Twitter Reinstates Accounts of Mastodon, Journalists Who Cover Elon Musk

UPDATE 12/17: Twitter has reinstated the accounts of suspended journalists, as well as several controversial figures who were banned from the site prior to Musk’s takeover.

In a tweet, Musk said he allowed the reporters to return due to the results of a poll, much like he did when reinstating the account of former President Trump. “The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now,” he tweeted.

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Musk, however, had faced a lot of pushback for suspending reporters who were writing about the controversy surrounding the @ElonJet account—and not actually sharing the billionaire’s real-time location in their tweets, as he claimed.

For now, the accounts of Ryan Mac (New York Times), Donie O’Sullivan (CNN), Drew Harwell (Washington Post), Micah Lee (The Intercept), Steve Herman (Voice of America), Matt Binder (Mashable), as well as freelancer writers Aaron Rupar and Tony Webster and commentator Keith Olbermann are back online. (Here’s Binder’s take(Opens in a new window) on the suspension.)

The @joinmastodon account is also back online, though one of its tweets has been flagged for violating Twitter’s rules.

Meanwhile, the accounts of several controversial figures were reinstated, too.

“We’ve identified several policies where permanent suspension was a disproportionate action for breaking Twitter rules,” Twitter Safety tweeted(Opens in a new window) on Friday. “We recently started reinstating accounts that were suspended for violations of these policies and plan to expand to more accounts weekly over the next 30 days.”

Accounts that have returned include that of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who was first banned(Opens in a new window) in 2021 over election-related lies, and Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe, who was also banned(Opens in a new window) last year for platform manipulation and spam. Several accounts for those associated with Q-Anon, vaccine denial, and the far right have also returned.

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UPDATE 2: Twitter owner Elon Musk claims Mastodon and the journalists were suspended for breaking the platform’s rules against “doxxing,” or the act of publishing someone’s private, identifying information that could put them in harm’s way.

“Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” he wrote(Opens in a new window). However, Musk says the suspensions will only last for seven days.

In another tweet, Musk added(Opens in a new window): “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else.”

He later alleged(Opens in a new window) of the journalists: “They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service.”

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However, there doesn’t appear to be evidence that the journalists published Musk’s exact real-time location. In one case, suspended journalist Micah Lee tweeted(Opens in a new window) the Mastodon handle for the @ElonJet account while covering Twitter’s decision to suspend the Mastodon Twitter account.

Other screenshots of the last tweets(Opens in a new window) from(Opens in a new window) some(Opens in a new window) of the journalists show them merely criticizing(Opens in a new window) Musk or reporting on his claim that an alleged stalker followed a car carrying one of his children. It’s also important to note that the banned @ElonJet account usually posts only the takeoff and landing location of Musk’s jet using publicly available data.

In a live chat(Opens in a new window) on Twitter Spaces on Thursday night, Musk also spoke with several journalists, who maintained that no real-time tracking information on his location was ever shared. “You’re suggesting that we shared your address, which is not true,” Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, one of the suspended journalists, told Musk.

In response, Musk said: “You posted a link to the address.”

“In the course of reporting ElonJet, we posted links to ElonJet, which are now not online,” Harwell responded. Musk left the chat before responding.

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(Despite the suspension, Harwell was able to join the chat due to a glitch that prompted Twitter to temporarily disable Spaces to fix that loophole(Opens in a new window).)

But even so, Musk seemed to maintain that sharing a link to the @ElonJet account on Mastodon amounted to doxxing. “You doxx, you get suspended, end of story,” Musk said.

In the meantime, Twitter now seems to be blocking users from tweeting out links to accounts on Mastodon.

(Twitter)

UPDATE 1: Twitter has also suspended accounts belonging(Opens in a new window) to journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and Mashable who regularly cover Elon Musk and Twitter.

So far, the social media company has given no reason for the crackdown. But the journalists have been critical of Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

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At least two of the journalists, including Mashable’s Matt Binder(Opens in a new window), had also tweeted out a statement from the Los Angeles Police Department that potentially cast doubt on Musk’s claim that a stalker had followed a car carrying his child. Both journalists’ accounts were subsequently suspended.

(Twitter)

Original story:

Twitter has suspended the account for rival social network Mastodon. 

The suspension targets the @joinmastodon(Opens in a new window) account, which has been urging users to join Mastodon, especially after Elon Musk acquired Twitter. 

So far, Twitter has given no explanation for the suspension. But it might be because @joinmastodon encouraged users to visit the recently banned @ElonJet account, except on Mastodon, where it remains available(Opens in a new window). 

In addition to the suspension, trying to tweet out a link to the @ElonJet account on Mastodon triggers a block under the claim it poses potential harm, preventing the link from circulating.

(Twitter)

The day before, Twitter permanently suspended the @ElonJet account for tracking the location of Musk’s flights. The company did so despite Musk saying he wouldn’t ban the account, citing the need to protect free speech over the social media platform. 

“My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” Musk tweeted(Opens in a new window) on Nov. 7.

However, Musk has since changed his mind, saying a “crazy stalker” had followed a car carrying one of his children the night before. In response, the company introduced a new policy that prohibits sharing real-time location information on a person, including their live travel routes.

“Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation,” Musk said in a tweet(Opens in a new window) explaining the new policy. “This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.” 

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Still, Musk is receiving criticism for backing away from his pledge to protect free speech on Twitter. The owner of the @ElonJet account, a college student named Jack Sweeney, has argued all the flight data information is already publicly available. Nevertheless, Twitter decided to not only shut down @ElonJet, but also Sweeney’s personal Twitter account, along with numerous other accounts that track jet flights for VIPs.   

The company has now decided to go after Mastodon, a rival social network that has been receiving a flood of new users ever since Musk took over Twitter. Eugen Rochko, the founder of Mastodon, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.