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Elon Musk has been warned he could face EU sanctions “soon” after several prominent journalists were banned from Twitter.
In a sudden purge which appeared to make a mockery of Musk‘s self-proclaimed free speech absolutism, the billionaire suggested that the reporters had been booted off for sharing personal information about him.
European Commissioner Vera Jourova said the suspensions were “worrying”, and said the billionaire owner risked crossing “red lines” in EU law protecting media freedom.
“Elon Musk should be aware of that,” she tweeted.
“There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”
Among the affected reporters are staff from CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Mashable.
The German foreign office tweeted screenshots of the banned accounts, adding: “The journalists below can no longer follow us, comment and criticise. We have a problem with that, @Twitter.”
In a bid to excuse the suspensions, which included the account of rival platform Mastodon, Musk said the “same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else”.
Musk’s reference to “doxxing rules”, which means the sharing of personal information, comes in light of Twitter suspending an account dedicated to tracking its owner’s jet.
He threatened to take legal action against the owner of @ElonJet, saying it was a risk to his “physical safety” after alleging that a “crazy stalker” attacked a car carrying his young son.
Musk suggested that the banned journalists had been punished for tweeting about the bot account.
UK fact-checking charity Full Fact, which fact-checks the media and claims on social media, said the bans were a reminder that free speech “is too important to be left in the hands of any internet company”.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not directly criticise Musk, saying “regardless of who ownership, social media platforms must balance protecting their users while upholding free speech”.
Mastodon links blocked as Twitter Spaces goes down
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