Twitter suspends Oracle executive’s account for doxxing reporter

Twitter temporarily suspended an Oracle executive from posting after he used the social network to publicize the email and Signal phone number of a journalist whose reporting he found objectionable.

Oracle Executive Vice President Ken Glueck posted the information about the Intercept’s Mara Hvistendahl as part of a debate over her story claiming Chinese resellers are distributing Oracle technology to government entities building China’s surveillance systems. Glueck posted a lengthy rebuttal to the piece, in which he asked anyone with information about the reporter to contact him via email.

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When Hvistendahl tweeted Glueck’s request for information about her and the email account he provided in it, he responded with a Tweet sharing her email and a Signal phone number for her, according to a report by Gizmodo. Twitter has since blocked the tweet, saying the post broke its rules against sharing personal information, a practice called doxxing that is often used to encourage harassment.

“Mara published my email address first thing this morning. I responded with her tip-line Signal and Protonmail (the same one she tweets regularly),” Glueck wrote in an emailed response. “She reported it as a violation, I didn’t really care enough to report her back. The facts speak for themselves.”

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Twitter said Glueck’s account is banned from posting until he deletes the offending tweet, then is subject to a 12-hour time-out period.

“Ken Glueck has published two lengthy blog posts that attack me, but Oracle has not refuted my central finding, which is that the company marketed its analytics software for use by police in China,” Hvistendahl said via email. “With both of my stories, The Intercept published a contact box seeking tips from people with knowledge of Oracle’s work in China and elsewhere. But a journalist asking for information about a major tech company is different from a tech company asking for information about the journalist who is investigating it.”