ElonJet Is Now Suspended

My understanding is that the 'Trust and Safety Council' was an international board of external stakeholders and consultants to help with 'Trust and Safety' (moderation) at Twitter, NOT the 'Trust and Safety' division within Twitter.

I suspect that Musk has a very easily accessible interface to delete any twitter user that he wants within seconds and that is what happened here.

She just got the role, why would she no longer work there? Presumably she was put there to enable this, after Yoel Roth abruptly left (and was subsequently defamed as a pedo by Elon, what's with the guy and pedophiles).

I don’t mean to be a antagonistic but as the owner of twitter why would we expect he not have the right and ability to ban anyone he likes? When it was publicly held there was some accountability to the shareholders as part of the public. Now he can literally carry a sink around wherever he wants

VF = visibility filter = shadow banning

From my read of the “Twitter Files” I hey have multiple levels of ways to reduce a tweets reach. Not allowing a tweet to trend, not show up in Search etc. I believe the “heavy” part refers to how many, and how hard these levers are pulled.

I think this is the first public occurrence of this term. Supposedly there are couples more that are independently named by users.

Mea culpa! I've edited my comment to fix this.

("visibility filtering")

VF = Visibility Filtering = "Shadow Banning"

Thanks, seri4l!

Time is ordered so that things happen after other things.

  So first @ElonJet appeared to be shadow-banned or visibility-filtered. 
  Then @JxckSweeney commented on that.
  Then it appeared that @ElonJet was back to normal.
  Then @JxckSweeney commented on that. *THIS* is what you linked to, from Dec 12, two days ago. 
  Then today, two days later, @ElonJet was suspended.
  Then you posted your comment, apparently missing the passage of time from Dec 12 to Dec 14.
  Then also today, @JxckSweeney was suspended.

The account you link to is now suspended for talking about ElonJet being banned.

@ElonJet account is still suspended at the time when I leave this comment. 10 minutes after you posted this.

No, that tweet predates the more recent ban tweet by 2 days. I just checked and ElonJet and a couple of the other accounts definitely show as suspended/banned to me.

That was 2 days ago, it was re-suspended yesterday.

Since he made that post, @ElonJet has been banned.

"Free speech" has become a hot button issue because for the first time in history, oligarchs are in danger of losing the absolute control they have had over media and communication throughout history. What they actually want is to ensure that their propaganda cannot be silenced, while simultaneously still silencing voices they don't like. Calling it free speech is a way to make it seem like their fight is somehow in the interest of the common folk too.

It's all part of the game where they get to tell a story about how they're successful because they are smarter or more deserving or better than the rest of us, while the reality is that they are robbing us blind and making sure that we have no choice but to work for them to make them rich.

Events like the Panama Papers leaks are terrifying to them because is exposes how universally corrupt the rich and powerful are and how badly they are using their wealth to screw us. If that kind of information becomes commonplace then people would realize that our fight isn't between ideological left vs right, it is, and always has been rich vs poor.

About a decade ago, the extreme far right realized they could rephrase their violence as speech, which meant that removing calls to violence was now "censorship". This subtle semantic shift has happened so thoroughly that "free speech" is now a codeword for "we can drop dox on trans people and get away with it".

Of course, this is absurd, because dropping dox on someone is one of the easiest way to censor them.

Conversely, a lot of actual free speech arguments have been recouched in the language of social justice purely for the sake of not getting confused for the far right. When you hear phrases like "hearing marginalized voices", you don't think of free speech. But it is a free speech argument: due to past acts of violence, a group of people are not allowed to speak, so we should let them speak.

And this isn't the first time this has happened, either. Remember that quote about censorship and the Internet[0]? That itself was propaganda for the hacker movement. The Internet does not actually interpret censorship as damage, nor can it "route" around it. Hackers do that, individually, and at a non-zero cost.

I personally think this particular rhetorical shell game has enabled some of big tech's abuses today. It's difficult to sell alternatives to big tech because that requires making a free speech argument, which means a lot of extra work on agreeing if we're talking about free speech[0], free speech[1], or free speech[2]. Because at a minimum, the Internet is not usable without a minimum level of justifiable censorship: i.e. banning spammers, deleting dox, and shutting down DDoS services. That requires making value judgments about what is speech, what is abuse, and what is violence.

