Elon Musk re-enabled Twitter accounts of several journalists banned on @ElonJet

Twitter has begun lifting suspensions of some journalists after Elon Musk re-ran a poll that asked whether he should "cancel accounts that track my precise location in real time." (The reporters did not disclose their real-time location.) Of the two voting options, "now" won out over "in 7 days" with 58.7 percent of the responses. The poll had nearly 3.7 million responses.

Journalists from various outlets including The New York Times, CNN, NBC, The Intercept, and others had their accounts suspended on Thursday, most of them after tweeting about the SpaceX-owned Twitter account @ElonJet. Wale's private jet was tracked. Elon Musk uses based on publicly available FAA flight tracking data. The ElonJet account was suspended from Twitter prior to the strike against other accounts, but remained on other platforms (which is why you can't tweet links to multiple instances of the decentralized Twitter alternative Mastodon).

At the time of this writing, the accounts associated with Lynette Lopez and @ElonJet are still suspended. Meanwhile, Donnie O'Sullivan of CNN, Ryan Mack of The New York Times, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept and @JoinMastodon accounts are once again visible on the platform.

Shortly after restoring these accounts, Musk also suspended Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz after she contacted Musk for comment on a story. His last tweet was a response to Musk's post about a "violent predator" he said stalks his family, and read: "Hi Elon, @drewharwell and I sent you a few emails about Huh." We have received some information that we would like to share and discuss with you. We are taking this very seriously and want to make sure it is handled appropriately. Thanks."

In an update shared on Lorenz's Substack newsletter, she says she "received zero communication from the company" about why she was suspended. “My colleague Drew Harwell, who has also been suspended, and I are working on a story involving Musk and look forward to hearing from him,” writes Lorenz. "When I went to log in and see if it answered our query, I was suspended."

Musk has announced that "the suspension of accounts that docked my location will now be lifted." This week, Twitter added "live location information," as well as "third-party URLs of travel routes." Updated our policy to prohibit the sharing of "links".

At the time the journalists were initially suspended, Ella Irwin, Twitter's head of trust and safety, told The Verge: "We do not make exceptions to this policy for journalists or any other account." Musk also clarified his feelings on the matter through the language of his poll and various follow-up tweets. He also reported that the flight tracker had some connection to a "crazed stalker" who had encountered a car carrying one of his children, and that the man "stopped the car from moving and climbed on the hood". Went". Gone." However, according to the Los Angeles Times, the LAPD says it has not filed any crime reports in connection with such an incident.

Following the suspension, Musk ran a 30-minute long poll asking when he should fire the reporters. "Now" won that poll as well, garnering 43 percent of responses, but Musk said he would do it again because it had "too many options".

On Thursday, Musk also participated in a Twitter space hosted by BuzzFeed News' Katie Notopoulos, which also included several suspended journalists who were apparently allowed to join because of a technical glitch. Before leaving the call, Musk said "You're fine, you're suspended. End of story, that's it." Twitter later shut down the Spaces feature. It has since been restored, Notopoulos says. When she tries she is unable to and receives a message saying "You cannot participate or go live because you have violated the Twitter Rules".

Hours before voting was to be completed and more accounts were restored, Musk declared today "Freedom Friday" in response to comments from former congressional candidate Laverne Spicer that accounts were being restored at an increasingly rapid pace. Several prominent alt-right figures, including MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and Gateway Pundit editor Jim Hoft, were unsettled on Friday, as reported by Shayan Sardarizadeh, a BBC reporter. Musk appears to have made good on his promise of a "general apology" for previously suspended accounts, which he claims is being done because of the results of the survey.

On Friday evening, the Twitter Safety account tweeted that the company had "identified several policies where permanent suspension was a disproportionate action for breaking the Twitter Rules" and that it would reinstate accounts on a weekly basis over the next 30 days. It is unclear whether the tweet was an announcement about Musk's amnesty survey, or based on the new live tracking policy banning people. Musk has stated a "7-day suspension for doxing", although some people affected by Elonjet's suspension posted screenshots of the Twitter UI saying they had been permanently suspended.

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