Does Elon Musk fear for his family's safety?

Elon Musk's Twitter has suspended the accounts of a number of prominent US journalists for violating a recently introduced location-sharing policy, according to the entrepreneur.

At least seven well-known journalists who frequently write about Musk and his company were kicked out on Thursday. These include The Washington Post's Drew Harwell, CNN's Donie O'Sullivan and The New York Times' Ryan Mac.

According to CNN, Twitter's "growing instability and volatility should be of great concern to all users of the platform," while The New York Times called the ban "questionable and sad." CNN, however, did not make any such statements when the previous Twitter administration blocked countless conservative accounts.

The bans came in response to criticism of the deletion of ElonJet, an account owned by 20-year-old US student Jack Sweeney, which leaked information about the whereabouts of Musk's private jet.

Musk announced a Twitter rules change on Wednesday that bans the posting of users' "live" locations after deleting the ElonJet account. Referring to a confrontation between his child and a "crazy stalker," he claimed the ElonJet account put his family in danger. According to Musk, Sweeney will face legal action.

In their reporting, some of the suspended journalists had mentioned a new ElonJet account that Sweeney had set up with Mastodon, a budding Twitter competitor.

On Thursday, the non-profit organization that runs the Mastodon platform also deactivated its Twitter account. The service classified the tweets as "possibly dangerous," which discouraged many Twitter users from sharing links to their own Mastodon pages.

Following the bans, Musk explained on Twitter that "journalists" are subject to the same restrictions on doxxing as everyone else. Publishing private information about an individual, such as B. the residential address, is referred to as "doxxing".

Musk continued, "Criticizing me all day is perfectly acceptable, but revealing the safety of my family and my whereabouts in real-time is not."

Although a Twitter poll he organized found that 43% of respondents wanted the bans to be lifted quickly and 38% wanted them to be lifted longer, he later wrote that journalists' accounts should be banned for seven days.

Musk had previously claimed that the existence of the ElonJet account was evidence of his commitment to free speech on Twitter.