I look very much toward what moderation rationale Elon will give for this. He's most likely trying to avoid bias by banning all the jet accounts so he doesn't look like a hypocrite by only banning his own jet account (as noted in the previous thread), in which case, it's way too late for that.
EDIT: The official ban reason for the personal account suspension is violating rules "against platform manipulation and spam" (which, lol)
Sorry but it's completely legal and anyone can look up the info as it's publicly available. It's also protected under the 1st amendment and court cases. It's not stalking, it's simply relaying already available public info in an easier to find place.
Turns out the FAA has been stalking people for decades. Can we also add "getting arrested is kidnapping actually" to this list of arbitrary interpretations?
The censorship never stopped. It was happening before Musk assumed his position, while he was getting settled in, and is continuing now. Twitter is a censorious platform, and its organizational and technical structure is very much conducive to this situation; nor could you reasonably expect someone like Mr. Musk to invest a lot of effort to change this.
No, the censorship was not at all limited to "stopping direct harm". Unless you redefine harm as "what Twitter owners/management decide is harmful", in which case that's true by-definition.
He saw he got criticism for singling out one account, and then to look consistent he banned the others. This is easier than reinstating the original one and admiting error.
I mean just call it as it is: totally that. He’s so thin skinned and petty. He spent 44bil of various people’s money to do what, exactly? Apart from own the libs, that is
Elon's primary motivation, his 'Roko's Basilisk', is a massive DoD program, which requires Republicans to fund. Twitter helps him curry favors to earn these (potentially ~$1-2T) Republican-backed contracts.
The DoD program is a space constellation of ballistic missile defense satellites for tracking and targeting nuclear ballistic missiles, including HGVs and hypersonic cruise missiles".[110] " However, (UCS) warns developments could escalate tensions with Russia and China and called the project "fundamentally destabilizing".[111] They later called for a treaty halting development to prevent an arms race in space.[112]
Starlink's military satellite development is overseen internally at SpaceX by retired four-star general Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy.[113][114] O'Shaughnessy advocated before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services for a layered space capability with lethal follow-on that incorporates machine learning and artificial intelligence to gather and act upon sensor data quickly.[115]
> O'Shaughnessy advocated before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services for a layered space capability with lethal follow-on that incorporates machine learning and artificial intelligence to gather and act upon sensor data quickly
So basically a doomsday machine.
I understand the need for quick reaction but I really really would like to see a human in the chain to push the button. We've come way too close before like the Cuban crisis and Able Archer more specifically where all the data was screaming war but cool heads prevailed.
I agree with you 100%. For all of humanities fallibleness, every averted nuclear close call was due to having a human in the loop[0] in one way or another. For instance, in 1960 Norway's sunrise was interpreted by radar in Greenland as a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Thankfully there were no automated responses, and humans in the loop realized the error quite quickly once they assessed all the surrounding facts
[1]: I couldn't help but think of this skit and pronunciation when seeing O'Shaughnessy from Key & Peel (video is linked to the pronunciation but its worth watching in its entirety if you like this kind of humor)
Oh yes this is the incident I was referring to, actually. I thought it was the same. Somehow I remembered the troop buildup of Able Archer confirmed the invasion fear for the Soviets. But it sounds like that played no part in it. I must have remembered it wrong.
> Somehow I remembered the troop buildup of Able Archer confirmed the invasion fear for the Soviets.
From what I remembered, and a quick scan of Wikipedia[1], you're not wrong.
"In response, the Soviet Union readied their nuclear forces and placed air units in East Germany and Poland on alert. The Soviet 4th Air Army began loading nuclear warheads onto combat planes in preparation for war."
Yes, like naming his drone ships after Iain M. Banks Culture ships. A universe where the good guys are the utopian communist space hippies, and the bad guys are billionaires with a monopoly on virtual Hells. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail)
This is one of the few posts I've seen touch on the question of: is there a pragmatic reason Elon would want to see a Republican or even "Trumpist" government.
In other words: does he actually care about any of that culture war shit or is it just about big contracts?
I think that probably comes from a belief that whatever happens to the wider world, his billions will insulate him from any inconvenience. "Who cares if the proles are ground under the boot, countries are destroyed and misery rules the land...as long as I have my billions FU I got mine". I know a disturbingly large number of people who fundamentally believe this, and not just extravagantly wealthy people.
Elon is a cokehead who just bought the biggest cartel.
