Musk restores Twitter accounts of journalists banned over ‘Doxxing’

SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter CEO Elon Musk has started lifting suspension of some journalists on the micro-blogging site after running a poll on the platform, asking if he should "Unsuspend accounts who doxxed my exact location in real-time".

The Twitter poll included two options -- "Now" or "In 7 Days".

Of the two options, "Now" won with 59 per cent of responses, while "In 7 days" received 41 per cent.

Nearly 3.7 million users responded to the poll.

"The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now," Musk tweeted.

Doxxing (also spelled doxing) is the act of revealing someone's personal information online. It is a form of online harassment that means publicly exposing someone's real name, address, job or other identifying data.

At the moment, CNN's Donie O'Sullivan, The New York Times' Ryan Mac, Mashable's Matt Binder, and The Washington Post's Drew Harwell's accounts are all visible on the platform.

The Twitter CEO on Thursday suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists on the micro-blogging platform, including Donie O'Sullivan from CNN and Drew Harwell from The Washington Post as they covered his "exact real-time location".

Musk had earlier said that any account doxxing real-time location information of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation.

Moreover, the Twitter CEO also defended his decision after suspending accounts on the micro-blogging platform of more than half a dozen journalists.

In defence of the decision to suspend reporters, Musk said: "Everyone's going to be treated the same. They're not special just because you're a journalist," reports BuzzFeed.News.