An independent journalist who posted private material on social media about vice-presidential hopeful JD Vance (R-Ohio) has been https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4901990-journalist-suspended-x-vance-hack/booted off X (Twitter).
Ken Klippenstein shared documents from the Donald Trump presidential campaign that were allegedly stolen by Iranian hackers who broke into the former president’s campaign files. Specifically, he republished a 271-page report the Trump camp wrote on running mate JD Vance. Campaigns commonly do their own “opposition research” on their own candidates in order to anticipate any skeletons in the closet that may be dug up by the opposing side.
A spokesman for X, owned by billionaire inventor Elon Musk, said Klippenstein was booted off the platform for sharing “unredacted private personal information.” This is a longer way of articulating X’s rule against what is called “doxxing.” The practice means finding “documents” that contain private information and then putting them out into the public square. Some social media platforms have policies against the practice, but these usually contemplate private, ordinary people, not political figures. It is unclear whether X’s rule against doxxing was truly meant to stop journalists from publishing information on figures of public interest.
According to X, Klippenstein’s suspension is only temporary, but it should be noted that the released material included Vance’s Social Security number.
Last month the Trump campaign disclosed that it had been hacked and that many private documents were stolen. The FBI confirmed that Iranian hackers were behind the theft and that Iran is trying to disrupt the November presidential elections. The stolen documents have been widely shared across media outlets, though none so far have published them.
Iran keeps trying, offering last week to send the materials to the Biden campaign, said the FBI. Of course, that campaign is now defunct. The Harris campaign said its staff was not fooled by the hackers’ come-ons, which came in the form of phishing emails that were sent to the private email addresses of some staff.
For his part, Klippenstein said that he published the documents because they are “of keen public interest” during election season.
