A former Vox Journalist who is known for allegedly spreading false claims and spreading deceptively edited videos has been suspended on Twitter.
Recently, Independent Journalist Aaron Rupar slammed Twitter CEO Elon Musk for suspending his account on the social media giant this week.
In an exclusive interview with Digiday regarding his recent Twitter suspension, Rupar lamented and blasted Twitter, calling the decision “disconcerting.”
He explained that he’s “an independent journalist who does a newsletter business that basically operates on Twitter.”
“Last night [I was] pretty dismayed at first, like, wow, I’m really going to have to reassess how I make a living. It’s taken me a decade to build 800,000 followers on Twitter. Not only that but I’ve been doing video work, painstakingly doing video threads of hearings, debates, speeches, Trump rallies, all sorts of different events. To lose that, it’s like, there goes my work for years and years. It just disappeared suddenly.” Rupar said in a statement.
“When you’re running a newsletter business, you do the math on if you have 800,000 followers and you can convert even 1-2% of those into newsletter subscribers, then you’re off to a pretty good start, right? When I left Vox over a year ago now, that was the math I was doing in my head. But when you lose [those followers], you’re starting from scratch on all these different platforms,” he added, slamming the decision.
At a news conference, a law enforcement official says early indications are that Atlanta-area mass shooter Robert Aaron Long may have been motivated by issues stemming from “sexual addiction,” not racism — but he cautions that the investigation is in an early stage pic.twitter.com/jCyDGyZxQ7— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 17, 2021
He also described what he did upon finding out that his account was suspended.
“[I reached out] to someone from Twitter’s trust and safety team. Many hours later, deep into the evening, I heard [from them] confirming that [was why I got banned]. It does sound like our accounts eventually will be reinstated. The person who I was in touch with couldn’t clarify when that might be. I saw that Elon has a poll on his page asking if it should be immediate or in a week. There’s no option for permanent. But it still does say on my account that I am permanently suspended. So there’s a little bit of a contradiction there,” the Journalist claimed.
When asked regarding the effects of the ban and what he would do if reinstated, Rupar claimed that “I think that does set up a chilling precedent, where if you’re doing critical reporting on Twitter or on Elon, you’re going to have to think twice: If I published a story, if I posted a tweet, could I be banned for it? And maybe that’s part of the idea, to plant that seed that there’s going to be consequences if you’re critical of this guy. That’ll be something I’ll grapple with. If and when I’m back on there, I probably will try to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
Previously, Rupar allegedly made a false claim regarding the murder of Asian workers in Atlanta.
“At a news conference, a law enforcement official says early indications are that Atlanta-area mass shooter Robert Aaron Long may have been motivated by issues stemming from “sexual addiction,” not racism — but he cautions that the investigation is in an early stage,” the independent journalist posted on Twitter.
“Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did” — a law enforcement official explains Robert Aaron Long’s decision to kill 8 people in a strange manner,” he added.
However, he was debunked by some news media outlets and became a subject of mockery.
“The full video (the relevant section starts at about 13:50) makes clear that Baker was not providing his own commentary, but rather summarizing what Long had told the investigators. The “bad day” line was proceeded by a clarification that this was Long’s own explanation, as related to the police. Baker did not endorse it,” the Gateway Pundit explained.
