An investigative reporter who debunked a weird conspiracy principle about X proprietor Elon Musk was kicked off the social media platform — sparking outcry over censorship by the self-avowed free speech absolutist.
Jacqueline Candy, a contributor for the conservative journal The Spectator World, did a deep dive into long-percolating rumors that Musk was utilizing a burner account below the identify Adrian Dittmann to lavish reward on himself.
Candy tracked down the actual Dittman, a German entrepreneur dwelling within the South Pacific nation of Fiji, to disprove the idea.
After Candy’s article outing Dittmann was printed Saturday, Musk responded along with his personal cryptic submit on X hours later.
“I am Adrian Dittmann. It’s time the world knew,” Musk wrote.
However the seemingly innocuous story took one other unusual twist Monday when The Spectator World’s managing editor Matt McDonald introduced Candy’s X account was suspended for 30 days and the hyperlinks to her article had been slapped with a warning label, claiming “violent or misleading content.”
He additionally shared screenshots that confirmed customers trying to entry her article had been met with warnings about unsafe content material.
Musk and X didn’t instantly return requests for remark.
Candy’s final submit on X got here at 1:37 p.m. on Saturday, when she responded to a person about her article.
“People are so committed to believing the Elon is Adrian thing,” she wrote.
Musk’s cryptic response happened 10 hours later.
Candy’s obvious ban sparked a firestorm with critics of Musk and X accusing the platform of suppressing content material to guard Musk’s picture.
“This is a direct assault on press freedom,” one X person wrote.
Others pointed to the irony of Musk’s earlier condemnation of the location previously generally known as Twitter when it suppressed The Publish’s Hunter Biden laptop computer scandal in the course of the 2020 election.
Musk supporters cheered Candy’s suspension, arguing that the reporter crossed an moral line by publishing personal particulars about Dittmann.
Candy used a mixture of social media evaluation, AI comparisons, and authorities video footage to seemingly unmask the actual Dittman.
His enterprise ventures and private historical past, together with participation in a Musk Basis carbon elimination contest, matched particulars offered by the Dittmann account, the report mentioned.
Dittmann’s X account had raised eyebrows since early in 2023 for its over-the-top reward of Musk, sparking rumors that the Tesla CEO had been utilizing the account to defend himself and promote his views.
Critics pointed to similarities in writing types — with some even going so far as to counsel Musk was utilizing a voice modulator to pose as Dittmann in stay X Areas chatrooms.
Mainstream media retailers like Rolling Stone, Newsweek and The Verge fueled the conspiracy principle, with some claiming that they’d proof that related Musk and Dittmann straight.
YouTube / FijiGovernment
In February 2023, Dittmann made headlines when Musk straight acknowledged the similarity in their voices after the previous appeared on Alex Jones’ controversial InfoWars podcast, The Day by day Mail reported.
The billionaire tech entrepreneur commented: “at some point there’s just going to be like 100 AI clones of me that sound exactly the same.”
Talking afterward X’s Areas final February, the duo spoke to one another whereas straight addressing claims Musk was posing as Dittmann.
Musk mentioned: “Alex Jones thinks it’s me?”
Dittmann begins to elucidate the conspiracy earlier than he’s reduce off by Musk.
“There’s eight billion people on the Earth,” Musk mentioned laughing. “The odds are there’s someone who sounds like me somewhere. And you are that person.”
“Honestly, I don’t believe you’re not me,” he joked.
“People think I’m legitimately your clone,” Dittmann responded. “Like one of your Neuralink experiments. Can you clarify that I’m not one of your Neuralink experiments? Or maybe I am and I just wouldn’t realize it?”
Musk shot again: “Well, the thing is you even ask questions in the way that I would ask questions!”
The banter ended with Ditmann praising Musk for his work on X, noting he used Areas “practically eight hours a day, three times a week” earlier than chatting about Musk’s household.
Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and rebranded the location as X the next 12 months.
