European Union warns Elon Musk after Twitter suspends accounts of over half-a-dozen journalists
The move drew condemnation from all corners, questioning Musk’s commitment to free speech
The European Union on Friday (Dec 16) warned Elon Musk that his newly purchased microblogging site, Twitter may face sanctions under future media legislation.
Twitter accounts of around half-a-dozen journalists from top media houses covering Technology were suspendedwithout providing any explanation.
The journalists whose accounts were banned on Thursday are from CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mashable, Substack, among others.
Apart from that the Twitter account of rival Mastodon was also suspended.
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Though Twitter’s standard notice said that it “suspends accounts that violate the Twitter rules”, these journalists were known to be aggressively Elon Musk after he took over the microblogging site in October.
Many of these reporters had recently covered an ongoing dispute between Musk and a user who ran a series of accounts that use publicly available flight information to track the location of private jets, including the one used by Musk.
Responding the decision, Musk said, "They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service".
The move drew wide condemnation from all corners, questioningMusk’s commitment to free speech. He had one time said that he hopes “that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, one of the journalists whose Twitter account got suspended, told CNN that he was not intimated by the social media site why his account was barred.
“Elon says he is a free speech champion and he is banning journalists for exercising free speech. I think that calls into question his commitment,” Harwell told CNN.
A spokesperson from the New York Times termed the bans “questionable and unfortunate”.
“Neither The Times nor Ryan have received any explanation about why this occurred. We hope that all of the journalists’ accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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