The suspensions affected several journalists and commentators, including Texas Observer journalist Steven Monacelli, Ken Klippensten of The Intercept, podcaster Rob Rousseau, and Alan MacLeod of MintPress News. The landing page for their accounts says it’s been suspended, but does not give any explanation as to why. A message on the profiles simply states “X suspends accounts which violate the X rules.”
The ban didn’t just hit journalists either. Several prominent-left leaning accounts were also purged from the website, including the account for the TrueAnon podcast and @zei_squirrel, a cartoon squirrel that tweets media criticism of figures like Glenn Greenwald.
This isn’t the first time the site has banned reporters. In April, it permanently suspended Wired reporter Dell Cameron after he spoke with a hacker who accessed conservative pundit Matt Walsh’s emails. In December of 2022, it suspended the accounts of ten journalists who’d been critical of site owner Elon Musk.
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-x-twitter-journalists-banning-spree-1851151593
https://twitter.com/liz_franczak/status/1744712132015370527
Edit: they’re back now
Some people have their ego tied to their follower count and it’s sad.
Mastodon is the obvious choice for people already using Lemmy. They’re both part of the Fediverse.
Not just an ego thing - some people have livelihoods that depend on their follower count. Twitter is very important to update Youtube subscribers, Twitch followers etc. on things. Remember, we are in the early stages of the Technological Adoption Life Cycle (assuming the Fediverse actually catches on) so most people don’t use the Fediverse. As a content creator, you have to adapt to what people currently use.
sounds like we need a commercial cooperative social media organization that can foot bills like this to give users/creators alternative options, without restricting their reach. i don’t want to give twitter that much money, but an org that can foot that bill probably has to make significantly more than 500k USD / year. social media can be big money if its done well. maybe a bunch of crafty marxists and nerds can figure that out. i’m working on some plans to give it a shot, mastodon has a lot of potential, but there are a lot of on-boarding issues that i think could be easily solved by caring a little less about advertising “federation and open source” as the main selling point. ya feel?
i don’t think this is particularly “revolutionary”, but with facebook entering a woefully unprepared fediverse (and being cheered on by mastodon core devs) i think some kind of leftist media platform needs to be assembled to mount a resistance and carve out a niche that isn’t overrun by reactionaries and liberals.
