CEO Elon Musk announced early Saturday morning that Twitter would lift the suspensions of several journalists’ accounts, following an online poll about whether to allow them back on the platform.
The reinstatements came after Twitter restricted a number of journalists’ accounts Thursday, including The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, The New York Times’ Ryan Mac, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, independent reporter Aaron Rupar and Mashable’s Matt Binder.
The journalists had all reported on Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter and its chaotic aftermath.
Musk claimed that the accounts broke the platform’s rules by posting his “exact real-time location.” In a Twitter Spaces conference chat Thursday, he suggested that journalists had shared his address — an assertion that Harwell described as “not true.”
Musk also launched a Twitter poll that day asking users when he should lift the suspensions. Following the results, he tweeted, “The people have spoken” and announced that the accounts would be reinstated.
A majority of the nearly 3.7 million users who participated in the poll — 58.7% — voted to bring the accounts back “now.”
After tweeting a humorous video of a man exiting a casket to perform a dance, Rupar celebrated his account’s reinstatement by sharing his gratitude for those who stood by his side.
“I want to thank everyone for all the support and kind words over the past day and some change,” Rupar wrote.
“I was pretty bummed about getting suspended initially but quickly realized it’d be fine because I’m blessed to have an amazing online community. Seriously, I appreciate it a lot.”
Binder was also active Saturday on Twitter, joking that he expected the millions of people who voted to immediate lift the suspensions to follow him.
Tweets became viewable from other accounts suspended Thursday as well, including those from journalists Tony Webster and Micah Lee. However, Keith Olbermann’s account still appeared to be absent from the platform as of Saturday morning.
The reinstatements came after reports Friday that Twitter brought back a dozen accounts belonging to right-wing figures, including election deniers and COVID-19 misinformation peddlers.
HuffPost has reached out to Twitter for comment on the platform’s recent waves of reinstatements.