Is the little blue bird sorting out the accounts on his social network? This is what many Internet users are wondering. Elon Musk the new owner of Twitter, has announced that it will reopen accounts banned from the social network next week in granting them a general amnesty , “provided they have not broken the law”. But it seems that this decision is not for everyone. As revealed The Obs , this Sunday, at the same time, other accounts are blocked. Two reasons would explain these different blockages. The first would be a massive campaign by the American far right. But other blockages are said to be due to Twitter’s reporting of breaches of a massive data leak.
A common point: being against the extreme right
Many Internet users have tried to challenge Elon Musk on Twitter about these blocked accounts. This is particularly the case for the account VPS Reports which is owned by Vishal Pratap Singh, an American freelance journalist. He is also a documentary filmmaker and openly claims to be an anti-fascist. He works on extremism, civil rights and the extreme right.
Right winger are organizing a false mass report campaign of over 5000 Twitter accounts in a blatant attempt to deplatform the Left pic.twitter.com/WJx18iFps1
— Elm Fork JBGC (@elmforkJBGC) November 25, 2022
But behind this blockage lies an ongoing far-right campaign on Twitter. It seems that the American far right has massively reported 5000 accounts deemed anti-fascist or similar, so that they are blocked. And since Twitter’s moderation teams have been hit by mass layoffs since the Elon Musk takeover, the suspensions can last for a while.
Reporting a data leak: another reason?
Hey @elonmuskright-wing trolls are mass reporting popular left-wing pages like @chadloder and @VPS_reports who bring a lot to the table with their content. If this continues, I don’t see Twitter lasting.
They both deserve to be reinstated ASAP. pic.twitter.com/UUIQ8y2ky6
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) November 25, 2022
Always according to The Obs, another reason would be used to block certain accounts. Like the account of cybersecurity expert Chad Loder, also an anti-fascist activist. Indeed, before being suspended, the expert had denounced the fact that a massive data leak in 2021 would have been minimized by the social network. Data that sells for gold on the dark web as the site explains 9to5Mac . Like Chad Loder, other users who denounced the extent of this leak had their accounts suspended.