Said Taylor Lorenz, Washington Post technology columnist Twitter The account was suspended Saturday after she tweeted a request for comment on Elon Muskthe tech mogul and the new owner of the social network, about a story she was working on.
Lorenz’s Twitter account (@TaylorLorenz), which she activated in 2010, had more than 340,000 followers before it was suspended. “Earlier tonight, Elon Musk suspended my Twitter account,” she said I wrote on her Substack. “I have not received any communication from the company regarding the reason for my suspension or the terms that I have violated.”
“Super crazy,” Lorenz said in a post She shared a TikTok video Saturday evening. Lorenz was tweeting from an alternate Twitter account, @nodreamsoflabor, before it was blocked as well.
Musk has not publicly commented on Lorenz’s Twitter comment. There was no response to a request for comment diverse Via email to the Twitter PR inbox.
The Twitter ban followed Lorenz, who was a regular tweeter and Musk, after the mega-billionaire The Twitter accounts of several journalists have been suspended Thursday – claiming to have ‘kidnapped’ him, after some (but not all) posted links to his private jet tracker account – before re several of them on friday evening.
The deactivation of Lorenz’s account, without any clear explanation, makes it clear that Musk, who has called himself a “freedom of speech”, is now waging a campaign to keep information and comments critical of him off the platform he bought for $44 billion.
In the Substack post, Lorenz said there were only three direct tweets on her Twitter account when it was banned: two that promoted her TikTok and Instagram profiles, and a third asking Musk to comment on a story involving Musk and fellow WaPo Drew Harwell (whose account was banned). Then unblocked) it was working on.
Lorenz did not provide details on what the story is about. Her tweet at Musk said in part, “We have learned some information that we would like to share and discuss with you.”
At least two journalists banned from Twitter and then unblocked this week, Aaron Robar and Tony Webster, have denied that they posted any information that could be interpreted as “doxxing,” which refers to sharing someone’s private information online without their permission. “This is not the freedom of speech we were promised,” Webster wrote on Twitter Friday night. “To be clear, there was no ‘distortion’ – even if a hasty and irresponsible oligarch said it.”
Twitter is asking some of the journalists it has suspended to delete tweets deemed to violate Musk’s new brand policy prohibiting sharing real-time location information (“regardless of whether such information is publicly available”). Podcast writer and political commentator Keith Olbermann on Saturday A post from his Twitter account for dog rescue Regarding @keitholbermann’s comment, “I got unblocked then temporarily blocked then reblocked then blocked until I delete a tweet you can’t see anyway… in a couple of hours. What a buffoon that snowflake @elonmusk is.”
Among the journalists whose Twitter accounts were suspended — and not reinstated — was Fox Business correspondent Susan Lee (@susanlitv), who said in piece on the net On Friday, she was kicked out of the social network after posting a link to an aircraft-tracking website to show how Musk’s private jet could be tracked using publicly available sources. Also still blocked on Twitter as of Saturday is Insider’s Lynette Lopez (@lopezlinette), who has reported on Musk and his companies for years. Lopez he told the Associated Press Shortly before her suspension, she posted legal documents on Twitter that included an email address for Musk from 2018, but Lopez said it was not valid.
On Friday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the current chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, criticized Musk’s ban on journalists. “Elon Musk calls himself the ultimate freedom of expression, to justify turning a blind eye to hate and bigotry on Twitter. But when journalists report unfavorable news, they get banned without notice,” Schiff wrote in a post. tweet. “Obviously, dedication to free speech is not absolute. Hypocrisy is.”
musk answered To Schiff, “Fortunately, you will lose your presidency very soon. Your brain is very young.”
On Instagram, Lorenz posted a photo of herself on Saturday with New York Times reporter Ryan Mack, both of whom had their hands over their mouths.
“Twitteraholic. Total bacon fan. Explorer. Typical social media practitioner. Beer maven. Web aficionado.”