s Matt Binder, former TV host and famed left-wing analyst Keith Olbermann, Business Insider’s Linette López, Micah Flee, The Intercept and freelance journalists Tony Webster and Aaron Rupar.
The sanctions that Jourova Musk has threatened from Brussels are provided for under the Digital Services Law (DSA, its English acronym), the regulation passed by the European Union this year and which will come into force in a few months. The penalty, which, as Adriana Maldonado MEP, a parliamentarian who worked on this rule, recalls, must be “effective, proportionate and dissuasive”, can amount to up to 6% of the company’s annual turnover.
Since Musk took over Twitter, he has had several run-ins with the European Union. A few weeks ago it was the Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, who had a meeting with where he warned him. “Twitter must apply transparent user policies, significantly strengthen content moderation and protect freedom of expression, resolutely fight disinformation and limit targeted advertising,” said the Frenchman at the end of the meeting on the social network. The Commission’s official spokesman for the Digital Economy, Johannes Barke, complemented Jourova’s words by adding that the DSA commits platforms to “clear, understandable and transparent” rules of use that respect human rights.
While all of this was happening, Musk continued to be very active in his private sphere, to the delight or shock of his more than 121 million followers. He also showed his poise as Nero watching with satisfaction as Rome burns. In one message, he used the campfire emoticon to celebrate that “Twitter is on fire.” Later, more enigmatically, he added, “And soon, ladies and gentlemen, the coup de grace.” It wasn’t immediately clear what he was referring to, although it was later deduced that it was about the forthcoming release of the sixth installment of the Twitter documents leaked to journalist Matt Taibi, which talk about how the company is gathering information about the troubles handled in Hunter Biden’s Alien, son of President Joe Biden. He also tweeted, “So inspiring to see the sudden love of free speech in the press.” And there, the emoji used was the one that can’t hide the blush between a cloud of hearts.
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