Twitter bans accounts of several prominent journalists

Twitter has permanently suspended the accounts of several journalists including Donie O'Sullivan from CNN and Drew Harwell from The Washington Post. The decision to do so came after they automatically tracked the flights of Twitter CEO Elon Musk's private jet using publicly available data.

When a Twitter user posted screenshots of suspended accounts of some journalists, Musk said on Friday: "Same doxxing rules apply to journalists as to everyone else.

"They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service."

The user's post also included journalists Ryan Mac from The New York Times and Aaron Rupar from Independent.

Several users expressed their thoughts on Musk's tweet.

While journalists took to the platform to express their condemnation for the ban of fellow journalists on the migro-blogging platform, several other users expressed how Elon Musk could ban members from the activist, political and marginalized communities. Users even pointed out that Musk may use the platform to suppress the views of those he was politically opposed to.

As Musk's former position as a free speech absolutionist is called into question by this new spate of bans, Will Oremus writes for the Washington Post, "The man who ordered this public autopsy of Twitter’s previous regime has shown himself in the first months of his ownership to be more capricious, self-interested, and partisan in his approach to online speech than his predecessors ever were.

Since launching his bid for Twitter in the spring, Musk has repeatedly contradicted himself as to how he would approach content moderation; dismantled the company’s internal and external accountability mechanisms; reversed long-standing policies without explanation; and used his power as owner to pursue petty personal vendettas."

Věra Jourová, Vice-President for Values and Transparency expressed her concerns about the ban of media personalities in a tweet that read, "News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying. EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct. @elonmusk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon."

Latest in the spate of controversies on the microblogging platform is the glitch in the new audio feature, 'Twitter Spaces', which lets you have live audio conversations on the platform.

Responding to a user's query about the glitch, the Twitter CEO said, "We're fixing a legacy bug. Should be working tomorrow."