Twitter reinstates majority of journalists’ suspended accounts

SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk said on Saturday that Twitter was reinstating the suspended accounts of several journalists after the billionaire accused them of violating the social media platform’s rules regarding personal privacy.

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Musk said his decision came after a majority of respondents in his formal Twitter poll voted that the suspensions should be lifted, The New York Times reported. According to CNN, nearly 59% of the nearly 3.7 million participants voted in favor of immediately restoring the accounts. The survey ended Friday night.

According to the Times, the suspended accounts included those of Ryan Mac of the Times; Drew Harwell of The Washington Post; Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist; Donie O’Sullivan of CNN; Matt Binder of Mashable; Tony Webster, an independent journalist; Micah Lee of The Intercept; Keith Olbermann, a political journalist; and Business Insider columnist Linette Lopez.

Musk had accused the reporters of posting “basically assassination coordinates” for him and his family, The Washington Post reported. The comment was an apparent reference to the journalists’ reporting and tweets about Twitter’s decision to suspend the @ElonJet account, which had been using public flight data to share the location of Musk’s private plane.

While the accounts were made publicly viewable on Saturday, the journalists were restricted from posting until they removed the tweets that Musk said had violated Twitter’s rules, CNN reported.

O’Sullivan and Harwell both told CNN on Saturday that they had not agreed to delete the tweets, opting instead to appeal the decision.

“It’s journalism,” Harwell wrote in his appeal, adding that his tweet did not include a “link to anyone’s private information.”

The accounts of Olbermann and Lopez remained suspended as of Saturday afternoon.

“I don’t know why I was suspended,” Lopez, of Business Insider, told the Post on Friday. “And I haven’t heard anything from Twitter.”

Lopez added that she had not written or tweeted about the controversy over Musk’s flight data, but that she had reported about court documents that revealed how Musk had harassed critics and revealed personal information about them in the past, according to the newspaper.

Johannes Bahrke, a spokesperson for the European Commission, called the reinstatement “encouraging” but added that he was concerned about the arbitrary decisions by Musk.

“These things should happen in a framework, not just because someone decides they should,” Bahrke told the Times.

“It’s impossible to square Twitter’s free speech aspirations with the purging of critical journalists’ accounts,” Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement on Thursday. “The First Amendment protects Musk’s right to do this, but it’s a terrible decision. Their accounts should be restored immediately.”

The suspensions were also criticized by conservative media outlets, the Post reported.

“This is crazy,” “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said.

“If they were just being critical of (Musk), he’s got to explain why those people were suspended,” co-host Steve Doocy added.

“The old regime at Twitter governed by its own whims and biases and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem,” Bari Weiss, a former opinion writer for the Times, wrote in a tweet. “I oppose it in both cases. And I think those journalists who were reporting on a story of public importance should be reinstated.”

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