[0] "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it"

[1] "It's about ethics in gaming journalism"

[2] "Listen and believe", "silence is violence", and so on

> how hot-button an issue Free Speech has become.

What has really happened is that a major political group has gone from having views basically supporting the mainstream power structure ("conservative") to having views at odds with the mainstream power structure ("reactionary", to use Moldbug's own label). They're shocked that their viewpoints are suddenly being censored by the mainstream media, and chalking it up to a conspiracy by the other political party rather than the mutually interested oligarchic behavior that's been there the whole time. For anyone who came up having their politics at odds with the mainstream power structure, the censorship dynamic of mass media (which now includes social mass media) isn't a shock.

(I suspect there's a similar pan-political shock for the generation that grew up with social media primacy, but before social media had been fully captured by the incumbent power structure)

It's not because of free speech, if you look at every top comment in this thread you will find plenty less than agreeable ones, more than usual for hn in fact. I would argue the same thing happens on every thread related to Musk, Trump and Ye. Perhaps it is a coincidence, or even just inherent consequence of the demographic they target. I believe there might be an easier explanation though, especially if you consider how conservative politicians as of late have been getting a lot of loans and coaching in pr strategy. Some russian oligarchs even publicly made statements of similar nature. After all, what's a little shared botfarm between friends?

Unfortunately, "most people's definition" does not factor in at all when Elon is claiming to only be upholding the law. It is my understanding that "doxxing" is not only largely legal in the U.S., it is in fact common practice for various administrative databases to be published unredacted by default.

Whether the law adequately protects people's privacy is a different conversation (worth having in my opinion!), and so is whether or not public or private non-government entities should step up instead and provide that additional protection.

With steps like this, he just clearly shows that he either never was all that serious about that claim, or that he has quickly learned why content moderation isn't as easy as "upholding the law and nothing but the law", especially in the U.S.

free speech absolutism is exactly what Elon was parroting though

and if he were to acknowledge that he has changed his mind it would be okay-ish, but his whole process is to cause maximum amount of cringe, outcry, gossip/scandals, and so on, because this is what resonates with his personality anyway. so far it led him to the top of that particular game .. so it's unlikely he'll change.

When you are using the public airspace, airwaves, or waterways there is an obligation to identify yourself to others.

The location is for the private aircraft owned by Elon Musk, not Elon Musk himself. He could stuff a dummy on the aircraft and have it flown across the country and the tracking account would not provide any information that is different. This is not doxxing because whether Elon Musk was aboard the aircraft was never implied.

Yeah, I don't think this account deserved to exist either. Really, it was just a bonehead move by Musk to call this account out specifically as one that he wouldn't ban.

Elon himself, on https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376:

> By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.

Was the account violating any law?

> Where's the hypocrisy?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456

> "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk"

Musk has stated several times he wants "free speech" and when pushed further, mostly talks about "speech that is not at odds with the law".

So yes, that is pretty inconsistent with banning an account which did nothing illegal. Assuming it was Musk who issued it.

>from a non-leftwing source

Can you people stop going "left wing right wing" for one day and see things for what they are instead of this infantile black-white spiel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions

> because they completely disregarded preexisting company policy for dealing with political figures

That was the company policy.

Public figures were largely exempt from the rules except when their tweet was egregious.

Not sure why you think this is some conspiracy when it was blatantly obvious.

Playing devil's advocate in Twitter's defense:

Is there any public information about how twitter handled the two examples you provided at the end there? Do we know for sure they actively chose not to take any actions?

If not, I'm not sure it is fair to claim they completely ignored them. They may have limited their reach via some kind of shadow banning. Action like that is harder to notice than an account ban.

Also, since your examples predate the particular ban we are discussing, do we know for sure there weren't policy changes in between. Perhaps even because of examples like the ones you list.

