Twitter blocks accounts of several journalists for sharing information about location of Musk's plane

Twitter temporarily blocked the accounts of several well-known journalists who had recently written about Twitter user @elonjet. The latter regularly posted information about the location of the plane of Elon Musk, the new owner of the social network. Musk clarified that the rules prohibiting the publication of personal information apply to everyone, including journalists.

Responding to a tweet about the blocking of journalists' accounts, Musk, who has always presented himself as a supporter of free speech, wrote: "Same doxxing rules apply to 'journalists' as to everyone else."

According to Reuters, Musk was actually referring to Twitter's rules, which forbid the dissemination of personal information (called doxxing). Twitter also updated its rules on Wednesday, banning the publication of a person's current whereabouts.

Musk's tweet also refers to the blocking of a Twitter account named "@elonjet." Using publicly available data, this account tracks his private plane in real time and regularly posts where Musk's plane is at any given time. Musk threatened to sue the author of the account.

"Criticizing me all day is fine, but posting my whereabouts in real time and putting my family at risk is not," Musk wrote in another post last month that he was so committed to free speech that he was not going to do it – to block a user following his plane.

Whose accounts were blocked?

One of the blocked accounts belongs to Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell (@drewharwell), who wrote on Mastodon that he recently wrote about Musk and posted links to "publicly available, legally acquired data" on Twitter.

Twitter also blocked the accounts of Times reporter Ryan Mac (@rmac18), CNN reporter Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) and Matt Binder of Mashable (@MattBinde), freelance journalist Aaron Rupar (@atrupar).

Ryan Mac recently tweeted about the suspension of the @elonjet account and interviewed 20-year-old Jack Sweeney, who runs the account.

Twitter also shut down the official Mastodon page (@joinmastodon), which is considered one of Twitter's alternatives if Twitter goes offline at some point.

Twitter under Musk

Ever since Elon Musk acquired Twitter, the social network has been in the media spotlight regularly. Twitter's staff has been more than halved since Ilon Musk's arrival. Musk fired half of his staff almost immediately after becoming CEO. Later he fired engineers who publicly criticized him. After a while, many of the company's employees began to quit voluntarily when Musk sent them an ultimatum demanding that they either work "long hours and high intensity" or be fired. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, the company had about 7,500 employees. Now there are about 2,700 left.

However, Twitter's problems are not limited to this. Major advertisers left the companies because Musk personally called advertisers and berated them. Recently, though, Apple and Amazon resumed advertising on Twitter.

The company has also cut back on content moderators, and that work is now done through an app. content that violates the rules is not deleted, but its distribution is restricted.

As part of its cost-cutting efforts, Twitter recently disbanded its Trust and Safety Council.