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New York Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-CortezsaysElon Musk’s decision to ban journalists for what he claims are safety reasons comes as he is elevating right-wing accounts that have put her own safety in danger.
On Thursday night, a swath of journalists at high-profile outlets including CNN andThe Washington Postsaw their accounts deactivated, suddenly and without warning.
Musk deactivated the ElonJet accountbefore banning a slew of reporter profiles, includingThe New York Times' Ryan Mac,The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, Matt Binder of Mashable, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The Intercept’s Micah Lee, political commentator Keith Olbermann, journalist Aaron Rupar, and freelancer Tony Webster, per multiple outlets.
“Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism. Maybe try putting down your phone,” the Democrat added.
In another tweet, Ocasio-Cortez pointed out the seeming hypocrisy of deactivating accounts that share flight coordinates while elevating right-wing accounts that she said have shared photos of her home and vehicle.
“As someone who has been subject to real + dangerous plots, I do get it. I didn’t have security and have experienced many scary incidents,” she wrote. “In fact, many of the right-wing outlets you now elevate published photos of my home, car, etc. At a certain point you gotta disconnect.”
Even some right-wing personalities agreed with Ocasio-Cortez’s assessment.
FormerViewco-hostMeghan McCainshared AOC’s tweet, saying the lawmaker “is completely right here.”
“I look forward to the next round of dramatic ‘twitter files’ showing how it’s only leftists who censors their critics & Elon is some kind ‘free speech warrior,'” McCain added, alluding to the documents Musk released earlier this month.
Adding to the seeming hypocrisy of Musk banning journalists for safety purposes is that he himself has been accused of putting Twitter workers in danger.
The former head of Trust and Safety at Twitter Yoel Roth, who resigned from the company in November, has beenfacing online attacks and threats of violencefollowing Musk’s release of the internal Twitter documents.
The alleged threats against Roth reportedly increased after Muskapparentlysupportedtweetssuggesting, without merit, that the former Twitter employee was sympathetic toward pedophilia, per a CNN report. TheWashingtonPostreports that Roth and his family wereforced from their homein the wake of the online harassment.
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Sincepurchasing Twitter for $44 billionearlier this year, Musk has made a number of controversial and at times bizarre decisions, including rolling out the widely panned"Twitter Blue" verificationsystem and laying off thousands of employees.
source: people.com
