Twitter Starts Restoring Suspended Accounts of Journalists — What Changes Their Mind

Twitter has begun to reinstate suspended accounts for violating certain rules, according to Engadget. On its Safety account, the platform identified some policies where the permanent suspension was a "disproportionate action for breaking Twitter rules."

With this, Twitter will remove suspensions every week and in the next month. Accounts of Mastodon and journalists that were recently banned due to new doxing rules are now reinstated.

What Happened?

It can be recalled that the social platform banned several accounts in the past week. One of them is @ElonJet which tracks Elon Musk's private jet flights. Other accounts that also tracked government agency planes and high-profile individuals were banned as well.

Musk announced that accounts that are doxing real-time location info of anyone would be suspended. He also said that a stalker followed a vehicle carrying his child and that he would take legal action against Jack Sweeney, who runs the @ElonJet account on the platform.

Following that, Twitter suspended the account of Mastodon, which is its rival social network, when it tweeted a link to the account tracking Musk's private jet.

As mentioned, the platform suspended several accounts of journalists who reported on Elon Musk and Twitter. Based on Musk's responses, these journalists' accounts were suspended due to their new doxing rules.

After the suspension of several journalists' accounts, Musk then posted a poll asking whether he should reinstate accounts that doxxed his exact location in real-time. The "now" option won, and Musk promised that these accounts would be restored.

In a tweet, "The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now," Musk said.

In addition, Twitter's privacy policy was also updated to say that users "may not publish or post other people's private information without their express authorization and permission."

EU and the UN Condemns the Move

Following the suspensions, the EU, the UN, journalists, and governments condemned the move. According to the UN, "Media freedom is not a toy. A free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful disinformation."

On the other hand, EU said that they may sanction Twitter under Europe's new Digital Services Act.

Too Many Changes Going On

Since Musk took the helm at Twitter, he has made many changes, specifically to its moderation. In addition, he has restored several previously banned accounts, such as former President Donald Trump's profile.

Mush has also cut several employees and has stopped paying rent for some of the offices, including in the San Francisco headquarters, as reported by the New York Times.