Musk lifts suspensions of journalists' Twitter accounts after poll
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has lifted the suspensions imposed on several journalists' accounts on the platform earlier this week after participants in a poll he posted called for the accounts to be restored immediately.
“The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now,” Musk tweeted early Saturday morning.
The results of the poll showed about 59 percent of users who voted favored lifting the suspensions "now," while about 41 percent said they should be lifted in seven days.
Most of the suspended accounts had been unlocked as of Saturday morning, but accounts for Keith Olbermann and Insider's Linette Lopez were still suspended.
The lifting of the suspensions came after Musk received widespread backlash from commentators on both sides of the political aisle, some politicians and journalists over the accounts being blocked.
Musk has emphasized that he aims to protect "free speech" on the platform, but some critics slammed him for hypocrisy after the journalists were suspended.
Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) tweeted on Thursday that Musk had just told her team that the platform would not retaliate against journalists who published criticism of him on Twitter, shortly before the accounts were suspended.
Musk has claimed that the journalists were providing personal information about his location that amounted to “assassination coordinates.” The reporters and commentators have said they were covering Twitter’s suspension of another account that tracked the location of Musk’s private jet using publicly available information.
Musk had previously said he would not suspend that account shortly after he acquired Twitter.
He said doxing and giving real-time information on someone’s location should not be considered protected free speech. But conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who has been mostly supportive of the changes Musk has made to the platform, said the suspended account was not doing those things.
Shapiro tweeted that he is sympathetic to Musk wanting to stop doxing on Twitter, but doxing is generally giving someone’s specific current location, not speculating based on flight information available to the public.