The new policy was announced as Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz’s account was restored after being suspended Saturday night. At the time of her suspension, Lorenz had deleted all but three tweets, two of which encouraged people to follow her elsewhere. The third tweet was Lorenz’s response to Elon Musk, asking him to comment on a story she had emailed him about.
“As someone who covers creators, I am very shocked by this policy because it is very anti-influencer,” Lorenz told BuzzFeed News. “Cross-promotion on social media is essential.”
Earlier this week, Twitter suspended the accounts of several other journalists, including technology reporter Drew Harwell, also of The Washington Post and Ryan Mack of the New York Times and formerly BuzzFeed News. Comments were related to links about @ElonJe accountt, a tweet account tracking the flight of Musk’s private jet. After saying he would continue to allow bots earlier this fall, Musk suspended him this week. After a Twitter poll, most arrested journalists Their accounts have been reinstated.
Twitter also suspended the file The official account of the Mastodon social platform This week, in addition to disabling the links leading to it.
