Elon Musk unfollows Bari Weiss after her virtue signaling Twitter tirade

On Friday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk unfollowed Bari Weiss after she said he should reinstate journalists that had doxxed his real-time location on the social media service, an act he said was basically posting "assassination coordinates." Weiss also said Twitter under his leadership was a "regime" that was "governed by its own whims and biases."

Musk told Weiss, "Rather than rigorously pursuing truth, you are virtue-signaling to show that you are 'good' in the eyes of media elite to keep one foot in both worlds."

On Wednesday, Musk announced that he would suspend any accounts that doxxed a person's real-time location following an incident where his son was followed by a "crazy stalker." He subsequently suspended several journalists and users, such as Jack Sweeney, who were providing Musk's private location to the public, such as by publishing the coordinates of his private jet.

Weiss posted on Friday, "The old regime at Twitter governed by its own whims and biases and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem. I oppose it in both cases. And I think those journalists who were reporting on a story of public importance should be reinstated."

She also said she was not "swayed by the 'Twitter is a private company' argument" and "I don't need to dwell on how mesmerizing it is to watch those journalists who defended—even celebrated!—Twitter's bans under the old regime under the guise of 'safety' now call it censorship, and say it infringes on freedom of expression. It did then as it does now."

Musk replied, "What should the consequence of doxxing someone’s real-time, exact location be? Assume your child is at that location, as mine was."

Musk added, "Bari, this is a real question, not rhetorical. What is your opinion?"

After two hours of Weiss not responding Musk said she was "virtue signalling."

Later Weiss replied and said, "If someone messed with my baby or my family I'm sure I'd change the rules and ban the jet account, too. But last month you said you were leaving it up to show your commitment to free speech. So doesn't it make sense that people would be confused?"

"Given the mixed messaging, I would have given more notice on the new rule before punishing anyone for a violation. And if they violated it again? Totally fair game to take action against those accounts. But I think people object to the lack of clear process and communication," she said. "I don't envy any of these decisions. But the problem with Old Twitter was that the rules were vague, unevenly applied, and often backfilled to suit the political prejudices of mgmt. New Twitter has an opportunity to be different: open, transparent and above the partisan fray."

Bari Weiss was one of the journalists Musk turned to for the release of the Twitter files, along with Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger. These files detailed internal conversations at the company over several years regarding the Twitter's efforts towards censorship and information suppression.