Twitter has blocked the accounts of popular journalists

Twitter blocked the accounts of correspondents of CNN, the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as independent journalists.

It is not yet clear why all of these accounts were suspended. A letter requesting comment sent to the media e-mail address listed on the company’s website was returned with the message “delivery failed.

Many of the blocked journalists had published articles or posted messages about the changes in Twitter that began after the arrival of new company owner Ilon Musk.

In responses to the tweets published Thursday evening, Musk referred to doxing – the illegal dissemination of personal data on the Internet.

“You can criticize me all you want, but ‘doxxing’ my real-time location and endangering my family is not allowed,” he wrote.

“The rules regarding doxing apply to ‘journalists’ as much as to anyone else,” he added, referring to the social network’s rules regarding the dissemination of personal information.

Reuters reported that a Twitter account, @elonjet, that tracked Musk’s private jet movements in real time had been blocked earlier, despite Musk saying a month earlier that his commitment to free speech included keeping the account running.

A spokesman for the New York Times said, “The suspension of the Twitter accounts of several prominent journalists, including Ryan Mack of the New York Times, is questionable and unfortunate. Neither the New York Times nor Ryan has received any explanation as to why this happened. We hope that the accounts of all these journalists will be restored and that Twitter will provide a satisfactory explanation of its actions.”

CNN, in a statement, described the blocking as “impulsive and unjustified,” saying the network had sent Twitter a request for clarification. The network said it would reconsider its relationship with the platform depending on the response to that request.

Twitter now relies more on automation to moderate content than manual analysis of individual cases, Ella Irwin, head of trust and security, told Reuters earlier this month.

At the time Herman’s account was suspended, the journalist with years of experience had about 112,000 followers. About an hour before his account was suspended, Herman published a post about other journalists whose accounts had been removed from the platform.