Irish cult hero Donie O'Sullivan has been caught up in the chaos of Elon Musk's Twitter reign, with the CNN journalist being permanently suspended from the platform after he reported on accounts livetweeting Musk's flight activity.
51-year-old Musk purchased Twitter earlier this year, and has made some controversial changes to the social media platform since becoming CEO.
His changes to the verification process, and proposed changes to the maximum permitted length of tweets, have both raised eyebrows, but it is his clampdown on accounts which report on his business which is the most concerning move yet.
Earlier this week, Musk suspended an account named @ElonJet, which publicly shared the flight day of Musk's private jet. Musk justified his decision in a tweet reading:
Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.
Donie O'Sullivan - a Cahersiveen native - is one of the US reporters dedicated to covering the "Elon beat" and contributed to the coverage of the "ElonJet Fallout" earlier this week.
On Thursday evening, he and many others from national news outlets found their accounts banned, in an apparent retaliation by the Twitter CEO. Donie appeared on CNN on Thursday evening to report on the news, and to give his thoughts on his Twitter suspension.
Donie O'Sullivan reacts to Twitter ban
Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Donie O'Sullivan explained the situation regarding his Twitter suspension. He threw a sly dig at Musk for his actions, despite his persistent championing of "free speech":
A number of journalists at national news outlets including the NYT and the Washington Post - and here at CNN - have been permanently suspended from twitter
All the journalists - including myself - happen to be people who cover Elon. this is elon who is, of course, the free speech advocate, he likes the first amendment
As we saw with the jet tracker last night, Musk seems to be stamping out accounts that he doesn't like.
In the minutes leading up to the suspension, we were reporting - doing our job - reporting on what was happening with the Musk jet situation. Musk had claimed - almost as a justification for taking down the jet account - that there was an incident this week involving his child in Los Angeles.
The incident Donie refers to took place earlier this week, when Musk claimed that a "stalker" had located the car that his child was travelling in, and linked this discovery to the existence of the "ElonJet" account.
Speaking on CNN, Donie O'Sullivan said that there was no initial evidence to link the two instances together, but that the incident had nonetheless been referred to the LA police.
Responding to Donie's suspension, CNN released a statement which read:
The impulsive and unjustified suspension of a number of reporters, including CNN's Donie O'Sullivan, is concerning but not surprising. Twitter's increasing instability and volatility should be of incredible concern for everyone who uses the platform. We have asked Twitter for an explanation, and we will reevaluate our relationship based on that response.
Musk, on the other hand, seemed to take ownership of the situation and decision to ban the journalists, tweeting a poll which allowed users to vote in favour of allowing them back on to Twitter.
Unsuspend accounts who doxxed my exact location in real-time
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022
Unhappy with the results, Musk then shared another poll with fewer options - which has even more comprehensively tipped in favour of readmitting Donie and his fellow US journalists.
Unsuspend accounts who doxxed my exact location in real-time
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022
We imagine those weren't the results he was hoping for.
The developments surrounding Donie O'Sullivan and his fellow journalists from major US news outlets is, indeed, concerning, and we can only hope that our favourite Stateside Irish reporter is permitted back on to the platform in due course.
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