The owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, angered the UN and EU on Friday when he shut down the accounts of six well-known journalists and accused them of hurting his family. This made the UN and EU angry, and they sent out strong warnings.
Since Musk took over the company on October 27, journalists from CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post have been abruptly barred from the platform. This sparked the most recent scandal.
Vera Jourova, an EU commissioner, wrote on Twitter that “news regarding the arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is alarming,” expressing concern that Twitter would be subject to severe fines under European law.
“Elon Musk ought to be conscious of that. Red lines are present. sanctions, shortly,” she added.
a “dangerous precedent at a time when journalists around the world are experiencing censorship, physical threats, and even worse,” according to UN leader Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson.
The most recent issue started when Musk suspended @elonjet, an account that followed the flights of his private jet, on Wednesday.
Musk seemed to blame the incident on the fact that his jet was being tracked. He said that the move was necessary because “a crazy stalker” was following a car carrying one of his children in Los Angeles.
READ ALSO : After Twitter suspensions, the EU threatens Musk with fines
Some of the journalists had written about the situation, including tweets that Musk said amounted to “assassination coordinates” against him and his family and were linked to the suspended @elonjet account.
Musk claimed in a live Twitter conversation that “everyone’s going to be treated the same” and that “you’re not unique because you’re a journalist,” but offered no support for his assertion.
Musk halted the meeting after being pressed further on his claims. The chat function, Twitter Spaces, was subsequently shut off.
The decision got a lot of criticism from the media, and it gave them a chance to rethink their relationship with Twitter, which has become an important tool for journalism over the past ten years.
The news organisation tweeted, “The sudden and unfair suspension of a number of reporters, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, is troubling but not surprising.”
Everyone who uses the network should be extremely concerned about Twitter’s growing instability and volatility.
The New York Times said in a statement that Twitter should also explain why journalists were suspended in “questionable” ways.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which was started in Paris and works to protect press freedom around the world, said that journalists who use Twitter will face a “Kafkaesque horror.”
Twitter “should promptly reinstate these reporters’ accounts,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Jodie Ginsberg, the head of the CPJ, continued, “If proven as punishment for their work, this would be a major infringement of journalists’ ability to report the news without fear of reprisal.”
Since Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter ownership, primarily through the sale of shares in his profitable electric car company Tesla, the company has lurched from one controversy to the next.
Major advertisers have shunned the billionaire’s claims of free speech, and regulators have taken notice.
In addition to attacking Anthony Fauci, the departing senior advisor for the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a frequent target of abuse on right-wing media, Musk has restored the account of former US President Donald Trump.
CNN says that the former head of trust and safety at Twitter ran away after Musk made false claims about how Twitter filters content.
More than half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees were laid off as a result of a purge Musk ordered, and now many of them are suing the SpaceX and Tesla billionaire in court.
Musk once gave the impression that he was going to war with Apple over the App Store, only to subsequently claim via Twitter that there had been a “misunderstanding.”
Insider Intelligence, a market watcher, predicted that Twitter would lose users.
According to Insider Intelligence researcher Jasmine Enberg, there won’t be a single cataclysmic incident that brings an end to Twitter.
Instead, people will abandon the network over the next year, disillusioned with the platform’s technological difficulties and the spread of offensive or otherwise objectionable content.
