After X Corp. suspended journalist Ken Klippenstein’s account today when he published a Trump campaign document hacked by Iran, various media outlets have asserted that X isn’t the free speech platform it claims to be.
The document in question, a 271-page opposition research file on former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (pictured), appears to have been hacked by Iranian bad actors in an effort to influence the U.S. presidential election.
“We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting Presidential campaigns,” said the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in a joint statement earlier this week.
Various media outlets received the document but didn’t feel there was anything in it worth publishing. Klippenstein didn’t agree, and published it to his Substack page, stating some of the information in the document was “of keen public interest in an election season.” He later posted links to his X account, after which he was suspended and X blocked any links to the document.
Some media outlets later cried foul, pointing to X owner Elon Musk’s contention that when what was then Twitter Inc. blocked links to the Hunter Biden laptop story, there was a breach of free speech. At the time, former intelligence officials warned that the laptop might have been the work of Russian intelligence, although it turned out that wasn’t the case.
Elon Musk and Republican leaders have spent years decrying the previous Twitter regime’s move to block the Hunter Biden laptop story under its hacked materials policy.
Now Musk’s X is blocking the JD Vance dossier in exactly the same way. Curious how they justify this..
— Will Oremus (@WillOremus) September 26, 2024
Once Musk took over X, the company changed its policy on hacked materials, allowing links to news articles about such documents but not allowing the actual hacked documents. Does this mean there was hypocrisy at work when X blocked links to the Vance document and suspended Klippenstein’s account?
It seems X took this action because of its doxing policy, with a spokesperson saying the document contained “unredacted private personal information.” This included Vance’s phone number, home address, and email address.
X’s policy states, “You may not threaten to expose, incentivize others to expose, or publish or post other people’s private information without their express authorization and permission, or share private media of individuals without their consent.”
Musk himself later weighed in on the matter writing on X about what he believes was the “most egregious, evil doxxing actions we’ve ever seen,” referencing the assassination attempts on Trump. He added, “The doxxing included detailed information on the addresses of their children.”