TheQuartering [4/20/2023]
A Wired senior writer was permanently banned from Twitter on Wednesday after interviewing the person who hacked conservative commentator Matt Walsh’s account.
Dell Cameron shared a link to his story, “The Hacker Who Hijacked Matt Walsh’s Twitter Was Just ‘Bored,” and received the suspension notice, which he then posted to another social media account.
Wired released the following statement to TheWrap, citing that their attempts to contact Twitter were met with the “customary poop emoji” response. Elon Musk adopted the emoji as the company’s standard reply to any press inquiries in March after dissolving the press department.
WIRED learned Wednesday afternoon that senior reporter Dell Cameron’s Twitter account was permanently suspended after he reported on Matt Walsh’s Twitter account being hacked.
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.
– WIRED managing editor Hemal Jhaveri
Some on Twitter speculated that Musk was motivated to suspend Cameron after right-wing social media influencer Andy Ngo tweeted about the Wired article.
Ngo wrote, “Dell Cameron, a leftist senior reporter for WIRED, used Twitter to solicit stolen information belonging to @MattWalshBlog, who was hacked last night.”
Among the provocative statements the hacker, who went by the alias “Doomed,” shared via Walsh’s Twitter account were jabs at fellow conservative media figures, including Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro, podcaster Joe Rogan, and accused sexual traffic trafficker Andrew Tate.