Elon Musk, the owner, chairman, and chief technical officer of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), is facing criticism from the crypto community, primarily from those who have strong affiliations with Ripple’s XRP token, for suspending an XRP-related social media account.
The owner of the account, Crypto Eri, had reached out to Elon Musk to seek clarification of whether this was done by mistake or was targeted for her comments which she termed as having the right to free speech.
The account in question is “Digital Asset Investor. XRP”. The account has been known to be vocal in its advocacy of the XRP token, which has been embroiled in various investigations and lawsuits. The most famous lawsuit that it has faced is from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has made claims that XRP is an unregistered security.
The lawsuit had famously caused a major crypto exchange Coinbase to delist the XRP token from its crypto exchange which caused a huge uproar in the crypto space. It had remained off the exchange for 2 years.
The development came after a US federal court ruled that the sale of XRP tokens on exchanges and through algorithms didn’t constitute investment contracts. This ruling was seen as a major win by the XRP token supporters and the crypto community in general. After the ruling, the XRP token also saw a major pump in its price though it remained short-lived.
Digital Asset Investor. XRP, the account which was suspended by X, is known as a platform where XRP enthusiasts exchange information and perspectives and participate in conversations about cryptocurrency. The reason for the suspension was attributed to the account being used by scammers for malicious purposes. However, no official response or reason was given by X officials to back this sentiment.
In response to this reservation shared by Crypto Eri about the account being used for scamming purposes, the reply was:
“I have been doing my part to stick to the facts. Even when I’m called the crypto police or part of the cancel culture. That’s not been fun. I have empathy because he built his whole channel around using the X platform,”
Questions are being raised inside the crypto community on X: whether this was an isolated incident or is X now planning to censor content on its platform, something which they feel will not be welcomed by the followers of the social media platform.
Elon Musk is himself facing an investigation by the SEC for refusing to testify in a probe into his purchase of X. The SEC is looking into whether Elon Musk broke any securities laws by acquiring X shares last year before ultimately buying the entire company in October for $44 billion. This investigation is detailed in a recent filing, which is requesting a federal judge to compel Musk to provide testimony.
