Elon Musk reinstated the Twitter accounts of several high-profile journalists who had been suspended earlier this week.
“The people have spoken,” the controversial new owner of the social media platform tweeted early Saturday morning. The seven temporarily blocked accounts “will have their suspension lifted now,” Musk added.
The announcement came after respondents of a Twitter poll overwhelmingly voted for the accounts to be reinstated immediately.
On Thursday, several high-profile journalists were abruptly suspended from the platform, including Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Matt Binder of Mashable, and the independent journalists Aaron Rupar and Keith Olbermann.
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Later that day, the South African-born billionaire accused the journalists of sharing private information about his location, which would violate Twitter’s private information and media policy.
The suspended journalists vehemently disputed the accusation.
“You’re suggesting that we’re sharing your address, which is not true,” Harwell told the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” during a Twitter Space audio discussion on Thursday.
In his Twitter poll, Musk asked users whether he should “unsuspend” the accounts “now” or “in 7 days.”
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Of the nearly 3.7 million Twitter users who responded to the poll, 58.7% said the accounts should be reinstated immediately.
Musk’s unprecedented suspension announcement sparked immediate backlash across social media channels, as well as sharp criticism from news organizations, government officials and media advocacy groups.
Journalists on the microblogging platform expressed appreciation for the reinstatement of the accounts — though they continue to dispute Musk’s claims.
“No matter how many times @elonmusk repeats this lie, it’s still not true,” wrote Judd Legum, an independent journalist who runs Popular Information, a newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism.
“None of these journalists doxxed Musk,” he added. “Glad their accounts have been restored though.”
As of Saturday morning, nearly all of the accounts appeared to have been reinstated.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily News.
