MINNESOTA, USA — Twitter CEO Elon Musk has come under fire after the platform suspended at least 10 professional journalists, including:
- New York Times Tech Reporter Ryan Mac
- Washington Post Tech Reporter Drew Harwell
- Donie O’Sullivan from CNN
- Matt Binder from Mashable
And independent journalists Tony Webster, Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann, and others.
Webster is based out of the Twin Cities and Rupar previously wrote for Minneapolis' now-shuttered City Pages in Minneapolis.
University of Minnesota journalism professor Matt Carlson says it's a concerning situation to see journalists who were providing news coverage about a CEO and his company suspended by the same company they were reporting on.
"It's really dangerous that when a journalist is doing legitimate news work are being suspended from a social media platform with millions of followers just for doing their jobs,” Carlson said.
Musk has often referred to himself as a "free speech absolutist," even tweeting back in April, "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means."
"There's a lot of hypocrisy in what Elon Musk is doing here,” Carlson said.
"We see individuals when they have a chance to control a media network, that they're going to protect themselves over their principles, and that seems to be the case with Elon Musk as he's taken over Twitter."
Musk claims these journalists were "doxing" him, a term that means posting someone's private information online, such as a phone number or address.
But many of these journalists argue they were simply covering the news story about how Twitter recently suspended an account called “@ElonJet," which used public records to track Musk's private jet.
Several journalists, including a few who were recently suspended from Twitter, confronted Musk during a conference call that was held using a feature on Twitter called Twitter Spaces.
"You're suggesting that we're sharing your address, which is not true,” one journalist said.
“It is true,” Musk replied.
“We never — I never posted your address,” the journalist replied back.
“You posted a link to the address,” Musk says, possibly referring to the journalist posting a link to the @ElonJet Twitter page within their news story.
After a few more tough questions, Elon Musk suddenly left the conference call.
"I think Elon has left,” one journalist said.
According to several media outlets, hours after this conference call, the Twitter Spaces feature on Twitter was removed for all users with no explanation.
"It just seems like all these decisions are being made just on the fly without really a strong core idea of what the site should be,” Carlson said.
Twitter also recently suspended an account that was encouraging people to join Mastodon, one of Twitter's competitors.
Professor Carlson says this whole situation brings up a very serious concern about the power of these social networks and the people who run them.
He’s worried that since these companies are privately owned, they can block information and news stories they don’t like, and they can also suspend the people who speak out against them whenever they want.
The Society of Professional Journalists also spoke out against Twitter’s decision to suspend these journalists.
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