The Spectator has made much of free speech in recent years, highlighting the pernicious danger of “cancel culture”, liberal bias of social media, and the need for Toby Young and his “free speech union”.
So, it’s a little odd to see that the right wing publisher has found itself being silenced by Elon Musk, and is barely raising a whimper about it. The bizarre row centres around a story the magazine published about “Adrian Dittmann”, a pro-Musk poster who numerous users had suggested was actually just a fake account being used by the X owner to post anonymously – what is known colloquially as a “sock puppet”.
The Spectator ran an article bylined to Jacqueline Sweet that seemed to have tracked down Dittmann and found that in reality, he was an actual human being and not an alternative (or alt) account run by Musk.
At first, the piece was widely shared on X and Musk even appeared to jokingly respond to it, insisting that the account was in fact his sock puppet.
And then, links to the article were banned right across X, whether in public posts or direct messages. Anyone trying to click on a link to the article in an existing post was warned the content was “unsafe” and the spread of those posts was restricted too – exactly the kind of censorship US Republicans complained about when Twitter restricted the spread of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Soon afterwards, Sweet complained that she had been banned from X for 30 days for “doxxing” – commonly, revealing a social user’s private information – “which I didn’t do”.
Outrage from the Spectator so far has been muted, to say the least. Perhaps the magazine is happier to put up with censorship if it comes from the right, or maybe new editor Michael Gove doesn’t want to risk upsetting Donald Trump by standing up for his publication and its writers.
But others are suggesting the Spectator might not want to draw too much attention to its scoop, given a row between Sweet and two other writers who say they did the actual research that led to the article’s publisher. The two, maia arson crimew and ryan fae, are unusual fits for the Spectator – both are non-binary and use neo-pronouns, and crimew (who eschews capital letters) is sought by US prosecutors for her alleged role in multiple hacking attacks.
crimew’s post makes it clear that the team’s efforts to track down Dittmann relied on using material obtained by hacking, which she and fae brought to Sweet’s attention – on the understanding that they would be credited in the article, even if they didn’t receive a byline.
When the article was published, though, any mention of them had been erased, leaving a piece that was “arguably poorly presented, cut out graphics and information crucial to the investigation, and crucially did not give credit to us”.
The result is a bit of a mess, leaving Gove either on the hook for running an article based on hacked material, with uncredited contributors left uncredited, unpaid and omitted – without tackling any of the editorial or ethical questions running a piece in such a way entails.
Alternatively, he faces questions as to why he has abandoned the Spectator’s credentials on free speech and backing its writers. No wonder he seems to be hoping that the whole row passes by with as little attention as possible…
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