UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday said he is "very disturbed" by Twitter owner’s Elon Musk's suspension of journalists from the platform, calling it a "dangerous precedent."
"Media voices should not be silenced on a platform that professes to be a space for freedom of speech," Guterres' spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said, as quoted by the AFP news agency.
He warned that the "arbitrary" move "sets a dangerous precedent at a time when journalists all over the world are facing censorship, physical threats and even worse."
The comments come a day after Twitter suspended several high-profile journalists who have been covering the company and Musk. Some messages indicated the accounts were "permanently suspended", according to a report in NBC News.
Among the accounts suspended are those of Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O'Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America and independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann and Tony Webster.
Musk indicated that the suspensions stemmed from the platform's new rules banning private jet trackers. He was responding to a tweet from Mike Solana, vice president of venture capital firm Founders Fund, who noted that the suspended accounts had posted links to jet trackers on other websites.
"Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not," he added in another tweet.
Musk said after his purchase of Twitter that he was against censorship and reversed former US President Donald Trump’s ban from the platform.
In late November, Musk announced “a general amnesty” for suspended Twitter users after posting a poll over whether the platform should take action to restore affected accounts.
Musk has stirred up some controversy since his purchase of Twitter became official. On the day the sale went final, he fired at least four top executives at the company.
Later, Twitter laid off half its workforce, with tweets by staff of the social media company saying the team responsible for human rights was among those affected. Days later, key security executives resigned from the platform.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)