Musk reinstates several journalists suspended from Twitter

2022-12-17

Elon Musk announced that the suspensions of several journalists’ Twitter accounts were lifted early Saturday morning after he polled users over whether he should “unsuspend” the reporters.

The lifted suspensions come after the social media platform suspended a number of journalists’ accounts Thursday including The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, The New York Times’ Ryan Mac, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, independent reporter Aaron Rupar and Mashable’s Matt Binder.

The journalists have all reported on Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and its chaotic aftermath.

Musk, who claimed that the journalists posted his “exact real-time location,” joined a Twitter Spaces chat on Thursday where he suggested that journalists shared his address despite Harwell’s challenge that Musk was “not true” with his remarks.

Musk, who began a Twitter poll Thursday on whether the platform should end the suspensions, tweeted that “the people have spoken” and the accounts would be reinstated on the platform early Saturday morning.

A majority of the 3.6 million users – 58.7% – who voted in the poll chose to “unsuspend” the accounts “now.”

The people have spoken.

Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now. https://t.co/MFdXbEQFCe

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2022

Rupar, who tweeted a video of a man coming out of a casket before doing a dance on Saturday, shared his gratitude for those who stood by his side during the suspension.

“I want to thank everyone for all the support and kind words over the past day and some change,” Rupar wrote.

“I was pretty bummed about getting suspended initially but quickly realized it’d be fine because I’m blessed to have an amazing online community. Seriously, I appreciate it a lot. Cheers.”

I want to thank everyone for all the support and kind words over the past day and some change. I was pretty bummed about getting suspended initially but quickly realized it’d be fine because I’m blessed to have an amazing online community. Seriously, I appreciate it a lot. Cheers

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 17, 2022

Binder was also active on Twitter on Saturday and joked that he expected the millions of people who voted to lift the suspensions “now” to follow him.

Tweets were viewable from other accounts suspended on Thursday including those from Tony Webster and Micah Lee, however, Keith Olbermann’s account still appeared to be suspended from the platform as of Saturday morning.

The reinstatements of the journalists’ accounts come after Twitter reportedly brought back a dozen accounts belonging to right-wing figures – including election deniers and COVID-19 misinformation peddlers – on Friday.

HuffPost has reached out to Twitter for comment on the platform’s recent waves of reinstatements.

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