Elon Musk’s attitude softens, restores Twitter accounts of journalists

Elon Musk, chief executive of microblogging site Twitter, has reinstated the Twitter accounts of journalists who were suspended last week for reporting about Musk. Musk had conducted a poll on Twitter regarding restoring the accounts of journalists, in which most of the users voted in favor of restoring these accounts.

The question sent by Reuters in this regard has not received any response from Twitter. Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Twitter Account restoration is welcomed. However, at the same time Volker said that his apprehensions remain. He said, “Twitter has a responsibility to respect human rights. Elon Musk must commit to making decisions based on publicly available policies. This includes free speech.”

The United Nations and the European Union (EU) had also raised objections to the blocking of journalists on Twitter. Twitter changed its policy last week, saying that accounts or tweets that do anything other than share a person’s location during humanitarian efforts or public events will be removed. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had expressed concern over the suspension of journalists from Twitter and called it a dangerous example. The EU had warned of imposing restrictions on Twitter.

The EU had said that restrictions could be imposed on Twitter in the upcoming media law. EU Commissioner Vera Jourova tweeted, “It is worrying that journalists are being unilaterally suspended on Twitter. The EU’s Digital Services Act requires media freedom and fundamental rights to be respected. This is reflected in our Media Freedom Act.” “Repeated. Elon Musk should be aware of this. Violation of this may lead to sanctions.” Twitter had banned the accounts of many journalists who used to give reports related to Musk. These included journalists from the Washington Post, the New York Times, Mashable, CNN and Substack. The tweets of these journalists were also deleted.