How (and Why!) to Get Banned from Elon Musk's Twitter

One quick update from FrameLab as 2022 comes to a close:

Lately we’ve been analyzing how Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter represents a dangerous development in the intensifying information war being waged by radical conservatives.

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Like clockwork, Musk has done something to further prove our point.

FrameLab co-author Gil Duran has now been banned from Twitter, apparently for asking a question about Twitter’s policy of banning other journalists.

The question, tweeted on Dec. 15: "Is tweeting about a banned account now prohibited? How about tweeting about an account that was banned for tweeting about a banned account?"

The result: A swift ban from Musk’s Twitter.

“A veteran California journalist has been locked out of his Twitter account after tweeting a question about banned accounts,” reports the San Francisco Standard. “Gil Duran has been published in The New York Times and The Guardian and worked as an editorial page editor at the Sacramento Bee and SF Examiner newspapers.”

In yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Gil wrote about the experience of getting banned and the message Musk is sending to journalists and others.

You can read the piece by clicking here. (Note: The Chronicle may have the piece behind a paywall, but we think it’s worth the 99 cents to support local journalism!)

Gil writes:

“It’s an honor to get canceled by Musk, who is welcoming neo-Nazis back to Twitter while banning reporters. Still, it’s admittedly terrifying to see him cross the bright red line of declaring outright war against freedom of the press,” he writes.

“By banning some of us, Musk is sending a message to everyone else: Comply with the dictator or lose access. Twitter has become a virtual simulation of authoritarian rule.

But Musk didn’t build Twitter. We, collectively, turned the bird app into a consequential power. If it remains under the control of a man who sees journalists as enemies, we have a moral responsibility to fly the coop.”

Musk has banned scores of journalists over the past few weeks, just because he can. It’s clear he wants to use Twitter — which has become an essential tool for journalists — to wage war against the press. In our next installment, we’ll list some ways to defeat his strategy and plan for a better future.

Like you, we’re tired of hearing about Musk! But his antics and tactics provide a crystal-clear glimpse of how conservatives operate in the 21st century, and for this reason we must pay careful attention.

Happy New Year!

Related Readings:

• “I got myself banned from Elon Musk’s Twitter. Here’s why you should, too,” Gil Duran, San Francisco Chronicle.
• “Algorithm Warfare: How Elon Musk uses Twitter to control brains,” Framelab

FrameLab is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.