On January 9, X launched a massive purge of pro-Palestine accounts with large followings. Among those suspended in the purge include journalists and reporters such as Alan MacLeod, Ken Klippenstein, Rob Rousseau, and Steven Monacelli. Popular podcast True Anon Pod and leftist account @zei_squirrel were also among the accounts suspended. The eight accounts were reinstated later that same day.
The majority of the suspended accounts had been critical of Israel in some manner. Some of the suspended users speculated that their suspension has something to do with criticisms of the wife of Zionist billionaire Bill Ackman.
Ackman has been at the forefront of attacking Pro-Palestine student organizers, especially at his alma mater, Harvard University. Recently, Ackman was part of the crusade that resulted in former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation. The fallout of this crusade has seen Ackman’s wife come under scrutiny for plagiarism herself, as well as for her ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
As Zei Squirrel wrote on substack, “I was just now in the middle of writing a thread about Bill Ackman’s depravity and lies, and I suddenly got a notice that I can no longer post because I am suspended… This is the only reason I can think of for why I would be suspended now, as my posts have not changed in any way from the past few months or years in content.”
The True Anon Podcast account wrote on X following their reinstatement, “We made an appeal but there was no email notifying us of the account getting reported etc—I’m pretty sure all the accounts had made some comment on this incident,” referring to a post the account had made regarding Ackman’s wife’s relationship with Epstein. Steven Monacelli had also been critical of Ackman.
Back in November 2023, Ackman called X owner Elon Musk a “free speech absolutist.”
Musk has gotten involved in the recent controversies surrounding Ackman, and recommended Ackman sue Business Insider for publishing a report of plagiarism findings relating to Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman.
Others, such as Alan MacLeod and Rob Rosseau, did not explicitly criticize Ackman, but had consistently posted and retweeted content in support of Palestine. “If you still support Israel while they commit genocide, ethnic cleaning and the mass murder of children, you’ll forgive me if I don’t take your self righteous moral lectures very seriously,” Rousseau wrote on January 4.
