The X account of the Australian Conservation Foundation was suspended for more than 24 hours with the charity saying it believes it is being “report bombed by pro-nuclear groups” seeking to remove negative commentary.
The environment charity’s X account @AusConservation was suspended on Sunday morning, sparking outrage among supporters. The account was reinstated late on Monday, but without the charity’s 32,000 followers.
An explanatory note on its account had said that “after careful review” the account had been suspended for breaking “X Rules”.
The founder of one Australian pro-nuclear group, Nuclear for Australia,appeared to support the suspension on X – the social media company owned by free speech advocate and US billionaire Elon Musk.
Major companies last year suspended their advertising on the platform, formerly known as Twitter, after Musk said he agreed with an antisemitic tweet on the platform.
Musk later apologised and called the post his “dumbest”.
The ACF’s director of engagement, Jane Gardner, said the organisation had been posting more nuclear content since the Coalition revealed it wanted to lift the country’s ban on nuclear reactors and build seven nuclear plants.
She said: “We have noticed on our posts [about nuclear] there’s plenty of people disagreeing with us, with people threatening to report our content. I do believe we are being targeted and they are trying to silence us out of this space.”
ACF has received another suspension on X for no reason. I believe we’re being report bombed by pro-nuclear groups.
— Jane Gardner (@JaneClimate) August 3, 2024
This is not isolated: factual nuclear info from @renew_economy & @climatecouncil has also been removed from Facebook and TikTok recently.
We are under attack. pic.twitter.com/b6RvAVlgqT
On X, Gardner wrote: “As Australia’s largest and oldest environment advocacy group, our content is always evidence based and never in breach of any platform’s rules.
“It’s no coincidence that pro-nuclear proponents are today publicly boasting about these repeated attempts to silence us.”
The conservation charity Friends of the Earth said on X the suspension was “ridiculous” and that “no environmental group is safe from censorship here”.
Gardner said after the account was reinstated: “I hope our followers will be reinstated, but we are still to hear from X about why our account was withdrawn, We’ve had no explanation.
“We are worried this could happen again and, if it does, we will have to make some decisions about whether we want to be on the platform.”
ACF’s X account was also suspended briefly last month, again after posting nuclear content. The account was reinstated, without explanation, within a day of that suspension.
Guardian Australia asked X in an email why ACF’s account was suspended and if the suspension related to complaints about particular content. An automated reply said: “Busy now, please check back later.”
Last month the not-for-profit Climate Council had a video critical of nuclear energy temporarily removed from the social media platform TikTok.
The renewable energy media outlet RenewEconomy last month had an opinion article written by the University of Queensland economics professor John Quiggin on the costs of nuclear removed from Facebook.
• This article was amended on 7 August 2024 to say that Nuclear for Australia appeared to support the suspension of the ACF’s X account; an earlier version said the group “celebrated” the suspension. Nuclear for Australia has asked us to clarify that it had later called for the account to be reinstated.
