Why did Elon Musk’s Twitter ban several journalists and his main competitor?
Funny night on Twitter. The social network banned about 10 journalists from the main American media, for example, in the United States New York Times, CNN, the Washington post or The Intercept. What they have in common? Since the end of October, they have been covering the decisions and actions of Elon Musk, the new owner and leader of the platform, with a critical eye. Twitter’s main rival, Mastodon, has also seen a jump in its account.
Elon Musk’s private jet at the center of Twitter moderation
To justify this aggressive moderation, Elon Musk blames banned accounts doxxing, the practice of publicly disclosing personal information for malicious purposes. They are accused of sharing a link showing the movements of their private jet in real time. The vast majority of commercial and private flight data is actually publicly available, and several sites like FlightRadar aggregate it.
The @ElonJet account on Twitter automatically transmitted all the movements of the billionaire’s plane. It was banned along with creator Jack Sweeney’s account on Tuesday. This decision made by Elon Musk himself caused it immediate update privacy policy of the social network. ” We will then delete tweets that share an individual’s real-time location, and accounts dedicated to sharing other people’s real-time locations will be suspended. “, – writes the company.
Elon Musk’s plane wasn’t the only one with a private account, it was the case for several billionaires, including Bernard Arnaud. It is from these accounts that heated discussions about business aviation began in France this summer. Now they are all banned.
Elon Musk begins a new moderation puzzle
The businessman, who describes himself as an absolute defender of freedom of expression, has repeatedly assured that one can say anything, as long as the comments do not go beyond the law. He also stated on the @ElonJet account on Nov. 7 that “ its commitment to free speech includes not banning the following account [son] Even if there is a direct risk to the aircraft [sa] personal safety. “By firing @ElonJet, the billionaire is trying to overturn old leadership on moderation issues through the ‘Twitter Files,’ but he’s breaking the doctrine he’s upheld until then.
After this wave of moderation, Katie Notopoulos, journalist buzzfeed, used Twitter’s Space feature to host a public conversation with banned journalists and the founder of @ElonJet. Elon Musk joined the discussion for less than three minutes. ” VSYou are not given special treatment because you are a journalist. You doxx, you are suspended “, he said. Resuming the inconsistency of the moderation policy, the leader stuttered, then abruptly left the Twitter space.
Elon Musk says his life is in danger
To emphasize the importance of banning @ElonJet, Elon Musk wrote than a car carrying one of his children, X or Full name X Æ A-12, a follower followed and he stopped the car from moving forward and climbed on the hood. He also claims to have taken legal action against Jack Sweeney and ” organizations that hurt me family He later released a short video showing a masked and hooded man driving a car with a visible license plate. ” Does anyone know this person or car? asks the billionaire to his 120 million subscribers. Ironically, this post by Elon Musk can be called doxxing. It was not possible to verify the words of the billionaire and Bellingcat showed that the video was filmed in Los Angeles, away from any airport.
This is not the first time that the businessman is worried about his security. In another messagehe explained that the banned accounts were banned because ” they shared [sa] real-time exact location, basically the coordinates of the assassination. This declaration was also protested Influential Democrat Alexandra Ocasio-Cortezwho had called him” take a break and put the phone down To calm the attention around him, he replied: ” you first “.
To conclude this strange episode, Elon Musk conducted a poll asking Twitter users to decide how long the respective accounts should be suspended. They can be restored: now, the next day, after 7 days or ” Longer “. He already used this method to justify the restoration of Donald Trump’s account, although the platform’s requests are easily manipulated. The result: the choice ” Now He won with 43% of the vote, but Musk decided to hold another poll because the first “ there were many options “. The last one extends until tonight, and for now the choice ” Now wins again. It remains to be seen if Elon Musk will follow this voting method again.
