Following its suspension of @ElonJet, Twitter abruptly suspended the accounts of several journalists from CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Liberal journalist Aaron Rupar, Ryan Mac of the Times, Drew Harwell of The Post and CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, who have all covered Twitter owner Elon Musk, were booted off the social media platform Thursday night. (The accounts for Keith Olbermann, Twitter competitor site Mastodon, and Mashable’s Matt Binder also appeared to be suspended.)
Rupar told NBC News that he had “no idea” what prompted the suspension.
However, the exiled reporters have all written about Musk and the controversies surrounding his takeover at Twitter.
Just a day ago, CNN’s O’Sullivan interviewed the founder of @ElonJet, Jack Sweeney, a 20-year-old college student who revealed more details of Twitter’s attempts to shut down the account. The @ElonJet handle had long rankled Musk, Sweeney revealed in his interview with O’Sullivan. The account was briefly reactivated Wednesday night but was shut down again shortly after.
Like O’Sullivan, Times tech reporter Mac and Mashable journalist Binder covered the turmoil over @ElonJet, and Harwell tweeted about it just before getting the boot. Meanwhile, Rupar recently penned an article titled, “Elon Musk’s reactionary populism.”
Musk has as yet made no comment about the suspensions, despite his Nov. 6 promise: “My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.”