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Twitter’s journalist bans invite comparisons to censorship on WeChat, the super app Elon Musk wants to emulate

  • The suspension of journalist accounts over mentions of the private jet-tracking account @ElonJet is inviting unflattering comparisons to Chinese social media
  • Musk has said previously that he would like to turn Twitter into a super app like Tencent’s WeChat

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A phone displays the Twitter account of Elon Musk with an image of him displayed in the background in this photo taken on December 15, 2022. Photo: AFP
Tracy Quin Shanghai
Since agreeing to buy Twitter for US$44 billion, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has mused about turning the social media platform into a “super app” à la WeChat, but now people are making the comparison for a less flattering reason: the suspension of prominent journalists who cover the billionaire.

“So Twitter is WeChat now,” Sam Crane, who teaches Chinese politics at Williams College, wrote on Twitter.

A controversy over censorship on Twitter ignited after the platform suspended the accounts of more than half a dozen journalists on the grounds of sharing Musk’s real-time location. Some of the journalists had posted about Twitter’s response to the @ElonJet account, which was suspended for republishing public location data about Musk’s private jet.

While the suspensions bring new irony to comparisons to Chinese social media, some Twitter users were quick to note that the current situation is far removed from the extensive censorship regime that exists on platforms like Weibo and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat.

“Suspending several accounts that may damage a persons life is far from what WeChat do,” another person wrote on Twitter in response to Crane. “My WeChat account was banned multiple times just for sharing Covid infos.”

The suspensions have faced pushback from government officials, advocacy groups and news organisations. Most of the suspensions have already been reversed, but the offending tweets mentioning @ElonJet were no longer accessible.

The Twitter pages for The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The New York Times’ Ryan Mac, Mashable’s Matt Binder, The Intercept’s Micah Lee, Voice of America’s Steve Herman and independent journalists Aaron Rupar and Tony Webster all became accessible again by early Saturday afternoon Hong Kong time. Business Insider’s Linette Lopez was still suspended as of publication time.
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