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Twitter suspended the accounts of more than half a dozen journalists from CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other outlets Thursday night, as company owner Elon Musk accused the reporters of “basically publishing murder coordinates” for him and his family.
The Post has seen no evidence that any of the reporters did so.
The suspensions came without warning or initial explanation from Twitter. They came a day after Twitter changed its policy on sharing “live location information” and banned an account called @elonjet that had used public flight data to share the location of Musk’s private plane.
Many of the journalists suspended Thursday, including Washington Post technology reporter Drew Harwell, had reported on that rule change, as well as on Musk’s claims that sharing sites had put him and his family at risk.
Twitter didn’t directly respond to questions about the lockdowns. But Musk implied on Twitter without any evidence that the journalists leaked private information about his family, also known as doxxing. “Criticizing myself all day is perfectly fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family isn’t.” he tweeted late Thursday.
Harwell, whose recent stories covered the ban on @elonjet and the rise of conspiracy theories on Twitter, noted that he was unable to log into his account or tweet around 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
“Harwell was banned from Twitter without warning, procedure or explanation after his accurate reporting of Musk was made public,” Sally Buzbee, the Post’s editor-in-chief, said in a statement. “Our journalist should be reinstated immediately.”
At least eight other journalists were suspended that same evening, including New York Times technology reporter Ryan Mac.
CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan was suspended shortly after publishing a tweet over Musk’s claim that screenshots showed a “crazy stalker” stalking his young son in Los Angeles.
Matt Binder, a Mashable reporter, tweeted about O’Sullivan’s suspension just as his account also went dark.
Independent journalist Tony Webster’s account was also suspended Thursday night. Such were the reports of former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann; Intercept reporter Micah Lee; Voice of America chief correspondent Steve Herman; and Aaron Rupar, a Substack author with nearly 800,000 followers on Twitter.
“It’s impossible to reconcile Twitter’s push for freedom of expression with taking down critical journalists’ accounts,” Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “The First Amendment protects Musk’s right to do this, but it’s a terrible decision. Your accounts should be restored immediately.”
The account suspensions were flagged as “Ella’s direction” in Twitter’s internal systems, according to two former employees who have been in contact with Twitter staff. Ella Irwin, the company’s head of trust and security, has carried out many of Musk’s commissions since he bought the company in late October and began flipping its rules on its head in the name of what he called “free speech.” .
A previous suspension was marked “Towards Elon”.
irwin said the edge: “Without commenting on specific accounts, I can confirm that we will ban any accounts that violate our privacy policies and endanger other users.”
Musk tweeted late Thursday that the lockdowns would last a week, although several of the reporters had been notified by Twitter that they were permanently banned. Later that night he took a twitter poll when to restore the accounts – but he restarted them after several respondents said he should do so immediately.
Musk also reiterated his unfounded claim that journalists leaked private information about his family.
“The same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” he wrote in another tweet. “They posted my real-time exact location, basically murder coordinates.”
Around 11:30 p.m. Thursday, Musk took part in a Twitter Spaces chat — essentially a public conference call — with several journalists, including some who had been banned, and reiterated his claim that they had “doxed” him.
The journalists challenged him to do so.
“You’re suggesting we share your address, which isn’t true,” Harwell said.
Musk replied, “You posted a link to the address.”
Harwell replied, “In the course of covering @elonjet, we posted a link to @elonjet, which is now offline.”
After about four minutes, Musk abruptly ended the call.
Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October and quickly set about reversing many of the previous management’s policies against hate speech and misinformation. He has sought to restore former President Donald Trump and other accounts suspended under the previous administration, saying Twitter’s new policy is “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”
But Musk’s Twitter had already suspended some high-profile accounts ahead of Thursday’s apparent purge.
On Wednesday, @elonjet was permanently suspended despite a tweet from Musk weeks earlier saying he would keep it as part of “my commitment to freedom of expression.”
On the same day, a new Twitter policy prohibited the sharing of “live location information, including information shared directly on Twitter, or links to… itineraries, actual physical location, or other identifying information that would reveal an individual’s location, whether or not that information is publicly available.”
But none of the tweets from suspended reporters reviewed by The Post revealed the whereabouts of Musk or his family.
MP Lori Trahan (D-Mass) wrote on Twitter Thursday night her staff met with Twitter officials the same day. “They told us they will not take revenge on independent journalists or researchers who publish criticism of the platform. Less than 12 hours later, several technology reporters were suspended.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists attacked the suspensions in a statement:
“We are concerned by news reports that journalists covering recent developments surrounding Twitter and its owner Elon Musk have had their accounts on the platform suspended. If this is confirmed in retaliation for their work, it would be a serious violation of journalists’ right to break the news without fear of reprisal.”
A spokesman for the New York Times called the suspensions “questionable and regrettable” in a statement Thursday night.
“Neither The Times nor Ryan have been given an explanation as to why this happened,” said Charlie Stadlander. “We hope that all journalists’ accounts will be recovered and that Twitter will provide a satisfactory explanation for this action.”
In a company statement, CNN called the suspension of O’Sullivan and other reporters “impulsive and unjustified” and said it had reached out to Twitter for an explanation. “We will re-evaluate our relationship based on that response.”
Faiz Siddiqui, Joseph Menn, and Elahe Izadi contributed to this report.