Why Elon Musk's ban on journalists showed a lack of judgment
"Thou Shalt Not Surprise the Media," is a cardinal rule in communications that wasn't followed by Elon Musk's deplatforming of journalists on Twitter.
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Summary: Twitter’s communications strategy on the deplatforming of journalists critical of Elon Musk wasn’t clear. Although the reason given for their bans was posting real-time flight location for his jet, the assumption it was over critical coverage has taken hold.
You saw what you wanted to see with Twitter deplatforming journalists yesterday. One way to see it was Elon Musk getting retribution on journalists critical of him and the exposure of the self-avowed free speech advocate as a hypocrite. The other way was a justified suspension consistent with Twitter's policy for disclosing real-time information on his whereabouts during his flight travels.
One thing I think would have helped Musk's case was a more effective and clear communications strategy on the suspensions. One of the chief sins for making major moves like that is "Thou Shalt Not Surprise the Media," and that's exactly what happened here. As best as I can tell the sequence of events, the first step was these journalists being banned without any explanation, leaving everyone to guess why and make assumptions. The initial conclusion was it because these journalists were critical of Musk. Twitter and Musk after the fact came out with a broad-based explanation on disclosure of flight information that may or may not have made sense for each of the bans. By the time that came out, however, the assumption these journalists were banned for being critical of Musk had already taken hold.
That's why I think Musk is losing the public relations battle here. For my part, I find myself ping-ponging on whether or not the suspensions were justified. I find it just a little too convenient of all the Twitter users to get deplatformed at once, the ones that were picked were a handful that were consistently critical of Musk. It doesn't help these journalists say they weren't given any explanation, nor any personal warning before the ban, so we're left to guess the reason why. On the other hand, Twitter was very specific about its change in policy this week prohibiting the disclosure of real-time information of an individual's location. It's possible these journalists knew very well the change and continued to post links to movement of Musk's personal jet as part of a scheme to bait Twitter into banning them to get a story.
To catch you up on the details, each of the journalists who were suspended — including Donie O’Sullivan, Drew Harwell, Ryan Mac and Aaron Rupar — have records of speaking out against Musk. They also recently posted links to ElonJet, an account operated by 20-year-old Jack Sweeney that tracks the movement of Musk's jet via FAA data. The ElonJet account was suspended this week on Twitter, consistent with the updated Twitter policy against doxxing a person's location. But that hasn't stopped identical ElonJet accounts on other social media platforms, including Mastodon, which has emerged as the chief alternative to Twitter. The reporters who were banned yesterday seem to have posted on Twitter links to those external accounts. I have yet to see definitive evidence that each of the journalists, in fact, posted that information, although that seems to be a widely accepted conclusion at this point.
Sara Brady, an Orlando, Fla.-based crisis communications expert, responded to an inquiry from the Weekly Dystopia to assess the communications strategy behind Musk suspending these journalists and gave me a decidedly negative review:
"While Mr. Musk has the right to do this, he most likely will pay a price down the road when he really has a need for the media to report on him and his businesses. It’s not smart or good business."
Free speech has been at the top of the values for the Weekly Dystopia, as demonstrated by my writing here, and among the institutions facing new challenges. At the same time, I'm clear-eyed social media platforms belong to private companies and aren't the public square. I think it's reasonable for a social media platform to adopt certain limitations on speech beyond the scope of the First Amendment as long as the censorship is done for discourse widely deemed unacceptable, such as a Nazi symbol in the Star of David, and executed with transparency and generally applicability.
Flight information is public information, so that would seem, at least at first blush, content better placed in the category of information that should be freely posted on Twitter, or anywhere for that matter. Given the public availability of that information, Musk taking down accounts with his flight information would appear inconsistent with free speech principles. (There's some dispute, however, about whether the location of Musk's jet is public information. Tim Pool, a journalist and commentator, posted to Twitter evidence Musk got an exemption for his jet by obtaining a Privacy ICO Address, or a PIA, which Musk himself validated as "correct.")
Whether or not Musk's flight information is publicly available, we live in an age where doxxing — or disclosing an individual's contact information or residence without their content — is looked upon with disdain as unacceptable. The act of revealing that information has become a cardinal sin in the internet age under the justifiable belief it could open a person to harassment and potential danger. For someone as high-profile and controversial as Musk, I could see why he'd be uncomfortable with the disclosure of the jet position, which would arguably be seen as a guide for coordinates to send a missile to shoot it down. Other accounts disclosing the location of private jets for other entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, were also removed from Twitter after Musk updated the policy, which suggests the change is being applied even-handedly.
Meanwhile, Musk as I was writing this post on Friday continued to tweet in defense of his actions. When Bari Weiss, who had recently given coverage favorable to Musk with the Twitter Files, posted to Twitter a skeptical take on suspending the journalists and called for their reinstatement, Musk posted back a question on whether it was OK to dox information about him and his family, then demanded an answer when she didn't respond. The billionaire entrepreneur is coming off as desperate.
If you've been reading the Weekly Dystopia, you'd would have seen articles generally favorable to Musk in terms of his stated goal of bringing free speech to Twitter and critical of his opponents on that ideal, as well as those who have anticipated or even relished in the idea he would bring about the demise of the social media platform.
But I find more and more Musk's approach to Twitter is beginning to baffle me. Setting aside the fact the $44 billion purchase seems bad to begin with as a business investment, he's making himself a distinctly partisan figure for someone operating an online forum intended for everyone. One move that particularly stood out this week was Musk posting to Twitter, "My pronouns are prosecute/Fauci," which took aim at two institutions the left thinks are sacrosanct. There may be a reasonable basis for that sentiment even if the literal meaning is extreme, but the owner of Twitter making that post sets a tone for the platform that alienates potential users and advertisers.
I can't imagine other entities with business holdings in Twitter are happy with an approach that effectively limits the appeal to a broad audience. There's continued exodus of users to other platforms, including Mastodon, an open-source platform with more explicit rules against bigoted content (while still allowing accounts with the position of Musk's jet coordinates). Mastodon, which is said to have 2 million users, has a long way to go to catch up as Twitter, which has an estimated 450 million. But if Musk keeps operating the company this way, I could see that difference between the two school media platforms beginning to even out a little more quickly.
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