CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan, one of several journalists suspended from Twitter earlier this week, said he won’t succumb to demands from Elon Musk’s social media platform to delete a tweet that allegedly violated its “rules against posting private information.”
O’Sullivan, a technology correspondent for CNN, told anchor Fredricka Whitfield he has to agree to an action “at the behest of the billionaire” and remove a tweet where he reported about — but did not directly link to — the since-banned @ElonJet account that shared publicly available data on Musk’s private jet flights. (You can watch his comments on the network below).
Musk, who has voiced his gripes through false claims that the journalists shared his “exact real-time location,” announced the reinstatement of the suspended journalists’ accounts following results from a Twitter poll early Saturday morning.
O’Sullivan’s tweets are now visible following his “reinstatement,” but Twitter has locked his account and demanded that he either remove his flagged tweet or appeal the platform’s decision to flag it. O’Sullivan told Whitfield he would be allowed to tweet again if he removes his flagged tweet about the @ElonJet account, but he isn’t planning to delete it.
“There is an option to appeal. So that’s what I’m doing and we’ll see what’s happening,” said O’Sullivan, who added that he believes The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell is also set to appeal about his tweet that Twitter said “violated” its rules.
“Well, we’ll see what happens. It’s all getting a bit absurd,” O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan later added that the suspensions “could potentially have a chilling effect” on those who report on Musk.
You can listen to more of O’Sullivan’s remarks on CNN below.
H/T Mediaite