We're watching a horrible social media addiction rage out of control in a person who has too many resources and power for anyone to tell him 'no'.
Elon was probably always a POS but on some level I feel bad for him like I feel bad for Notch. all that money, power, and opportunity and they can't help but to spend it all terminally online bickering with other terminally online people.
That was also running totally fine before a rich guy claimed ownership and started changing everything to his will, though the users were perfectly satisfied with how things were running till then.
People started to leave which annoyed him and he started to make ever more rules and eventually deleted all the channels. Which means that reputable channels for open-source projects were now owned by randos who just happened to be the first to join after the reboot. Chaos ensued.
The Twitter drama feels very similar. And that's not a good sign if we look at how Freenode played out. Freenode is now a fringe network. The previous management simply started a new network called Libera and two weeks later it was like the whole thing had never happened, just under a different name.
Twitter is a lot bigger sure but big things can fall too. And they have for lesser reasons. Think Yahoo or MySpace.
A lot of these owners seem to forget that the users are on their platform by free will. There is nothing tieing them down and it's only the tiny hassle of creating a new account that's a barrier to move.
If I got that first huge multimillion dollar payout he hit early in his career, I would've stopped there. I'd still just be quietly living in a modest house in a small town decades later
His twisted, broken personality is what enabled him to become a billionaire in the first place
Don't forget the birth lottery! I've lived in South Africa, and I've seen first-hand the human consequences of the policies that built his family wealth.
Did you hear about the twitter files? It shows some pretty serious election interference and also shows how various staff either lied directly to congress.
Excusing the selective leaking and the motivated journalists who have access to the documents to present a narrative through their view, the conversations to me revealed careful consideration and discussion rather than the vast conspiracy it’s presented as.
As long as we only get one carefully currated version, i call bullshit. Don't you agree that the taibbi posts are extremely suspect?
I thought the V2 would add context but its more of the same. I know plenty of accounts (and people) attacking the libs and advocating for action, one in particular active in RedneckRevolt, who were banned on way less hateful things (one helped find gunrange and explained how to make AP rounds). Reading about the internal mails of people at Twitter who chose to ban educational, pro-BPP accounts explaining to soft lefties why guns are good, and letting Proud boys and libsofticktocks who did the same without bans... Heh.
If it was both side (right and left) against the libs, why not, but this feel like propping up one side only.
The tracking bots were labelled as bots long ago. @elonjet's handle was also shadowbanned in Twitter search. The suspension reason is so weak it only reinforces Elon's hypocrisy.
Looks like https://twitter.com/BillGatesJet is still up. Let's see how long that last. It feels to me like that's exactly it - he got called out and now he's banning others to make it seem like a blanket policy. As usual he's being impulsive and reactionary.
Yes, he's not particularly consistent. Still, this was the account he held up as evidence that he was committed to free speech, because he refused to ban it even though he didn't like it. Now it’s banned.
He doesn't have to. However for a self-paraded "free speech absolutist" who literally said he would not suspend @elonjet in order to follow that principle, this act makes him a massive hypocrite and demonstrates his free speech advocacy to be nothing but a show.
Also, arbitrary suspensions like this when Twitter no longer has any decision-making council on such policies is not a good sign for corporate advertisers who prefer stability & reputation. Can't find those on a platform where one manchild has taken a dictatorial position.
It's a top-three above-the-fold story on https://www.nbcnews.com/ at this moment; any large advertiser is going to have brand safety folks employed specifically to keep an eye on stuff like this.
I haven't had trouble finding info about the Twitter files. Is there anything particularly damning in them? Because I haven't seen anything that isn't still clearly going on with Musk at the helm.
I only browsed cursorily, and you seem to have a strong opinion. Care to share?
Casual fan of free speech and kinda confused at Musk here.
Ignoring your highly biased conspiratory language here, Twitter Files revealed nothing more than some internal communication snippets about events that were already public knowledge.
At some point I think he'll move to just not even bothering explaining anything since he knows his fans will defend him. His justification could be literal gibberish, and his defenders would be resorting to the Kabbalah to try to translate it into something coherent.
You got down-voted, but I think you're onto something.
The last couple of weeks/months of Elon to me are just another instance of a much-replicated "no fact-checking required for popularity" pattern. It turns out it never was, we just didn't have the sort of media immediacy that made it an issue at scale before.
We need more general tools to deal with these cases.
Could Elon give any rationale? Rationale of course depending on internal consistency and coherency. Elon's public persona seems to be a mess of contradictions with itself.
