Twitter faces EU sanctions after suspending journalists, Spaces

Twitter’s live audio service, Twitter Spaces, has been disabled after a number of journalists suspended from the social network found they could still participate in it.

Twitter owner Elon Musk said late Thursday night that the company was fixing an old bug and the audio service “should be working tomorrow.”

Earlier in the evening, Musk’s network threw reporters from CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times, among others, into a seven-day suspension for allegedly disclosing the location of his private jet.

The United Nations has joined the European Union in condemning Twitter’s decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media firm.

Earlier on Friday, EU commissioner Vera Jourova threatened Twitter with sanctions under Europe’s new Digital Services Act which she said requires “the respect of media freedom and fundament rights”.

“Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon,” she added.

Notopoulos went live on Twitter Spaces to discuss the abrupt spate of bans — which came without communication to either the journalists or their publications — and was joined by Drew Harwell of the Washington Post and Matt Binder of Mashable, two of the suspended reporters.

Their tweets were no longer visible and they could not post new ones, however, they were still allowed to speak on the Spaces service.

Musk dropped in on the session as well, after it accumulated thousands of listeners, to say tersely that anyone who doxxes — gives personal location information about another person — will be suspended.

The journalists countered that they had not posted any real-time flight data, as he alleged, but by then the billionaire had quit the call. The dialogue drew more than 40,000 listeners at its peak.

Twitter Spaces went down while Notopoulos’ session was still ongoing, disconnecting everyone, she said in a later tweet. No recording or information about that session is available on Twitter now.