Elon Musk’s select journalist for ‘Twitter Files’ slams him for attacking freedom of expression

An independent journalist who tweeted earlier this week Part 5 of the so-called “Twitter files”, apparently provided by Elon Musk, berated the new owner of the platform for cracking down on critical reporters.

Journalist Bari Weiss attacked Musk in tweets on Friday for ruthlessly managing a powerful social media platform on a “whim” after the CEO suspended the accounts of several prominent reporters covering him, Twitter and his other companies.

“The old regime at Twitter is ruled by its own whims and prejudices, and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem,” Weiss wrote on Twitter.

“I am against both cases. And I think journalists who covered a story of public importance should be reinstated,” she added.

Weiss was among a group of journalists who each tweeted portions of what Musk calls the Twitter files, which revealed internal discussions at Twitter about how to deal with tweets related to reports of the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Musk said he was appalled by the scrutiny the company exercised over user communications before it took over — and then suspended the accounts of journalists whose coverage he didn’t like. A Twitter executive said accounts for will be banned Violation of Twitter’s “Privacy Policy”.

The old regime at Twitter is ruled by its own whims and prejudices, and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem. I am against both cases. And I think those journalists who covered a story of public importance should be reinstated.

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 16, 2022

Weiss also tweeted that she has doubts that “unelected individuals or cliques should have that kind of power over the public conversation,” citing Musk.

I’ve never been swayed by the “Twitter is a private company” argument. And I wonder how I wrote yesterday @TheFPwhether an unelected individual or clique should have that kind of power over the public conversation. You can read it here: https://t.co/Wj00G5LrzT

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 16, 2022

Musk is outraged that his private jet flights are regularly followed on Twitter by user Jack Sweeney, a sophomore at the University of Central Florida. Musk launched both earlier this week @ElonJet tracking account and Sweeney’s personal account – and then threatened to sue Sweeney.

After suspending several journalists from CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times, Telsa’s CEO warned Thursday that anyone who “doxxt” — revealing someone else’s private or identifying information — would be suspended on Twitter.

Musk looks at his flight data – which is already publicly available – “real-time” doxxing, he tweeted. Yet the “real-time” locations of countless people are constantly being revealed on Twitter, from videos of protesters at demonstrations to celebrity appearances to the presence of politicians at rallies.

In any case, not all of the suspended journalists have reported or linked to the flight tracking information Musk is objecting to. They apparently irritated Musk in other ways, such as possibly reporting crash records of Teslas on auto-pilot or, as Weiss noted, some other “freak” of his.

Musk responded to Weiss’ attacks, although Weiss had not responded as of Friday night. He accused her, “signal virtue to show that in the eyes of the media elite one is ‘good’ to stand with one foot in both worlds.” The second world apparently belongs to him.

Musk also asked Weiss what the consequence of “doxxing someone’s precise, real-time location” should be. He added: “Suppose your child is in this place, like mine was. Bari, this is a real question, not a rhetorical one. What is your opinion?”