Musk be joking: Elon slammed by some of his biggest supporters after booting reporters from platform
Ryan King
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Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s recent suspension spree has splintered his supporters who initially cheered his $44 billion takeover, even drawing backlash from journalists behind the Twitter Files.
Twitter suspended a handful of accounts from journalists late Thursday whom Musk accused of disseminating information about his personal location. The move has riled those who were initially giddy about the prospects of him revitalizing the social giant’s free speech platform.
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“The old regime at Twitter governed by its own whims and biases and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem. I oppose it in both cases. And I think those journalists who were reporting on a story of public importance should be reinstated,” journalist Bari Weiss, one of the three Twitter Files reporters, tweeted.
https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1603788344470556674?s=20&t=03398SirhQ1uv9m_pyDUAg
Fellow Twitter Files point person Michael Shellenberger then retweeted her remarks, signaling possible agreement. The duo, alongside journalist Matt Taibbi, have been given sweeping access to Twitter to release a trove of internal documents that detailed Twitter’s past deliberations on content moderation and its past suppression of content, such as the October 2020 New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“In short, I’m against the Twitter suspensions, even for garbage pseudoreporters like Rupar, at least based on posting links to publicly available flight info. At the same time, their caterwauling now is hilarious given their enthusiasm for opaque Twitter censorship,” conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted in reference to journalist Aaron Rupar.
https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1603732578669936644?s=20&t=uH4tFsBB6LQiq5b_QGPZKQ
Breaking Points co-host Saagar Enjeti rejected Musk’s rationale for the suspension, contending that court precedents have affirmed that flight data qualify as free speech under the First Amendment.
“Flight data is publicly available from the FAA and has survived court challenge. It is within the obvious bounds of #1A. The consequences of free speech are not always fun as any public person including myself can attest to and yet that is why it is important to defend,” Enjeti tweeted.
https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/1603586132490522625?s=20&t=IYIOr5WRO27VchdZlTZgNQ
Musk defended the move, insisting the “same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else” while claiming that “they posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service.”
The reporters suspended include Ryan Mac of the New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of the Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of the Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America, and independent journalists Rupar, Keith Olbermann, and Tony Webster.
Leading up to the suspension spree, which Musk later indicated would last about a week, Twitter permanently suspended all of the accounts run by the teenager who managed @elonjet, which attempted to track his private plane. Many of the suspended journalists fired off tweets about the @elonjet suspension.
Musk claimed a “crazy stalker” was following a car transporting his son “lil X” around the time he canned @elonjet. Some of the suspended journalists denied spreading Musk’s location.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603235998263123969?s=20&t=H_X506BdNwq1vywrTVd7-A
A number of Musk supporters rallied around him, basking over the Left getting a taste of its own medicine.
“Why didn’t the journalists upset about Elon Musk’s decision to ban people for doxing make any noise when Twitter suspended the New York Post and censored the Hunter Biden laptop report,” conservative pundit Ian Miles Cheong tweeted.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1603629323197775872
One of Musk’s detractors, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), argued that the billionaire mogul had the right to use Twitter the way he wanted and spurned a suggestion that Congress should intervene.
“No. @elonmusk way overpaid for Twitter and he can basically do whatever he wants with it. The First Amendment prevents Congress from regulating speech on Twitter, a private business. It is not Government’s role to tell Twitter who to ban, who to suspend or who to promote,” he tweeted.
https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1603635197559218176
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Musk posted a poll asking whether the suspended accounts should be restored, but after it became clear that a plurality backed restoration, he backtracked, claiming the poll had too many options.
He also briefly appeared in a Twitter space and defended the move before leaving partway through questioning.
https://twitter.com/ForeverEversley/status/1603612770892918784?s=20&t=OLKTGqYxnhzRQIIRduYH1w