As you likely have seen, Thursday evening, a number of journalists found their Twitter accounts suspended after Elon Musk declared that their sharing of forbidden content and links to sites supplying such was deemed a violation of revealing personal location data. As a result, an uproar was felt in the journalism community, and all manner of subsequent outrage is still being seen.
At CNN, they joined in on the mewling chorus of distemper by calling a panel together to hold a grudge quorum in response to this outrage act by Elon Musk. That these media experts feel as if no one is aware of the stark hypocrisy is only the first shred of amusement. Watching the stammering and frothing taking place that is on par with a teenager’s reaction to a grounding only adds to the merriment.
First, I need to state that I am not in favor of accounts of select journalists being suspended or shut down. I favor expression and am not afraid of divergent opinions having a forum. Good luck catching me resorting to phrases such as “in the name of safety” or other veiled justifications for closing off avenues of thought, unless actual threats are present. We could haggle over these new suspensions qualifying as such, but just understand that I am not cheering the removal of these voices at this time.
Now, as you see the various journalists wailing over this development, understand the lack of scale. On Mastodon (the alternative social platform many a journo is fleeing to these days), it seems the only topic anyone can discuss is Twitter. The trending hashtags display the hysterics at play; #TwitterPurge, #BloodyThursday, #ThursdayNightMassacre. Now balance that against reality. As indicated, a number of journalists were suspended.