Independent journalist and former City Pages writer Aaron Rupar was among a swath of journalists including those from The New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post who saw their Twitter accounts get suspended on Thursday night.
The journalists, including with former Minnesota journalist Tony Webster, were told that their accounts "violate the Twitter rules." The suspensions follow similar suspensions of accounts that uses public data to share location information about Twitter owner Elon Musk's private jet.
"Basically I was sitting on the couch a few hours ago when I started getting messages on Instagram, text, and email from people pointing out that my account had been suspended. Obviously that was news to me," Rupar told WCCO Radio's Henry Lake shortly after the suspension. "I thought maybe I was being trolled, but I pulled up my account on my phone and tried to send out a test tweet and was told I was suspended."
A short time later, Rupar said a notice at the top of his account alerted him that his account had been permanently suspended for, "violating the rules."
After checking with other journalists facing a similar situation, Rupar determined that his suspension stemmed from a tweet on Wednesday that included a Facebook link for the "@ElonJet" account that was banned on Twitter.
Rupar said Friday on WCCO Radio that Twitter confirmed that was the reason for the suspension.
"I posted a tweet noting that the same account was still on Facebook with a link to that Facebook page," Rupar said. "It turns out at least two other journalists who've been banned tonight, yesterday posted that same thing, a link to that Elon jet Facebook page."
Musk claimed in a tweet that posting real-time information about his family put their safety in jeopardy.
"I have not heard anything directly from Twitter," Rupar added. "I'm just sort of inferring what happened based on what other people are telling and the evidence I can kind of piece together on my own."
Rupar told Lake that there's clearly an underlying personal or political beef behind the suspension.
"You know it's a bummer because Twitter has been huge for me and my career. That's basically the entirety of my audience are people that either have started following me on Twitter or new readers that I attract from Twitter. It'll be an adjustment to figure out how to adapt from here, but you know, that's part of life is adapting. We'll see if it's overturned."
Rupar told Lake that he'll consider joining another platform such as Mastodon.
"I'm totally with you," Lake replied. "My existence on Twitter has been a run ride and I've enjoyed it, although I do believe it's coming to an end. Not just for me, but for everyone. The climate and atmosphere we're dealing with right now with Twitter is just not sustainable for anybody that wants to be a sane human being and somebody who wants to be about change in a positive way."