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

X (formerly Twitter)

Tracy Quin Shanghai

Published: 5:00pm, 17 Dec 2022

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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.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

02:18

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Although it is unusual for US social media platforms to ban journalists, shutting down accounts is a common occurrence on WeChat and Weibo, which must adhere to Beijing’s strict censorship rules regarding “harmful information” – often referring to posts that appear critical of the government.

This has turned censorship into a cat-and-mouse game between social media users and authorities in China, where people have become known for using homonyms to evade auto-detection, a practice now under threat. It is also common for censored content to pop up on new accounts until it is banned again.

While some on Twitter have compared Elon Musk’s leadership of the social network to that of Chinese rulers with fragile egos, Musk has maintained that the suspensions related to @ElonJet were about doxxing, or releasing private information like addresses and phone numbers of individuals.

“Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info,” Musk said in a tweet.

Musk has also threatened legal action against @ElonJet creator Jack Sweeney, a 20-year-old university student. Sweeney set up the jet-tracking bot on the distributed microblogging platform Mastodon, as well, which then posted about it on its official Twitter account and was subsequently suspended. Mastodon’s account has also been restored.

The journalist suspensions drew some attention inside the Great Firewall, where most comments focused on Musk himself. Some people joked about the idea of freedom of the press in the West. “Maybe we have more press freedom,” one Weibo user wrote. A related Weibo topic had been viewed about 2 million times by mid-day Saturday.

Musk defended himself on Twitter, saying it is “so inspiring to see the newfound love of freedom of speech by the press”. At the end of his tweet, Musk tacked on the emoji of a smiling face with hearts.