Perhaps there is actually a credible threat on Elon’s life? Starlink is providing internet services to Ukraine. Elon has seemingly waded into US partisan politics and become a controversial figure. If someone told me that Vladimir Putin put a green light on him, I would not find it outside the realm of belief.
But this is a total crackpot speculation for purposes of entertaining discussion on the internet.
How exactly would banning Twitter account re-posting publicly available information affect his safety? Yeah Russian secret service is incompetent, but they are certainly able to google for "elon musk jet tracker".
“The unmasking of the Salisbury poisoning suspects by a new digital journalism outfit was an embarrassment for Putin – and evidence that Russian spies are not what they once were.”
Simple question: do you think people's location should tracked and publicized? The answer is always no.
It's also against Twitter terms of service.
It's called a wedge. You are being forced into criticizing him for doing something that you actually want him to be doing.
Your only way out is to argue that doxing is okay for billionaires or something like that - which is basically saying "if I make enough money I think its okay to be personally harassed and doxed" - which is really tough to believe.
The people criticizing him are not upset that he is not upholding free speech commitments though. They are the ones that don't want free speech. They want more moderation and want stricter rules and policies, and more safety.
So here is a policy that everyone agrees with and increases safety on the platform. And they are not happy. It's such a funny situation.
It really demonstrates how tribal everything is. No one deals with individual events and circumstances. If you look at all the comments, there is a finite number of ways to evaluate this situation...and its seems like no one evaluates it critically. You could predict what each person will say. In fact, maybe I will try this in ChatGPT.
Content moderation and free speech are not mutually exclusive. Absolute free speech is not the only kind of free speech, nor is the definition of "free speech" the same globally.
> So here is a policy that everyone agrees with and increases safety on the platform. And they are not happy. It's such a funny situation.
Not upset, just confused that a free speech absolutist is banning people for exercising the version of free speech that he claims to be protecting.
I think the problem is the whole it's apparently ok to post people's location as long as it isn't Elon or maybe some other rich person. The problem is determining if you are posting for good or to incite violence.
Granted, given the size of that thread, there's too much noise there for new pertinent information such as this submission, especially without the ability for new comments to surface easily.
A combination of user flags, software penalties, and moderation downweights.
Re the mod aspect: we have nothing against this story in principle but the utter degradation of these threads into predictable, reflexive vitriol from (dare I say it) both sides is some of the most profoundly uncurious "conversation" (where by conversation I mean people snarking as loudly as they can and hating on others) that I've seen on HN. It's a disgrace and I feel ashamed.
If it were up to me I'd send everyone to bed without supper, but there's nothing we can do besides downweight the worst that shows up here. We can't convince people of anything, such as the purpose of the site, the destructiveness of what they're doing, or to listen to each other.
It's a lesson in human nature. The line from this to people clubbing each other (and I don't mean dancing together) seems continuous to me.
Thanks. I often feel concerned when interesting stories get downweighted on hn, but comments like this remind me why. Still, it feels like the discussion is all lost in chaos.
This definitely seems like the right thing to do. I’ve noticed more and more one line snarky comments on HN the past year. As well, the top posts have trended less and less technical.
You should start disabling or /dev/null-ing votes from people who engage with the site in ways against its ethos. It's an extreme measure but this shit is getting out of hand.
The frontpage ranking algorithm is pretty simple (and open source). It just takes into account post age + votes with an exponential falloff over time. It doesn't take into account comments, so going to news.ycombinator.com/active is probably where you'll see the more active threads.
elon is telling us that, in a very real way, he understands how real world safety may be impacted by posts.
it should concern us that he actively mocks and treats groups as hysterical or unreasonable when they ask for twitter to help mitigate even more immediate and very real threats on their safety.
we know he understands why they ask twitter for help, but he mocks them. he obviously understands the real world implications, yet he escalates. this is actually concerning.
Likely will be suspended for the same thing, since this account was also posting the internal screenshots. Still I suspect that this will be a Streisand effect and it will just amplify things more.
Honestly, a lot about Elon's handling of Twitter bothers me, but this one doesn't; free speech and transparency never meant "leak company info to the press at will".
I do find it hilarious that the email immediately leaked, though.
Is Twitter now a no-corporate-leaks zone? Or is it just a 'no corporate leaks that upset Elon' zone? Will he ban people for talking about government leaks, or leaks from the DNC? Are these rules anywhere in its TOS, or are we all playing a round of Chairman Mao's[1] game?
