A space news website was locked out of Twitter while covering a SpaceX launch, its editor says

Business Insider

SpaceX launches a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a pair of television broadcasting satellites at Cape Canaveral, Florida, November 12, 2022.

Michael Weekes Jr./Reuters

Spaceflight Now was locked out of Twitter while covering a SpaceX rocket launch, its editor says.
The space news website is one of a handful of diligent launch-tracking live-streamers.
It’s unclear which Twitter rules Spaceflight Now may have violated, or why its tweet was taken down.

A space news website covering SpaceX’s first launch of 2023 may be the latest journalism account to get locked out of Twitter.

SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Elon Musk, launched 114 small satellites into orbit on Tuesday. As they usually do, a handful of news sites and YouTube channels tracked the launch diligently, from preparations an hour before liftoff, to the landing of the Falcon 9 rocket booster back on Earth, to the deployment of the satellites in orbit.

One of those news sites, Spaceflight Now, which was broadcasting the mission live, abruptly stopped posting on Twitter toward the end of the launch. The website’s editor, Stephen Clark, said in a tweet that the account had been locked “for violating unspecified rules while covering a SpaceX launch.”

—Stephen Clark (@StephenClark1) January 3, 2023

Insider was unable to confirm these details. Clark didn’t share further information. He, Twitter, and SpaceX did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Spaceflight Now Twitter account did not appear to be suspended, but was marked with a banner saying that its most recent tweet had violated Twitter rules. That tweet was not visible.

Elon Musk stands in front of a SpaceX site in Boca Chica, Texas, before its development.

Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc./Getty Images

Since Musk took ownership of Twitter in October, the company has been rocked by changing rules and layoffs. In December, Twitter suddenly suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists who had been covering Musk and his takeover of the company.

Musk said it was because they had “doxxed” his location “in real-time” by sharing links to publicly available information about the location of his private jet. The following day, he announced the accounts would be reinstated, citing the results of a Twitter poll where he asked people to vote on whether the accounts should be restored.

It’s unclear whether Musk was involved in this latest incident.

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