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Twitter chief Elon Musk said on Saturday that he would reinstate the accounts of several journalists suspended by the platform. He had accused them of sharing private information about his whereabouts.
“People have spoken. Suspension of accounts that doxxed my location will be lifted now,” Mr Musk tweeted after a majority of people on the platform responding to his survey voted to reinstate the journalists’ accounts.
On Thursday, the accounts of several journalists who covered Twitter and Mr. Musk were suspended in what appeared to be an arbitrary move by the company’s new boss.
Suspended accounts include those of reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and other outlets.
Mr. Musk accused those journalists of sharing private information about his movements, which he described as “basically assassination coordinates,” while providing no evidence for his claim.
“You do, you will be stopped. End of story. It is,” he said in a Twitter Space discussion on Thursday.
The series of suspensions began after Twitter banned the “ElonJet” account, an account run by 20-year-old Florida student Jack Sweeney, which tracked the private jets of the Tesla and SpaceX chief using publicly available data.
“Any account doxing anyone’s real-time location information will be suspended as it is a violation of physical safety. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location information,” he said.
The accounts of several journalists covering Twitter and Mr. Musk were also suspended. When questioned about the sudden ban, he said: “The same doxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as everyone else.”
Several groups around the world have expressed concern about the shutdowns. Vera Jourova, vice-president for values and transparency at the European Union (EU), said the news of Twitter’s suspension of journalists was “alarming”.
“Existing EU media rules and new digital regulations coming into force next year require ‘respect for media freedom and fundamental rights’, Elon Musk should be aware of this. There are red lines. And soon sanctions,” said Mrs. Yourova.
Germany’s foreign ministry said there was a “problem” with not being able to monitor suspended accounts, adding that “press freedom should not be turned on and off at will.”
In a Twitter poll, Mr Musk then asked when he should take down accounts that dox his location, adding that criticizing him was fine, but “doxing” his real-time location and “endangering” his family was not.
After poll results revealed that a majority of respondents wanted him to restore the accounts, he said on Saturday that the suspended accounts would be restored.
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