Twitter suspends multiple journalists who have been covering, criticizing Elon Musk

Several accounts belonging to prominent journalists who have been covering Musk were suspended on Thursday.

Donie O' Sullivan with CNN and Drew Harwell of The Washington Post were among the writers whose accounts were affected.

He was not sure why his account was suddenly suspended. He said that a notice at the top of his account said he had been permanently suspended and restricted to read only mode.

He didn't have any information about what rule he might have broken.

Neither Musk nor a representative for the micro-messaging service immediately responded to the request for comment.

One day after Jack Sweeney's account was suspended for creating a tool that automatically posted Musk's private jet's location, more than a dozen other accounts were also suspended. The company changed its rules after that.

Musk suggested the reporter suspensions were related to the private jet issue. Half of the suspended accounts had posted links to the jet tracker, according to the billionaire CEO.

Musk said that the doxxing rules apply to journalists as well as to everyone else.

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

Some of the journalists who were suspended had previously commented on the existence of Mastodon, a social media platform that has marketed itself as an alternative to Twitter. The account for Mastodon was suspended.

He told Insider that he didn't think he had ever posted about the private jet saga. He didn't think he had posted anything that would violate the law. The night before his account was suspended, he criticized Musk.

He said that it was something critical that he posted on his website. They're probably not going to come out and say that, so maybe that's why I didn't get any information from them.

Lee told Insider that he believes he was suspended for posting about the suspension of Mastodon. He hasn't received any notice from the company explaining its decision.

At least eight accounts were suspended as of Thursday evening, according to a list compiled by Ben Collins. They had been writing critically about Musk in the days leading up to their suspension.

Musk has backpedaled on his promise to be a free speech absolutist. Musk insisted that the suspensions were not caused by critical coverage.

It's fine to criticize me all day long, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.

Anyone can access the flight data Musk is trying to keep out of the public eye.