If he is the free speech advocate he claims (He's not, it should be crystal clear at this point), he should be looking for the leakers, not fighting the press quoting them.
There'd be much more blowback for doing that. But showing stuff on Twitter that's leaked from Twitter and intended to influence Twitter is pretty dangerous.
Now Twitter is blocking links to https://www.instagram.com/elonmusksjet ... unless you're a super-hacker and know how to add arbitrary query parameters to the end of the URL. Is this Hardcore Engineering?
I’ve been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt because I do believe free speech, even on commercial platforms, is an ideal worth upholding, but he’s making it really hard with actions like this.
He says he wants Twitter to appeal to the 80% in the middle of the political spectrum, but he is obviously alienating larger and larger groups of people on the center and left.
Come on dude. It's a plane tracking account. It's clearly against terms of service. It's not exactly an assault on free speech.
> live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes, actual physical location, or other identifying information that would reveal a person’s location, regardless if this information is publicly available;
"measured" - he did not say this. He said "even extends" which implies that it was already on the edge of what he deemed free speech that was acceptable to him.
Can someone change their mind? Yes.
And this wasn't like an election promise or anything. The man can do what he likes. He bought Twitter with his own money.
Is there reason to believe the risk to his personal safety has increased since buying Twitter...yes there is a lot of evidence. He is very hated now.
> the passage you cite from Twitter policy was only added today,
This whole situation shows such derangement of people though. Most people would agree that it's probably a good policy to prevent posting live tracking of people on Twitter. If the policy was changed prior to him buying Twitter, people would welcome it. But now that its him doing it, they are angry at him for doing it, but they welcome the policy itself.
It's really quite an interesting study of group psychology.
If the policy changed this summer, it would have been the 1rst topic discussed in my country, and I would have been vocal about it. 'laviondebernard' was probably the pro-ecological account with the most reach in my country, propped up a discussion about a tax in private jets, and follow up the plane of the richest man in the world as well as planes owned by Total and other big companies.
The fact that this account isn't yet taken down shows it was just another kneejerk reaction from Musk, followedup by another one to hide his thin skin, and isn't about protecting anyone.
I guess the question is do you make an exception for public figures. Which seems to be the case.
But you have to think, would you want your travel plans tracked?
It's easy to be okay with it because you seem to not like Elon Musk and the things he does, but if it was someone else who you liked and who was being harassed...you have to have some level of fairness.
If i had a private plane, of course i wouldn't care. I don't care if they follow Bernard (richest man in the world now) either, and he is a way, way, way more private person the Elon Musk. Bernard wasn't okay, sold his plane and now rent jets at a private company, which is a good solution tbf.
Now it will be a bit harder (and more expensive) for him to go on "fuck it" trip like london-to-london because the taxi is taking too long to arrive. Fine by me.
> Would you want someone to have an account tracking your location?
I wouldn't want nazis to be given megaphones, that sort of thing tends to end with blood in the trenches, but he's doing just that by unbanning Stormfront, et al.
If potential harm[1] is why elonjet is banned, that same argument applies to that filth, as well.
[1] A rabbit hole so wide and long, you can drive a traincar through it.
He actively replies/likes accounts with right wing to far-right leanings. Most of these accounts aren't found or recommended unless the user actively looks for them. This says a lot about Elon and his so-called independent leaning.
It’s possible for him to personally be right-leaning and also fairly enforce apolitical rules on his platform, it just doesn’t seem like he’s doing it.
I dont think it is actually possible for him to do that. Other people sure, but nothing in Musks's past leads me to believe that he can or will apolitical enforce rules... which was his publicly stated reason for doing any of this. He has shown himself to be a liar, he continues to lie, there is no reason to believe he will stop lying.
"This behavior isn't illegal" isn't an argument. Plenty of legal activity gets you banned on Twitter. Automated location tracking for people you don't like is bad and should be banned.
Want to stalk celebrities on social media? Get your own social media.
Elon's perfectly free to institute such a policy, and everyone is free to point out that he's a complete hypocrite w.r.t. his own stated position on "free speech," in general and this specific account in particular.
The Twitter Files just appeared to be typical inner workings of a tech company that has to deal with sociopolitical issues related to their product. Sure I enjoyed reading the Slack screenshots but it's not some conspiracy that mainstream media outlets aren't covering this story. It just isn't that remarkable or explosive.
