1/ Ben Collins NBC: “Journalists who cover Elon Musk have been suspended on Twitter tonight: @Donie O'Sullivan from CNN, Aaron Rupar and the Washington Post's @drewharwell.
Rupar tells me he has "no idea" why it happened.
The NYTimes' @rmac18 has been suspended from Twitter. He's been on the Elon Musk beat.
Mashable's @mattbinder has been suspended from Twitter. He's been on the Elon Musk beat.
Journalist @webster has been suspended.
2/ “ The Intercept journalist @micahflee has been suspended. He had been writing critically about Elon Musk.
Political pundit @keitholbermann has been suspended by Twitter. He had been tweeting critically of Elon Musk.
Can confirm this is from @rmac18, the NYTimes reporter who was suspended from Twitter tonight.
3/. Steve Herman, @W7VOA, the Chief National Correspondent for the U.S. government-funded Voice of America, also suspended from Twitter. You can find him on Mastodon
The Washington Post's @drewharwell, who was suspended from Twitter tonight after reporting on Elon Musk, has just posted this on his Mastodon account, which is @drewharwell.”
Mastodon is suspended from Twitter!
Free speech, my arse
@drewharwell 4/. Ben Collins 🧵 on threadreader
5/. Per Luke Zaleski:
“ The world’s richest man has taken possession of a global social media platform used by the world’s journalists, scientists, governments, private citizens, businesses, religions, militaries and health/emergency services to share all vital information—It’s going as you might expect”
6/. Per @JolyonMaugham on the Birdsite …he thinks twice before posting anything critical of Melon Head.
Understandable. His project: @goodlawproject has benefitted from its and his large Birdsite reach.
It helps to raise money for causes that would otherwise not be touched.
On that note. A link to their website.
Do sign up and donate what you can. Every little bit helps
The Government has wasted more than £9.9 billion on PPE, which is more than it would cost to give every nurse in the NHS a 100 per cent bonus on their salary. The figure comes from the Department of Health’s Annual Report, which reveals it spent: £673 million on PPE “not suitable for any use” […]
7/. It is, however, quite chilling to watch it happening in real time.
The ability to squash free, factual and accurate speech if you are rich enough to control the medium and skew it by changing algorithms and editorial choices, to those voices that fit your personal values, no matter how harmful, and commercial interests
8/. For instance here is Foxglove Legal being blocked unless they remove a factual tweet about a legal action against Facebook/Meta.
Can’t mention Zuck now?
You seeing a trend?
9/. Apparently both @mattbinder and @donnie were suspended for sharing this on-the-record statement from LAPD about Melon Head.
Pretty basic journalism no longer allowed on the Birdsite.
10/. In summary (I didn’t know about the Spaces brouhaha
12/ Here is @micahflee own account.
Elon Musk is taking aim at journalists. I’m one of them. Here's the tweet — and the journalism — that got me suspended from Twitter https://theintercept.com/2022/12/16/elon-musk-twitter-suspended-journalists/
13/. “ The suspensions made clear that, with the self-styled “free speech absolutist” at the helm, Twitter users are now subject to arbitrary censorship based on his whims. It all started when Musk suspended @ElonJet, an account that automatically tweeted the location of Musk’s personal private jet, using public flight information, along with college sophomore Jack Sweeney, who created that account.”
14/. “ Musk then revised Twitter’s policy to justify his decision.”
I do wonder whether Musk et al, making a fortune on eco credentials, might not be a tad “embarrassed” at the evidence of massive private jet usage pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
15/. @fasih asks in a poll should all journalists stop posting on the birdsite in solidarity.
Content warning: Free Speech. Journalists suspended from the Birdsite 🧵
16/. One very positive thing you can do is follow and boost those journalists banned by Melon Head who have accounts here.
Links in this tweet from @tiffanycli
Make Mastodon stronger than the Birdsite. It will take effort but so worth it.
17/. Looks as if new accounts here are beginning to pick up again.
No wonder Melon Head banned Mastodon.
I wonder how quickly it will hit 10 million accounts?
https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/109524107332467229
Attached: 1 image So, definitely a wave. For the last eight hours Mastodon has been averaging over 3000 new users per hour, on track for 75K new users today. Overall, thanks to the amazing work of instance operators, the system seems to be running well, however there is definitely more lag than usual. This new user rate, while high, is nowhere near what Mastodon experienced on Nov 18, when a quarter million users joined in one day. Still, this influx is very taxing on system administration. #twittermigration
18/. Even the BBC is reporting on it ( h/t @mikegalsworthy ) and that Melon Head putting notices up to links from people to their Matodon Account preventing them working, saying that this link is malware. Utterly baseless as the BBC says
He’s going to run into trouble with the EU.
Attached: 1 image Twitter now blocking me from sharing a Mastodon invite link. #Twitterpurge #Twittermigration
22/. I’m not a 🇺🇸 lawyer so would be interested in their commentary but the Birdsite are already in trouble with the FTC and under active measures.
Can’t help but wonder if this isn’t going to tweak their tail A LOT.
There are many good reasons why people are still using it.
For instance many journalists have built up huge followings - so a big reach- not easily or quickly replaced elsewhere.
Charitable projects (eg RNLI) raise money and awareness via Twitter
@goodlawproject too and also, due to its large follwing spreads awareness of wrong doing
Ukraine War stories : ditto.
@Fascinatorfun @drewharwell if Lone Skum needed a case study of a far-right chat network for business purposes, he could do worse than to study #45s Truth Social (unfederated) Mastodon instance. He could gain a list of pointers of things NOT to do, rather than following the playbook.
What next? Tesla trading cards?
@onebiskuit no idea what is in the loan contracts or shareholder agreements.
I think the EU Commission have him in their sights (see articles) & would be surprised if the FTC don’t.
That’s the nature of collecting evidence to shut down defences, I’m afraid.
And he must know he is followed mostly by bots that he pretended to deplore but in fact loves to give him the answers he wants on his singularly ridiculous polls.
Alice in Wonderland country. Which also started with Alice spotting a besuited White Rabbit and following him down THE Rabbit Hole. There she encounters the Queen of Hearts who orders beheadings of those who annoys her, whimsically .
@rhyn got to say I think Assange has been one of the snakes in the grass & I don’t care if he has to wait trial which could have been much MUCH sooner.
All the signs are he is a Russian agent….or a Russian patsy
@
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