Jason Whitlock: Twitter targeted me over Black Lives Matter criticism as message to other sports journalists

EXCLUSIVE -- Sports writer Jason Whitlock said Twitter's recent decision to lock him out of his account for criticizing Black Lives Matter was part of a wider campaign by Big Tech to target journalists who don't protect pro-China corporate interests.

"Twitter has limited the growth of my social media following for six or seven years," he told Fox News in an email. "I'm punished and targeted as a message to other sports journalists. Big Tech protects the influencers who promote China's interest."

Whitlock said he doesn't participate in the "idolatry of celebrity influencers" like Nike athletes LeBron James and Colin Kaepernick, who he said are "paid to promote anti-American sentiment to strengthen Nike's relationship with China." James is outspoken on domestic issues but has been criticized for his silence on Chinese atrocities, given the NBA's lucrative business interests there.

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Whitlock was locked out of his account on Friday after a tweet slamming Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrise Cullors over a recent home purchase, but the social media service reversed itself Tuesday and informed Whitlock it had made a "mistake."

Whitlock said he did not reach out to Twitter, accusing the social media giant of lying. 

"I returned to Twitter Tuesday night when they unlocked my account and sent me an apology," he said in an email. "I refused to delete the tweet because I did nothing wrong."

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Whitlock's initial tweet has been restored. In it, he mocked Cullors for buying a $1.4 million home in Topanga Canyon, a Los Angeles-area enclave where only 1.4% of residents are Black.

"She’s with her people!" Whitlock wrote sarcastically, with a link to a story about Cullors' purchase from celebrity blog site Dirt.com. Despite the story not including an address and the fact that other outlets had reported on Cullors' new home, Whitlock was punished over Twitter's rules against publishing private information.

Whitlock said Twitter gave him no other explanation. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Whitlock, who is Black, is a staunch critic of the Black Lives Matter movement, calling it a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Cullors espouses Marxism, one of the reasons Whitlock and others have criticized her recent wave of ritzy home purchases.

"Cullors and others are useful idiots of the CCP," Whitlock told Fox. "Cullors and the other social-media hashtag warriors are using BLM to promote an LGBTQ agenda. They're using the death of black men to promote the LGBTQ agenda and a Marxist agenda. BLM is about disrupting Judeo Christian values in America. The hashtag warriors get 20 pieces of silver from the CCP and the globalist billionaires who want to remake America and redine American freedom." 

The longtime columnist and former college football player stands out in the sports media world with his criticisms of progressive athletes like Kaepernick and James and the left-leaning sports press he says protects them.

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"Journalism is now dependent on access. We're stenographers for athletes and other influencers," he said. "We no longer probe and question. We regurgitate what the elite influencers tell us and treat their words as gospel. Anyone who doesn't follow the rules loses access and runs the risk of being attacked on Twitter, and corporate media executives live in fear of agitating Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg."

Whitlock previously worked at ESPN and Fox Sports before moving in 2020 to OutKick, the sports and commentary site founded by Clay Travis, another critic of the left-wing sports press. Whitlock interviewed then-President Donald Trump for the site in September.

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Whitlock left OutKick in January after a business disagreement, and he told Fox he would announce his future plans soon.