CNN’s Oliver Darcy Warns Elon Musk That News Organizations Are The ‘Lifeblood’ of Twitter
CNN’s Oliver Darcy said that news outlets are essential to Twitter’s business, so their reactions to the suspensions of multiple journalists’ accounts that took place Thursday could threaten the company’s future.
Speaking with anchor Jim Sciutto about several journalists, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, having been suspended under Elon Musk‘s newly minted policy about posting real-time location info, Darcy made clear that Musk is playing with fire and could get burned.
“This is raising a number of issues,” said Darcy. “Obviously it highlights how Musk doesn’t really have that commitment to free speech that he said he does. But it also raises questions about what the future of the press looks like on Twitter.”
Many journalists and news outlets criticized the banning of the ElonJet account, and likewise have objected loudly on Twitter to the suspension of these particular journalists, without themselves being suspended. But nevertheless, Darcy joins a cavalcade of people in media criticizing Musk with the claim that this demonstrates Musk will silence critics.
Darcy then warned that it’d be a real shame if something were to happen to Musk’s nice app.
“Twitter is a private platform, so they can do what they want,” Darcy offered as a caveat, somewhat snippily.
“But news organizations have provided a lot of content to Twitter over the years, news is sort of the lifeblood of Twitter, and if they decide now that they don’t want to be on this platform because he’s banning their journalists, I think it raises some questions about the future,” he said.
That implicit threat toes the company line, which was more explicitly a warning in CNN’s official statement, which was posted on Twitter.
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.
Neither @OliverDarcy nor @CNN have been suspended at this time, by the way, for being critical of Elon Musk.
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