Personally, I wonder if Twitter might have a more American-centric view of the world and a higher sense of urgency for "events at home", so to speak. That could go some way to explaining what seems to be selective enforcement of their terms of service.

Have you considered that many people here actually work in companies and know how they work, meaning they don't need a media source to know that the Twitter files are bogus? In fact, most people here have brains and can think for themselves, and we actually don't rely on a media outlet for all our takes.

Have you also considered that there is a huge difference between Khamenei and PMs saber rattling online against other countries (which was actually consistent with Twitter's then current policy of treating world leaders, Trump included, with a lenient hand) vs. a president not condemning and (very likely encouraging) an attempt by his own supporters seeking to overturn an election as said attempt was going on?

The larger problem isn't the lack of uniform enforcement. Our actual problem was trusting Twitter to remain impartial in the first place. It's crazy how many people bought into the "global town hall" bullshit Elon Musk pedaled, and now it's unsurprising to watch him backpedal now that the reigns are in his hands.

Hopefully people realize that trusting $COMPANY will never deliver you anything good. We either regulate the things we care about, or let stuff like this happen. Either way, the world keeps spinning.

> (I'll leave aside whether that action was justified or not)

Seems like an important detail to consider!

> And when that account got doxxed -- which is dangerous and malicious -- the company did nothing.

you know Elon was running the company when this happened, right? which makes it completely orthogonal to your point.

It's ironic to observe flawed humans being angry at other human(s) who are also flawed.

> twitter files

Was there much interesting in there? I mostly remember it opening with the Dems having a direct line for reporting, with the examples shown of it being used being mostly nudes of Hunter&company, that i assume won't surprise anyone when being acted upon. Now there shouldn't be direct lines, but a fair report&enforcement system instead. But i somehow doubt that will get any better under musk...

You're going to mislead a lot of non-Americans here with the bit about political donations. In America, you can donate to one party to benefit the other party by virtue of candidate selection during primary elections. Who one donates to does not necessarily match their preferred party.

I think it’s worth digging into that LibsOfTikTok issue, because even the limited information we’ve got is being misinterpreted. It is a real shame that Elon decided to do a selective release.

The text shared was this:

===== Site Policy Recommendation Site Policy recommends placing @LibsOfTiktok ([LTT] 1.3M followers, not verified) in a 7-day timeout at the account level meaning, not for a specific Tweet] based on the account's continued pattern of indirectly violating Twitter's Hateful Conduct Policy by tweeting content that either leads to or intends to incite harassment against individuals and institutions that support LGBTQ communities. At this time, Site Policy has not found explicitly violative Tweets, which would result in a permanent suspension of the account. This type of enforcement action [repeated 7-day timeouts at the account-level] will not lead to permanent suspension, however: should LTT engage in any other direct Tweet-level violations of any of Site Policy's policies, we will move forward with permanent suspension.

Assessment Since its most recent timeout, while LTT has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy, the user has continued targeting individuals/allies/supporters of the LGBTQIA+ community for alleged misconduct. The targeting of at least one of these institutions =====

It’s inaccurate to say that LoTT didn’t violate the rules. LoTT didn’t directly violate the rules. Weiss chose to cut the text off before getting to the description of what happened as a result of LoTT’s tweets.

So at this point you can ask a more nuanced question: what do you do about indirect violations which you believe in good faith have potentially harmful results? Such as, say, bomb threats?

I’m not going to try and answer that here because it’s a really difficult question and I don’t think we’d reach an answer. I will say that I think it’s important to acknowledge that the question itself is reasonable. The Twitter Files fail to acknowledge that.

I will also note that Weiss selectively quoted the text in her screenshot. “Since its most recent timeout, while LTT has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy…” became “LTT has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy.” That changes the meaning of the sentence and obscures the question I raised above. I would also like to know if Twitter determined that LoTT directly engaged in such behavior before the most recent timeout; it seems very relevant.

Finally, we have no idea how lopsided the enforcement was because we don’t have the complete dataset. Showing us a handful of cases selected by unclear means is hardly enough data to form conclusions!

You should look carefully at what Bari Weiss misquotes. Twitter's statement is about Libsoftiktok not doing something suspendable was limited to a short time period, not a blanket statement.

