The Twitter accounts of several journalists were permanently suspended Thursday evening after new owner Elon Musk claimed the accounts were guilty of disseminating real-time location information about him and others. He claimed the accounts were partially responsible for an alleged incident where a “stalker” approached a car holding members of his family. One of the accounts suspended was that of podcaster Keith Olbermann, who had harsh criticism for Musk after the development.
“What a freaking candy-ass, lying, hypocritical, self-contradicting, little paranoid snowflake Elon Musk is,” Olbermann said to open his podcast Friday.
Olbermann criticized Musk’s perceived shift from free speech advocate to censoring accounts he views as harmful.
“Musk’s hyperbolic panic about this has since grown from ‘My commitment to free speech extends to not banning the account following my plane’ to ‘They posted my exact real-time location. Basically, assassination coordinates.'”
He then accused Musk of hypocritical actions for his policy on “doxxing”, accusing the Twitter owner of being guilty of doing it himself.
“On Wednesday, Musk had also promised any account ‘doxxing’ real-time location info of anyone will be suspended. And then he tweeted video purportedly of the driver who was purportedly driving near the Musk family car. It panned down to the license plate of the car and it asked — Musk asked — everybody on Twitter ‘Anybody recognize this person or car?’ Disseminating the license plate and asking for an ID of the car or the license plate is the legal definition of doxxing!”
Olbermann then detailed the journalists who saw their accounts be deactivated, and said he was suspended after tweeting plans for a potential protest of the actions taken by the social media platform. The former cable news host tweeted that users should copy and paste the exact tweet that saw journalist Aaron Rupar get his account banned.
“Elon Musk has already proved himself — on Twitter, and everywhere else he’s ever worked, including Tesla and the rest of these crazy ideas like the invention of the subway tunnel — not much of a business man. Certainly nothing resembling a free speech absolutist and not very good with truth. Or even explaining why he changed his mind, if he has one. “
