The IT Nerd

Earlier today, I mentioned in a post that Elon Musk is having whatever staff is left at Twitter censor any Tweet that has links to Mastodon. This behaviour was called out by noted cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs:

The thing is, it’s not just Mastodon. Other social media sites are getting this treatment:

The core reason why this is happening is that Elon doesn’t want Twitter users to have an easy off ramp to Mastodon or some other social media platform. And he’s doing this for the following reasons:

• Mastodon and sites like it are a threat to Elon because they take users away from Twitter.
• Less people on Twitter means that it’s a less appealing place for the few advertisers who still want to advertise on Twitter.
• Less advertisers on Twitter means less money for Elon.
• Less money for Elon means that he’s either got to fund Twitter out of his own pocket (which includes paying whatever he has to on $13 billion in loans that he secured to buy Twitter) or let Twitter die. Which if Twitter died, it would be a huge hit to his rather fragile ego.

In short, we’re seeing the desperation that I spoke of earlier this week increase. And if we see him start to block links to Facebook or Instagram, we’ll know that he’s in a very dark place trying anything to turn things around.

I have said it before and I will say it again. We are in the endgame. At this point, what we’re watching is to see how this all ends.

The headline that people are paying attention to is the fact that Elon Musk decided to suspend the Twitter accounts of a bunch of journalists last night. That has gotten the predictable blow back that you’d expect from such a dumb move, including from the EU. But that’s not the only thing that he did last night. Let’s walk through everything else that happened. Starting with a Spaces event that Elon Musk joined. And then abruptly left when questions about suspending the accounts of journalists started to be asked. Here’s a recording for your review:

Shortly after that, the Spaces feature was disabled. It’s not clear if Spaces is disabled forever or for now. But clearly this Spaces event was enough that Elon ordered someone to turn the feature off. Clearly Elon has very thin skin.

Next up is the fact that Mastodon started to trend on Twitter last night. And I believe that Elon tried to stop it from trending. I noted this in a few Tweets:

It did return to the top ten of my trending list only to disappear again. As in “poof” it was gone in the blink of an eye. While I have no proof that Elon did this. It seems likely that he did after 9to5Mac editor Chance Miller noted this:

Keep in mind that Mastodon is a confederation of servers that is largely not for profit. If Elon Musk is afraid of them, he must really be in trouble.

I really think when the history is written about what went on with Twitter after Elon Musk bought it, I think it will say that last night is the moment when Twitter started to really implode. Thus I would fully expect to see more crisis moments with Twitter and Elon in the coming days as the platform starts to die a slow death.

Last night, Elon Musk banned a number of journalists from Twitter. That of course set the Internet alight and sent people running to Mastodon. He did a whole lot more than that as well, but I will get to that in a separate story later today. But in that story, I said this:

Given the attention that this is getting, I believe that a number of things are likely to happen: 

• The EU will see this and make moves to make his life miserable. 
• Departures to Mastodon will accelerate. 
• I would not at all be surprised if Capitol Hill gives him a call and asks him to explain himself in front of a Congressional Hearing.

Well, the EU has chimed in and fired a warning shot across Elon’s bow:

Elon Musk’s decision to suddenly ban prominent tech journalists from Twitter is fanning a fierce backlash in Europe.

Germany warned of the impact on press freedom, while a senior EU official said Twitter must comply with the bloc’s rules or face possible sanctions. 

“Freedom of the press cannot be switched on and off as you please,” Germany’s foreign ministry tweeted on Friday. “As of today these journalists are no longer able to follow us, to comment or criticize. We have a problem with that @Twitter.”

Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s vice president for values and transparency, said the “arbitrary suspension” of journalists was “worrying,” and she indicated that the company could face penalties as a result.

“The EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct,” Jourová said in a post on Twitter, adding that Musk “should be aware of that.” 

“There are red lines,” she continued. “And sanctions, soon.”

The EU doesn’t fool around with this sort of stuff. If they say they’re going to do something, they will do it. And it will hurt Elon because EU sanctions tend to be really painful. The thing is, he had to have known that something like this would have happened if he went about banning journalists on Twitter. Though, he has proven to be a “ready, fire, aim” sort of person who doesn’t think through the consequences of his actions before he does something. And it looks like that’s about to come back to bite him. Which means it really sucks to be Elon as it looks like he’s going to get slapped pretty hard.

I hope it was worth it Elon.

In a move that I guarantee is going to end badly for Elon Musk, multiple news outlets are reporting that Twitter has suspended the accounts of a number of journalists. From CNN:

Elon Musk’s Twitter banned Thursday the accounts of multiple journalists covering the technology industry without explanation.

Accounts belonging to CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, the New York Times’ Ryan Mac, and the Washington Post’s Drew Harwell and several other tech journalists were all abruptly suspended.

“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,” Harwell told CNN.

The account of progressive independent journalist Aaron Rupar was also banned. Rupar told CNN he has received no communication from Twitter about the ban. “Nothing,” he said in a phone call.

From NBC:

The accounts of Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America and independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann and Tony Webster had all been suspended as of Thursday evening.

The Twitter account for Mastodon, a platform billed as an alternative, was also suspended early Thursday evening.

Musk indicated that the suspensions stemmed from the platform’s new rules banning private jet trackers, responding to a tweet from Mike Solana, vice president of venture capital firm Founders Fund, who noted that the suspended accounts had posted links to jet trackers on other websites.

“Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” he added in another tweet.

Finally from Reuters:

Twitter Inc on Thursday suspended the accounts of several journalists, including ones from the New York Times and the Washington Post, with the site showing “account suspended” notices for them.

Reuters could not immediately ascertain why those accounts were suspended. All the suspended reporters have in recent months written about Twitter’s owner, billionaire Elon Musk, and changes at the platform since he bought it.

Responding to a Tweet on the account suspensions, Musk tweeted: “Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else,” a reference to Twitter rules banning sharing of personal information, called doxxing. 

He added: “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.”

The message here in my mind is clear. If you criticize Elon Musk, you will get suspended from Twitter. And he’s using the suspension of the account that tracks Elon’s jet as cover for what is basically an attempt to silence people. Which goes against his claims of being a free speech fanboy.

Given the attention that this is getting, I believe that a number of things are likely to happen:

• The EU will see this and make moves to make his life miserable.
• Departures to Mastodon will accelerate.
• I would not at all be surprised if Capitol Hill gives him a call and asks him to explain himself in front of a Congressional Hearing.

In terms of that second point, departures to Mastodon have begun:

The circled area is a spike in Mastodon account creations in the last hour which is around the time that this news broke. That’s the law of unintended consequences working against Elon. Stay tuned to see what happens in regards to the other two points.

At this point, it’s becoming clear that staying on Twitter is a non-starter. But clearly, if you stay on Twitter, you’re enabling Elon. While I have been cross posting to Twitter and Mastodon, I believe that my days on Twitter are over. I’ll make a separate announcement about that in the next day or so. But if I were you, I would make your plans to depart Twitter for greener pastures.