But "they got suspended 6 times for legitimate reasons and then the continued to behave badly while staying just inside the written bounds of the rules" isn't really a story.

Flawed humans being angry at other human(s) who are also flawed. So ironic :)

>> They just didn't like the "intent".

She was instigating acts of extreme violence. Surely you’re joking. Or tell us how you really feel about certain extremely vulnerable & marginalized members of our society more, I guess.

Twitter (in my experience, everyone seems to have a different one) was very left-leaning..

Not the kind of left that the rest of the world see's as left, but that weird US-coastal left leaning that sometimes depicts some races as inhuman and other races as infantalised.

So believe me when I say: What Elon is doing is not better, it's more of the same, but towards the right wing and his interests.

The answer to bias is not bias in another direction, the answer is neutrality, and he has proven he can't be neutral.

It wasn't fairly lopsided, it was extremely lopsided.

Glenn Greenwald:

"This thread proves 3 things:

1) Twitter execs were regularly meeting with FBI over what to censor.

2) Twitter's censorship was almost 100% aligned with the Dem Party.

3) Twitter's chief censors were deranged ideologues abusing their power over our discourse to silence dissent."

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1601591994165256192

If Greenwald isn't credible enough, I don't know what to say.

Is flightradar24.com a security concern?

Note that the account wasn't about the location of a specific person, but rather the (public) location of a specific aircraft (own/used by a specific person). It's not like someone was tailing Elon and reporting their every location - planes must broadcast their location through use of ADS-B. It is public information.

> If you agree its fine, would you apply the same reasoning to [favorite politician]?

Yes.

If "against their will" means "without their consent", one might never again be able to post a picture taken in a public place where faces were identifiable in the background.

Ordinary photographs constitute ample and often accidental documentation of where people were at any given time. Even if you assume consent (which is a real unfair assumption where people don't even know about posts being made about them), this would suppress a lot of information that is very clearly in the public interest; if I can get posts taken down that document I was doing a bad thing in a particular place, I have a lot of power to suppress evidence of my malfeasance.

The US's legal framework here makes a lot of compromises that make a lot of people unhappy, but if you dig into it, you can see why it's complicated: reasonable-sounding policies work their way to unreasonable results in various subsets of cases.

The point is, I think, how you interpret "free speech". In his own tweet [0], he says:

"By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law."

The information @ElonJet is publishing is publicly available. One interpretation says: if it's publicly available information, then preventing it being republished is censorship. Therefore Musk is breaking his own rule.

Another interpretation says: whilst it's freely-available information, publishing risks increased harm to Musk himself. I'm no expert on US law, but I'd imagine there's some sort of provision that protects against deliberately risking harm to someone. Assuming that's the case, Musk is being consistent with his own rule.

Given his public profile - and his desire/willingness/record of being provocative - I'd imagine most will adopt the former interpretation.

[0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376?lang...

>If you agree its fine, would you apply the same reasoning to [favorite politician]?

What, like Air Force One? https://twitter.com/USAirForceVIP

While I think things could have been done in a clearer and more above-board way, Twitter does seem to have an anti-doxxing policy that includes sharing non-public information about a person's presumed location. So a bot that crowdsourced a politician's location would seem to also be in violation of this policy.

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-info...

I think that'd be a reasonable policy for anyone who isn't claiming to be a free speech absolutist.

If you make that claim and then enact censorious policies then you're plainly a liar.

> a bot that crowdsourced the whereabouts of [politician] at any time?

Oh my god. That would be horrifying. Can you imagine?

https://mobile.twitter.com/potusschedbot

I honestly would not have cared about the account being banned, except for the fact that Musk won points for nobly saying he would not ban the account.

You’re “flabbergasted”?

This is publicly available information.

What exactly is the safety threat with this twitter acct?

What is the actual risk? I suspect he's way more likely to get into a car crash.

The information about his plane's location is already public. Posting it to twitter just makes it spread further. Also, a plane's location isn't very useful. Even doxxing someone's permanent address (not that elon has one) is a pretty minimal threat to their life.