Does this really seem like something that will cost him with the audience he's been courting in recent years? At this point I feel pretty confident they enjoy watching idols squash their "enemies" as much as they enjoy watching them role-play victimhood.
Tesla stock isnt great... and I know several people who were excited for their next car to be Tesla's. One of them just bought the VW id.4. I have decided to hold off on my EV purchase (After test driving Tesla locally and loving them) for a few years and seeing what the other auto makers are putting out. Whatever car I do get, it will not be a Tesla.
The demographic he's courting is not one for logical or ethical consistency. As long as people they don't like are punished and people they do like are uplifted, all is good.
These Twitter accounts were very useful to track movements of Putin's cronies and spread the information. Now thanks to Elon this is no longer possible.
It's the first time, out of all of Elon's enterprises (which I on the whole admire a lot), that I don't really see his added value in a business. Even the flamethrower thing was more net positive than his current work at Twitter seems to be.
So let me get this straight. COVID misinformation, QAnon conspiracy theories and general hatred to people different than yourself is ok on twitter but posting public FAA data is not?
You see, the former ones don't personally impact him while the latter slightly brushes against his ego, and for a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist that is apparently what finally crosses the line.
This sort of stuff is so incredibly funny. It’s like a few years ago Elon Musk decided “I want to be Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka!” and then did not keep track of what happened to that guy in recent history.
There's nothing "moderately right-of-center" about the people and messages Elon has been amplifying and to suggest otherwise only embarrasses yourself.
Elon Musk tweeted out a Weekly World News-tier conspiracy about Paul Pelosi. That's not moderately right of center - that's social media brain rot. I read that article and would personally be embarrassed to associate with any person who thought even for a second that article was credible.
Elon tweeted "Follow {the rabbit emoji}" earlier this week, which is a code phrase of the QAnon conspiracy movement, which is a fascist movement, so no, he is not signaling that he is "moderately right of center"; he is signaling that he is fascist.
I didn't know it was and neither has anyone else I've asked. Odds are higher its supposed to mean "going down the rabbit hole", a common English expression and probably linking to his bugbear about previous Twitter's moderation practices.
That’s how far out qanon this stuff is. Are you surprised that you and your friends don’t recognize their dog whistles? Because they sure seem to recognize them when they are used.
It wouldn't be stalking, but widely disseminating even public records could easily be construed as doxxing, which is not accepted on most public, reputable forums.
The myriad of flight tracking websites are not in violation of any doxxing rules whatsoever. There is no dissemination of public records other than replaying info as-is.
The existence of these automated tracking accounts have no effect on Elon's personal safety because any hypothetical bad actor would not need to depend on this singular account on a singular platform to obtain such information.
Public records are public records, doubly so if they concern billionaires. Musk has been begging to be a public person for decades now, he does not get to decide the framing
You drive your car around in public with identifying information on it, anyone can derive a record of its public movements if they were inclined. For example by just following you around on public roads and streaming it, like how paparazzi operate legally.
You have to transmit your license plate information visually as you drive, so I don't really see the difference. The fact that some data is public doesn't mean shining a spotlight on specific elements easily is an appropriate thing to do.
I dont know about the personal account, but aren't these jet accounts bots? Isn't that exactly what Elon said he was going to do? It's possible that the personal account was tied via IPs to the bots.
Agreed, once it goes down, I worry people will be saying that he never said that and any screenshots of it will be considered some sort of false flag operation by his followers.
As much as I support someone having the right to be an asshole, if you come be an asshole at my house you can be damn sure that I will shut it down and you will have to find somewhere else to be an asshole. These things do not contradict and it does not make me a hypocrite.
If you go: "I don't like what you're saying, but I will still allow you it in my house". Then a short while later you throw said person out because you don't like what they are saying. You are of course not in violation of any laws and it's your right to do so but trust just plummeted as we cannot belive anything you're saying.
>These things do not contradict and it does not make me a hypocrite.
They sure don't! Unless, of course, you say, "Hey, you can be an asshole in my house," and then immediately kick them out for being the asshole you said they could be.
I look very much toward what moderation rationale Elon will give for this. He's most likely trying to avoid bias by banning all the jet accounts so he doesn't look like a hypocrite by only banning his own jet account (as noted in the previous thread), in which case, it's way too late for that.
EDIT: The official ban reason for the personal account suspension is violating rules "against platform manipulation and spam" (which, lol)
https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1603118347716939776