Germany says it is concerned about “press freedom” after suspension of journalists’ Twitter accounts

The German Foreign Ministry tweeted on Friday screenshots of the journalist accounts suspended by Twitterwarning the platform that the authorities of the European country have a problem with measures that endanger press freedom.

Twitter suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists who had posted about its new owner, Elon Musk, prompting protests from their media organizations.

“Press freedom cannot be turned on and off on a whim,” the ministry wrote on its official Twitter account. “The journalists below can no longer follow us, comment and criticize. We have a problem with that, @Twitter.”

The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

German regulators are already pressuring government institutions to stop running ads exclusively on private platforms, promoting alternatives like the fledgling decentralized social network Mastodon.

Twitter also suspended the Mastodon network account, and attempts to link to Mastodon accounts in tweets led to frequent error messages on Friday.

Registration of new users Mastodon it shot up to 4,000 an hour this Friday morning, four times more than those recorded in the last week. But with some 8.5 million registered users, it’s still very small compared to Twitter, which has 500 million users.

A spokesman for the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunakalso responded to questions about suspensions of journalists, stating that social media platforms must balance protecting users with preserving freedom of expression.