A plane's location is some of the less dangerous speech allowed.

I'm failing to see the safety threat here.

The account republishes publicly available information. I'd hardly consider that doxxing. Flight data isn't private.

Elon pointed to the existence of the account as demonstrating his attitude towards free speech and as far we all can tell, nothing has changed.

You're not flabbergasted and you don't believe it's doxxing. You just support your boy Elon.

Seems like you're explaining exactly the intent of this account: Proving that putting free speech above all other values on an internet forum isn't always a good idea, even if it's legal.

No one actually thinks this account is valuable on it's own. This "Gotcha" is a hugely important point that Musk doesn't understand.

Why do you care so much, if he (supposedly) doesn't?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456

I'm not sure you understand what free speech is.

Being able to claim someone's speech makes you "unsafe" is akin to "words are violence" that the pro free speech crowd objects to. Elon may face a greater risk of harm with the world having a way to guess his location (broadly) but that's not a case to silence speech.

It should also be noted he's a billionaire. Have you seen Zuckerberg's security spending?

Is someone paying you to outcry the publishing of already public information?

And preventing the triggered and willful spread of disinformation about our elections and public health is not a safety issue??

I believe the purchase was $44B. Elon only has some personal stake, there are loans and other investors I think. I don't know if the specific accounting of the sale is public info.

I highly doubt that's the only reason he bought it lol

yeah, it seems to me that Elon Musk has the emotional stability of a teenager hitting puberty, only filthy rich

[Deleted]

Where you live is public info, but publishing it still constitutes doxxing.

I imagine an assassination would've been cheaper.

I'm reminded of Bryan Cantrill's famous "Do not anthropomorphize Larry Ellison" diatribe: https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=2305

> It's not hypocrisy, it's the natural outgrowth of seeing other people as a collection of vague moving objects that either do things for you or cause problems for you.

Good object versus bad object, very Kleinian and appropriate.

Central to object relations theory is the notion of splitting, which can be described as the mental separation of objects into "good" and "bad" parts and the subsequent repression of the "bad," or anxiety-provoking, aspects (Klein, 1932; 1935).

Infants first experience splitting in their relationship with the primary caregiver: The caregiver is “good” when all the infant’s needs are satisfied and “bad” when they are not.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

I have a different but similar take on this: Imagine two WWI soldiers on opposing sides hunkered down alone in their trenches within earshot of each other. One yells to the other, "Man, I'm so glad I've got my twenty comrades with me!"

The other knows there's no way the trench could hold that many and says, "Don't like to me you bastard!"

The first guy says, "Oh, yeah, well how many do you have?"

The other says, "Only ten of us."

The other guy here has:

1. Criticized the first guy for lying.

2. Then lied himself.

Would you call this behavior hypocritical? No, probably not. Because hypocrisy only really exists as a valid criticism within a social sphere that presumes good faith and mutual respect.

But these two dudes are mortal enemies engaged in war. Being hypocritical is the least of the harmful things that guy is willing to do to the other, a list which also includes fun social interactions like stabbing him with a bayonet.

When I see politicians become brazen about contradicting themselves, the conclusion I come to is that they see the people they are making mouth sounds towards as beneath them and a less human Other that they feel no obligation to behave consistently towards.

It's what Adam Curtis covers in HyperNormalization. I think it's less that the noises actually have any specific effect and more that they just create chaos bubbles of what is true or not.

> It's not hypocrisy

I disagree there though unless one agrees that Musk has no morality. However, in the absence of morals, which is likely, it would still be perceived hypocrisy.

This is poetry. And it has the added benefit of being true.

> It's not hypocrisy, it's the natural outgrowth of seeing other people as a collection of vague moving objects that either do things for you or cause problems for you.

If that is the state of the art then what is the defense that regular people have?

Treat Musk as a moving object as well? Because the Valley seems filled with people singing Musk praises in order to raise money and impress his fanboys who are loaded with money (and get access to some of that money), while they'll openly admit behind close doors that Musk is a fraud.

