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Independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann, and Tony Webster were among the reporters who were suspended from Twitter on Thursday night following their coverage of CEO Elon Musk.
According to NBC News, other high-profile journalists like CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, Mashable’s Matt Binder, The New York Times’ Ryan Mac, and The Intercept’s Micah Lee were also suspended from the platform.
Rupar’s account was reportedly suspended after the suspension of @/Elonjet Twitter account that tracked the movement of Musk’s private jet. Shortly after, the billionaire said that Twitter will levy a seven-day ban on accounts sharing the live locations of other individuals for doxxing.
He also said that criticizing him was “okay” but tracking his real-time location and “endangering” his family was not. However, Aaron Rupar told CNN that he never disclosed any locations or shared any information related to Elon Jet:
“I never posted anything Elon Jet related or that could violate the policy about disclosing locations. Unless the policy is that you criticize Elon and you get banned.”
According to the Independent, a day before Rupar’s suspension he published a Substack article written by Noah Berlatsky titled “Elon Musk’s Reactionary Populism,” criticizing the Tesla CEO.
As per The Washington Post, some of the suspended journalists had allegedly posted a link to the jet tracking account on Twitter’s rival platform Mastodon Social. In addition to the reporters, Mastodon’s handle was also suspended on Twitter.
The string of suspensions came after Twitter updated its Private Information and Media Policy on Wednesday. The latest update stated:
“If your account is dedicated to sharing someone’s live location, your account will be automatically suspended.”
The policy also noted that “live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes, actual physical location, or other identifying information that would reveal a person’s location, regardless if this information is publicly available” is also prohibited on Twitter.
In the wake of the suspension, Keith Olbermann told Variety that his Twitter account was first suspended and then permanently suspended following his tweets in support of other banned journalists.
Meanwhile, Drew Harwell told CNN:
“Elon says he is a free speech champion and he is banning journalists for exercising free speech. I think that calls into question his commitment.”
A CNN spokesperson also called the suspensions “impulsive and unjustified,” including Donie O’Sullivan's. Meanwhile, Aaron Rupar confirmed on Substack that his Twitter account was permanently suspended but he did not have any other information from the platform.
Aaron Rupar has worked as an associate editor at ThinkProgress and Vox Media
Aaron Rupar is an American journalist based in Washington. He was born on October 3, 1983, and is known for covering policy and national politics. The reporter graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political science from Hamline University.
He also earned a Master's degree in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota. He began his career as a teaching assistant at the University of Minnesota in 2007 before working as a staff writer at Minnesota Premier Publications between 2010 and 2011.
Rupar also worked as a staff writer at Voice Media Group between 2011 and 2014. The following year, he joined Fox 9 as a web reporter, social media manager, and digital producer. The journalist left Fox to join the Center for American Progress as an associate editor of ThinkProgress in 2016.
He went on to become an associate editor of Politics & Policy for Vox Media in 2018. He continued his role at Vox until 2021 before venturing to cover national politics as an independent journalist. Prior to the suspension of his Twitter account, Aaron Rupar had 780,000 followers on the platform.
