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Stephen Dujarric, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said on Friday he was “very disturbed” by Elon Musk’s suspension of journalists from Twitter, calling it a dangerous precedent.
“We are deeply disturbed by the arbitrary suspension of journalists’ accounts we see on Twitter,” Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference.
Dujarric said media voices should not be silenced on platforms that claim to be free speech spaces. The spokesman said the move set a dangerous precedent at a time when journalists around the world are facing scrutiny, physical threats and worse.
Twitter, led by Elon Musk, suspended the accounts of several journalists on Thursday and displayed “account suspension” notices for them on the site.
In response to whether the UN would consider its decision to engage with Twitter, a UN spokesperson said, “We are monitoring developments on a daily basis. Twitter, with its dominant position in the market, remains an extremely important platform for us to share facts and information .”
He added: “We’ve also seen a very concerning uptick in hate speech, disinformation about climate and other topics on the platform. So we’re just keeping a close eye on that.”
Twitter has suspended the accounts of about half a dozen high-profile journalists who have been reporting on the social media site and its owner, Elon Musk, for violating its rules against “doxxing.”
The suspended accounts included Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept, political reporters Keith Olbermann, Aaron Rupar and Tony Webster, according to The New York Times reported that they were all independent journalists.
The social media platform displayed an “account suspension” notice on the journalists’ accounts.
Twitter issued a policy update on Thursday (local time) prohibiting the sharing of “real-time location information, including information shared directly on Twitter or third-party URL links for travel directions.”
Twitter user Mike Solana pointed out in his tweet that the suspended account had posted links to the jet tracker on other websites. Responding to Solana, Musk said: “The same doxxing rules apply to ‘reporters,’ as they do to everyone else.”
In a further response to Solana’s tweet, Musk wrote, “It’s perfectly fine to criticize me all day long, but not to doxx my real-time location and endanger my family.”
“They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter’s terms of service,” Musk tweeted.
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