CNN, 15 December 2022 In response, Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Ella Irwin told The Verge that "we will suspend any accounts that violate our privacy policies and put other users at risk." Binder denied violating any of Twitter's policies, saying: "I did not share any location data, as per Twitter's new terms. Nor did I share any links to ElonJet or other location tracking accounts." CNN journalist Oliver Darcy wrote that the bannings "called into serious question Musk's supposed commitment to free speech." A group of the suspended users created a Space where they discussed the actions (a function they were still able to use); after Musk joined the space and continued to criticize the ElonJet account, Spaces was abruptly disabled site-wide, with employees citing a "legacy bug".The Washington Post said in a statement that suspending reporter Drew Harwell "undermines Elon Musk's claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech". European Union (EU) commissioner Vera Jourova stated that the EU Digital Services Act insists on media freedom. Jourova stated: "Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon." On December 17, 2022, in a u-turn, several banned journalists' accounts were reinstated. Twitter also appeared to block links to Mastodon as malware or potentially harmful. On December 18, 2022, Twitter announced that it was banning users linking to what were referred to as "prohibited platforms" including Facebook, Mastodon, Instagram and Truth Social, as well as third party link aggregators such as Linktree. Six hours after his announcement, Musk tweeted: "Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won't happen again." It is unclear if the earlier policy will be reversed. He also tweeted a poll asking users if he should remain as head of Twitter promising to abide by its results, in which 57.5% of the 17.5m votes were in favour of him stepping down. On December 20, 2022, Musk announced he would step down as CEO once a replacement had been found, and that he would then run the software and servers teams. Since the acquisition, Twitter's stability has been called into question, with reports that Musk had "disconnected one of the more sensitive server racks" in a datacenter used by Twitter, just before a large-scale outage of the platform occurred in December 2022. In 2023, many alternative third-party Twitter clients including