Following the abrupt suspension of many journalists’ accounts who were covering the company, the EU threatened fines against Twitter’s founder Elon Musk.
One group of those unable to access their accounts were journalists for the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post.
Vera Jourova, a commissioner for the EU, stated that the new Digital Services Act of the EU mandates “the respect of media freedom.”
Twitter was also cautioned by the German Foreign Office that “press freedom cannot be switched on and off at will.”
The suspension of journalists on Twitter, according to commissioner Ms. Jourova, is “worrying.”
“Media freedom and basic rights must be respected, according to the EU’s Digital Services Act. By virtue of our Media Freedom Act, this is strengthened “She spoke.
“Elon Musk ought to be conscious of that. Red lines are present. soon, sanctions as well.”
Using the term “doxxing,” which refers to the internet publication of private information about persons, Mr. Musk tweeted that accounts that he said were involved would be temporarily suspended for seven days.
He tweeted that “journalists” are subject to the same doxxing laws as everyone else.
Earlier, a Twitter spokesperson informed technology publication The Verge that the restriction applied to the live sharing of location information.
In a $44 billion ($36 billion) agreement, Mr. Musk acquired control of Twitter in October.
The suspensions were deemed “questionable and unfortunate” by a representative for the New York Times.
After threatening to sue the owner of a profile that tracks his private jet, Mr. Musk announced it.
He said that a “crazy stalker” had tracked down and approached a car carrying his children in Los Angeles via live location sharing.
Twitter suspended the @ElonJet account and its 20-year-old owner Jack Sweeney’s personal account on Wednesday.
Since then, Mr. Musk has pledged to sue him as well as “organizations who advocated harm to my family.”
A new Digital Services Act, which is presently being reviewed by the EU Parliament but may become law by the end of the following year, might be used to implement the EU sanctions.
According to the proposed new regulation, the EU Commission will have the authority to penalise a company that it determines violates its rules up to 6% of its global revenue.
If a service is “refusing to comply with important requirements and consequently jeopardizing people’s lives and safety,” the EU may in extreme circumstances seek a court to stop it.
Press freedom cannot be turned on and off at will, the German Foreign Office warned in a tweet to the social media site.
One of those suspended, Matt Binder, a Mashable journalist, claimed he had no idea why he had been barred.
He said to the BBC, “I’ve been pretty critical of Musk in my reporting.” However, he asserted that it was untrue that Mr. Musk had claimed “that everyone that got suspended was doxxing him — due to the jet tracker”.
He said that despite mentioning the account after it was suspended, he had never tweeted a link to the tracker.
Because the link was tweeted from literally hundreds of accounts every minute, it is obvious that the individuals who were suspended were hand-picked.
Since joining Twitter in 2008, Mr. Binder has been covering the site’s progress and expressed surprise at the prohibition for journalists.
“I knew it was possible, but I truly didn’t think he would because it would completely scupper the pretense of being a free speech platform,” the author said.
According to Ella Irwin, the head of trust and safety at Twitter, prohibitions are tied to a new policy that was announced on Wednesday and forbids sharing “live location information, including information provided on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes.”
Without commenting on any individual accounts, Mrs. Irwin assured the publication that “we will suspend any accounts that breach our privacy policies and endanger other users.”
Journalists and other accounts are not exempt from this rule, according to the statement.
The father who is furious about the sharing of his private jet’s location data, which he believes caused a security incident involving his young son X, is at the center of everything. The original Twitter feed used flight data that was available to the general public. Possibly not very decent, but not against the law.
Now that reporters who allegedly knew where he was have come under his wrath.
But this approach to moderation is fundamentally faulty. Many of us probably wish we could block or suspend social media accounts that publish stuff we find objectionable.
Elon Musk has used a very personal approach to content control before. Since Alex Jones of Infowars had used child fatalities to advance his career and had highlighted the loss of his own child, 10-week-old Alexander, he refused to allow Jones back on Twitter.
Additionally, he suspended accounts that used his likeness to post.
Fundamentally, Elon Musk has put his much-promised dedication to “free speech” in the flames. The message seems to be free speech as long as it doesn’t offend him personally.
When he finished taking control of the social media platform, Elon Musk told marketers that he bought Twitter so that “civilization might have a digital town square” and “to attempt to benefit humanity.”
Even though Mr. Musk hasn’t directly addressed the bans, he did tweet that “criticizing me all day long is entirely ok, but doxxing my real-time whereabouts and endangering my family is not.”
Later, Mr. Musk addressed reporters via Twitter Spaces, a feature of the social media app that enables real-time audio discussions.
Thirty thousand people watched his brief presence, but after responding to some inquiries regarding the ban, he left, and Twitter Spaces itself thereafter appeared to be suspended.
Later, the software billionaire created a poll asking people whether they thought the accounts should be unfrozen “immediately” or “in seven days,” implying that the decision might be changed sooner rather than later.
Since Elon Musk’s takeover, Mastodon, which has become a Twitter alternative, has also had its official account suspended by Twitter.
It happened when Mastodon, according to the New York Times, on Thursday promoted Mr. Sweeney’s new account on Twitter.
It also looked that links to specific Mastodon accounts were prohibited. Users were informed via an error notice that links to Mastodon had been “identified” by Twitter or its partners as “possibly dangerous.”