X suspends the account of an American journalist after the publication of documents linked to JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein saw his account suspended on the social network X on Thursday September 26. His article devoted to Republican JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate in the race for the White House, met the same fate: the platform prevents the publication of any message containing a link pointing to this content, such as The World was able to see this, displaying this alert: “This link has been identified by X or our partners as potentially harmful. »

Ken Klippenstein’s newsletter contains a document possibly resulting from a hack by Donald Trump’s campaign team, which accuses Iranian hackers of being at the origin. It contains personal information relating to the vice-presidential candidate, which contravenes the rules of the social network, as X points out in a concise explanation message. Some media, such as Politicothe New York Times or the Washington Post, also received these documents but considered that there was no material for publication, according to Vanity Fair.

Double standards

The social network’s decision nevertheless raises some eyebrows as its owner, billionaire Elon Musk, is one of Donald Trump’s financial supporters and can, in the event of the Republican candidate’s re-election, claim a position in his administration. As recalled The Vergein October 2020, X (then called Twitter) publicly announced that it would no longer block the circulation of hacked documents on the platform, so that he did it until now. If the company had wanted to review this rule, it was following another political affair affecting the political camp opposite.

Three weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Twitter had indeed chosen to prevent the sharing of an article from the conservative tabloid New York Post : based on documents presented as coming from a laptop that belonged to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, it fueled suspicions of influence peddling in which the latter would have engaged. At the time, the platform justified its decision by fear of manipulation, possibly orchestrated by Russian intelligence services.

When he arrived at the helm of X, two years later, Elon Musk was indignant at this censorship which, in his eyes, favored the Democrats. He then invited journalist Matt Taibbi to delve into the conversations of Twitter employees who made this decision. The resulting investigation, called “Twitter Files” and serialized on the social network, had not led to any spectacular revelations.