Journalists critical of Elon Musk have Twitter accounts suspended ‘for endangering his family’

16 December 2022, 12:15

Elon Musk has suspended several journalists from Twitter, saying they breached the company’s new policy on ‘doxxing’ - or publishing personal information.

Musk has claimed anyone revealing individuals’ real-time location will be suspended as a ‘physical safety violation’, but his actions sparked accusations of an “obscene abuse of power”

It comes after a Twitter account showing the location of Musk’s private jet was suspended by the billionaire.

Accounts belonging to CNN’s Donie O'Sullivan, the Washington Post's Drew Harwell, Ryan Mac from the New York Times, independent reporter Aaron Rupar and at least five others, were all locked.

Musk said: “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.”

"Accounts engaged in doxxing receive a temporary 7 day suspension," he added.

But officials in Brussels have warned Musk the company could face sanctions "soon" after journalists were booted off the platform.

European Commissioner Vera Jourova said that the suspensions were "worrying" and that EU law protects media freedom.

"News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying," Ms Jourova said.

The commissioner, who is the European Commission's vice-president for values and transparency, said : "EU's Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct.

"Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon."

Musk also joined a live broadcast which included some of the reporters who he went on to ban from the platform.

He accused the journalists of "doxxing" him - an online term used for the publication of private information that could be used to identify a person's location or address.

"As I'm sure everyone who's been doxxed would agree, showing real-time information about somebody's location is inappropriate, and I think everyone on this call would not like that to be done to them," he said on the live call - hosted on Twitter's Spaces service.

"There is not going to be any distinction in the future between journalists - so called journalists - and regular people."

A short while later the Spaces service itself was suspended. Twitter does not appear to have explained why it suspended the Spaces service.

However some users pointed out that Twitter profiles which had been banned appeared to still be able to use the Spaces function despite their suspension.

The latest in a long series of scandals sparked by Mr Musk came after Twitter suspended an account which posts public information about the flight paths of his private jet.

The @elonjet account was suspended, Mr Musk claimed, for doxxing him. All planes have to have a transponder which shows their locations, so the information is public.

The decision to ban the account came just over a month since he had promised not to take the account down.

"My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk," Mr Musk tweeted on November 6.

More than half a dozen journalists who reported on the suspension of the account were themselves suspended from Twitter.

They included reporters for the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post among others.