Elon Musk banned me from Twitter

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Earlier tonight, Elon Musk suspended my Twitter account. I only had three tweets live on my account when it was banned. Two were promoting my social media profiles on other platforms (follow me on TikTok and IG @taylorlorenz!), and one was the tweet below where I asked Musk for comment.

My colleague Drew Harwell, who has also been suspended, and I have been working on a story involving Musk and were hoping to get comment from him. We attempted to reach him several times through email over the past few days. At 8:30pm EST I tried reaching out for comment on Twitter by posting this:

When I went to log in and see if he had responded to our query, I was suspended. I received zero communication from the company on why I was suspended or what terms I violated.

I have been on Twitter since 2010 and have run Twitter account for major media brands including Verizon, Wordpress, The Daily Mail, People magazine, The Hill, and dozens more. Never once in my 13 year career in social media have I received a single terms of service or community guidelines violation, for my personal account or any account that I’ve run.

Twitter has served as an essential real time news source and played a crucial role in the journalism world, but Musk’s arbitrary suspensions of journalists who report on him should worry anyone who values journalism and free expression.

Thankfully, Twitter is not my sole platform, if you’re interested in keeping up with my work, my thoughts on tech, and all the crazy and interesting ways the internet is reshaping the world around us, subscribe to this Substack!