X Purges Prominent Journalists, Leftists With No Explanation
www.vice.com
Ken Klippenstein, Steven Monacelli, and Alan MacLeod were all suspended from the platform.

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

  • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]English
    8•9 months ago

    Bro why the fuck is anyone still on Twitter this is ridiculous at this point. Just go use fucking Bluesky or something do you not understand that Twitter is dead? It’s done. It’s gone. It has ceased to be.

    • TankieTanuki [he/him]English
      3•9 months ago

      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. no-copyright

      • i_need_a_non_identifiable_name [he/him]English
        3•9 months ago

        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.

          • xj9 [they/them, she/her]English
            2•9 months ago

            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.

            • @ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
              2•9 months ago

              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.

              I’ve been thinking the same for a while, it would be nice to have not just one site but an entire ecosystem of Marxist internet all linked together.

            • TankieTanuki [he/him]English
              1•9 months ago

              I’m spinning up my own single-user Mastodon instance and the VPS required to do so is surprisingly cheap; it just takes a little technical knowledge. If I were a little more well off I could easily open it up for user registrations.

              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’m not sure I understand, but I want to. Can you elaborate?

              • xj9 [they/them, she/her]English
                1•9 months ago

                The Hexbear Method. Build the website and then federate it. The value doesn’t come from “open source” or “federation”, but they are nice things to have. I think widespread self-hosting is ultimately beneficial, but that’s another side-benefit not really a broad selling point.

    • Kaplya [none/use name]English
      3•9 months ago

      Let’s face it, everyone is still on Twitter, even those who were the loudest about boycotting it back then.

      This is not the early 2000s when social media platforms were still carving out their own turfs. This is the terminal stage where a handful of social media companies have already captured the entire market.

      The idea that decentralization can somehow topple the central authority is a myth, just like how Bitcoiners continue to believe that their fake currency can somehow topple the central banks.

      There is a reason why Marxists talk about seizing the means of production, not creating alternative structures around it.

      • LesbianLiberty [she/her]English
        5•9 months ago

        Actually the CPC was so successful because it did create alternatives to the warlord institutions that folks could rely on, Marxists have always been creating alternative structures around the current order to bypass them.

        Also my sibling in sinai, you are posting on the federated alternative to reddit

        • Kaplya [none/use name]English
          5•9 months ago

          Land reform was instrumental to unleashing the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, but in the end, the race between the CPC and the KMT to capture the Japanese industries in the Northeast as the Soviets began to withdraw became the most crucial moment that defined the future of the Chinese communist movement.

          Mao was famous for saying that he is willing to give up all their existing bases in China, so long as they can capture the Northeast (where the most developed heavy industries built by the Japanese stood), the revolutionary movement would survive. There simply wasn’t enough heavy industries in all the other regions of China combined at the time to sustain an ongoing war with the KMT. Mao was very aware of this fact and was supremely adaptable to the dynamic and changing conditions of the time.

      • chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]English
        3•9 months ago

        The idea that decentralization can somehow topple the central authority is a myth, just like how Bitcoiners continue to believe that their fake currency can somehow topple the central banks.

        Equating free & open equivalents, which just need adoption, to cryptocurrency which has significant flaws doesn’t make sense to me… It costs nothing to switch, there’s no inherent risks involved. It remains to be seen what happens long term with Twitter financially too. Maybe Musk gets another State/DOD bailout or it’s too valuable as propaganda/data collection to some present shareholder, but that’s not decided.

        I don’t use any Twitter or equivalents, but I do see screenshots and archive/proxy links to it.

        • Kaplya [none/use name]English
          1•9 months ago

          It’s the same reason why Linux is the free and even superior alternative to Windows and Mac, but most people will never use it. There are, of course, adoption, but it will never achieve the critical mass needed to displace the dominant systems. Most people will just follow whatever everyone is using, and the platforms that have already penetrated the entire depth of the market, and have the most capital, will always have a very strong head start against their competitors.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]English
        2•9 months ago

        There is a reason why Marxists talk about seizing the means of production, not creating alternative structures around it.

        Yeah, so unlike utopians like Lenin, who had crazy delusions about somehow creating institutions that operated in parallel to existing power structures in order to smash the state machinery and retain a mostly-functional society.

        “Dual Power”? What’s that, the name of a syndicate?

      • TankieTanuki [he/him]English
        1•9 months ago

        The idea that decentralization can somehow topple the central authority is a myth

        So? I can enjoy Hexbear without needing to first eliminate reddit. I do it all the time!

    • grey_wolf_whenever [he/him]English
      0•9 months ago

      ill use bluesky when I see a single funny thing come from there. No one uses it! Twitter is still the only game in town, Im actually surprised threads fumbled so badly.

      • SerLava [he/him]English
        2•9 months ago

        I couldnt even paste a fucking image into Threads and they had no desktop app. How are the influencers supposed to make any fucking posts for people to look at if they can’t use a god damn computer

  • FnordPrefect [comrade/them, he/him]English
    6•9 months ago

    lol, didn’t TrueAnon just get called far-right by NYT or WaPo or something? Why is it that “both sides” hate the podcast about the elite pedophilia cabal thinking-about-it

    • @Justice@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      3•9 months ago

      that shit is legit hilariously sad. the liberal media has quite literally fully surrendered the entire realm of “questioning the official narrative,” something the MEDIA should be doing, to “the right wing.” Everything from Epstein’s “suicide” to JFK being killed by the CIA to vaccine doubts the origins of COVID-19. It does’t matter anymore if it’s actually way off in coocoo far right conspiracy land or has tons of evidence behind it. if the state dept doesn’t endorse it then it’s just right wing bullshit and you should ignore it

      what a fucking country

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him]English
      2•9 months ago

      melon-musk: “MEIN GOTT! ZE UNTERSMENCH FIGURED OUT IT’S NOT THE JEWS!”

      capitalist-woke: “Well, just ban them lol and frame it as owning the libs.”

  • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]English
    2•9 months ago

    I’ve never been a twitter user but I have read that the easiest way to get your account back is to tell them you’re a right wing account being canceled for your speech and they’ll just re-activate it without checking

  • Awoo [she/her]English
    2•9 months ago

    Is this an Israel related purge or something else? I can’t really figure out the common feature of all these accounts getting simultaneously nuked. Obviously they’re on a list together for having something in common.

      • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]English
        1•9 months ago

        Musk making the Twitter devs give him his own ban button is the exact mix of pathetic and funny we’ve come to expect.

        If this is the case that means he’s aware of trueanon, and may have even listened to the series. Now imagining musk seething while listening to brace say “HIS FACE LOOKS LIKE FUNGUS” 😂