Twitter suspends WIRED journalist’s account following report on Matt Walsh’s hacked account

20 April 2023

Twitter permanently suspended the account of WIRED senior policy writer, Dell Cameron, Wednesday after he reported on the hacking of right-wing anti-LGBTQ Daily Wire host Matt Walsh's account, Mediaite reports.

Steven Monacelli, a senior investigative correspondent for The Texas Observer tweeted, "WOW: @dellcam has been suspended by Twitter after reporting about the hack of Matt Walsh's Twitter account."

Monacelli followed up with another tweet, writing, "@dellcam received this explanation for the suspension after he reported on the hack of Matt Walsh's Twitter account for @WIRED."

The explanation Twitter provided says Cameron's account was suspended due to "Violating our rules against distribution of hacked material."

The Daily Beast reports:

If this sounds familiar, this was the policy that Twitter used to initially justify blocking the New York Post's story about Hunter Biden’s laptop just ahead of the 2020 presidential election and restrict the Post’s official Twitter account. After receiving significant backlash over the decision, Twitter soon reversed course and made changes to the policy, stating it wouldn't remove hacked content 'unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them.'

According to Mediaite, Cameron's account was suspended immediately after he shared the article on the platform.

Per The Daily Beast: Cameron reported, "The hacker—who only went by the name Doomed—took over Walsh's account because the conservative podcaster likes to 'trigger' people.” Doomed added that he 'caused no financial harm, threatened anyone, [nor] ruined anything,' and the hack was merely just a 'few silly words on social media.'"

Mediaite reports "Doomed" told Cameron "he was able to get to Walsh's account using a SIM-swapping technique," and noted "it involves the hacker tricking a cellular provider into switching the victim's cell phone number to a SIM card he controls."

He also said "an 'insider' helped him with the hack."

The Daily Beast reports WIRED Managing Editor Hemal Jhaveri demanded Twitter reactivate the account "or at least explain itself."

Jhaveri said in a statement to Forbes, "Neither Dell's story nor his Twitter feed contained hacked materials. We do not believe his account violated Twitter's policy. We have not received any further explanation from Twitter and our attempts to reach Twitter's press office were met with the customary poop emoji. We ask that the account be reinstated, and that Twitter provide an explanation."

Mediaite's full report is available at this link. The Daily Beast's report is here (subscription required).

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