After Mastodon, Koo Becomes Latest Target Of Twitter's Banning Spree; Indian Rival's Query Handle Suspended

Microblogging site Twitter, which seems to be on an account suspension spree, dropped the hammer on its Indian rival Koo, on Friday. The move to suspend the query handle of Koo ‘@kooeminence5’ came in the wake of billionaire Elon Musk-owned social media platform abruptly suspending the handles of several prominent global journalists, including those from the New York Times, CNN and Washington Post under its new online harassment policy also referred to as ‘doxxing’.

Criticising the action, Koo co-founder, Mayank Bidawatka said slammed Musk for changing his stance on ‘free-speech’.

“I forgot. There’s more! – Banning Mastodon account. – Not allowing mastodon links saying it’s unsafe. – Banning Koo’s eminence handle. I mean seriously. How much more control does the guy need?” Bidawatka tweeted.

The Twitter account for Mastodon, a platform billed as a Twitter alternative, was also suspended early on Thursday evening.

In a series of tweets, Bidawatka also questioned the rationale behind suspending the @kooeminence account, which has been set up only a few days ago for queries posed by celebrities and VIPs wanting to use the Indian social media platform.

“1. Posting publicly available info isn’t doxxing. Why shoot the messenger? 2. Journalists that posted links did nothing wrong. Posting a link to publicly available info isn’t doxxing the way posting a link to an online article isn’t plagiarism,” Bidawtka said.

“3. Leaving spaces without answering journalists is bad. 4. Creating policies out of thin air to suit yourself is worse. 5. Changing your stance every other day is inconsistent. 6. Posting a video of an unknown car on Twitter with the car plate showing – how’s that allowed?” he added.

The Koo co-founder said that Twitter killed spaces overnight to “control conversations”, adding that “One needs to speak up” against Twitter’s banning spree in the last week.

Bidawatka also used the opportunity to promote Koo and said that the home-grown microblogging platform is the best alternative to Twitter. “This place is what it is because of you and millions of other users like us. Let’s not fuel this guy’s ego,” he added.

He further noted that “Suddenly. Almost suddenly #ElonIsDestroyingTwitter has been removed from the trending section. Twitter is a publisher. Not a platform anymore!”

Twitter has been engulfed in chaos since billionaire Elon Musk took the helm, cutting the company’s workforce in half, upending the platform’s verification system, reinstating previously banned accounts — including those of white nationalists — and suspending journalists who’ve been covering him.

The company has not explained why the accounts were taken down. But Musk took to Twitter on Thursday night to accuse journalists of sharing private information about his whereabouts, which he described as “basically assassination coordinates.” He provided no evidence for that claim.

Explaining the reporter bans, Musk tweeted, “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else.”

He later added: “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.”

“ Doxxing ” refers to disclosing someone’s identity, address, phone number or other personal details that violate their privacy and could bring harm.

Notably, several of the reporters suspended on Thursday night had been writing about the new policy and Musk’s rationale for imposing it, which involved his allegations about a stalking incident he said affected his family Tuesday night in Los Angeles.

The reporters’ suspensions followed Musk’s decision Wednesday to permanently ban an account that automatically tracked the flights of his private jet using publicly available data. That also led Twitter to change its rules for all users to prohibit the sharing of another person’s current location without their consent.

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