Does hypocrisy need to be an intentional action to be considered hypocrisy? I don't think it does. I think we can externally evaluate actions and, regardless of underlying motives, assign a value of "hypocrisy" to it.

On the other hand, if we assume that hypocrisy requires intent, then what you've instead described is "just" garden variety narcissistic sociopathy.

you hit in the nail in the head, Elon Musk probably lives in a world where only he exists as a person and everyone around are just NPC's. Or maybe he believe he is nietzsche's ubermensch and thus is above the morals which bind us normal folk.

Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Elon Musk.

Or if you assume he is a psychopath who will say and do anything because he was born rich and has never had to face the consequences of his actions.

Same strategy as Trump then.

I find this armchair psychology a bit repulsive--the assumption that one has successfully dissected another and knows the base ingredients that make them tick. If you think about it, to think you know people (figures, if you like) inside out and that their behavior is simplistic and reptilian, is nearly as repugnant in itself as seeing speech as a mere series of levers and pulleys.

This is not far from how spectrum-y people see others unless they're motivated to overcome their deficiencies. I don't think that's a coincidence.

I think all of this is part of his appeal. He's more "scruffy" and unfiltered than most people with his prominence and responsibilities. But it's easy to confuse this lack of a filter for honesty, when the two may be entirely orthogonal.

Elon's communication style is also good for forming "parasocial" relationships with his audience which explains how loyal and fervent many of his fans are.

It's the Trumpian playbook. Just insult everyone who makes you feel small. Try to make yourself bigger by making others smaller.

Remember all those comments on HN for how right Musk is to decent free speech and how this is definitely going to improve Twitter? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Philosophically, I think his “freedom of reach” distinction is a hack/loophole without a strong basis.

Twitter is a promotion service, just like Facebook (in each, they let users promote themselves in exchange for being targeted for promotion by others). The entire point of it is to promote content. It is not a content platform, except by coincidence.

Once you “maximum derank” somebody, you are denying them access to the whole point of the service.

By all means, ban the users you don’t want. Keep your service free of toxicity. Nobody likes a forum full of trolls. But don’t call it “free speech”

Well not really _free_, it did cost $44B (:

Unwaveringly low?

The "[lack of]" parenthetical is implied. Yes.

Some people are freer than others.

/s

> People are acting like Musk changed course for no reason

I'm not sure that's the case. I think many people, myself included, assumed Musk's course was always "just do what's best for me." So he's really just holding to that.

You should give people in your life the benefit of the doubt, but large corporations and billionaires usually found success by acting in their own interest so they will just keep on doing that.

Like what? Musk, the self-proclaimed free speech absolutionist, said he removed most policies and whatnot.

Nothing unusual on the FB account

https://m.facebook.com/ElonJet/

Steel manning really only works if you can assume the other person continues to argue in good faith. If the other person keeps moving the goalposts and demanding you construct a strong argument for their behavior they're just being abusive and I would suggest the best course of action is to leave.

Why does anyone care about alternative "narratives"? Are there any other facts that one might like to introduce? Not alternative facts, things that actually happened.

He literally just unbanned an account that tried to run a coup on the federal government and yet an account that shows where his jet is is dangerous?

Which is it? Because it seems like "I don't like it" is the new justification for bans and "I agree with it" is the new justification for unblocking accounts.

Here's my best guess: Musk lives in a bubble of yes men 24x7, except Sunday night he was on stage with Chapelle getting slapped in the face by over 10,000 people who clearly didn't like him. Probably a defining moment in his life that shook him to the core and genuinely scared him.

If you respond to the reporting of non-editorialized, objective fact with the question "Is there an alternative narrative?", I think it is time to check your own biases.

It’s an automated account that only makes one type of post lol

"ElonJet is Now Suspended" is the narrative.

If there is the only people that can say as such are Twitter and/or Musk himself. So far we’ve heard nothing.

I think you have to ask yourself which of the following is more likely:

1. @elonjet suddenly started to engage in some extremist/TOS-breaking behaviour

2. Elon Musk changed his mind

Given that #2 has happened a few times already, I think that's a pretty reasonable assumption.

He is definitely changing course here (he has publicly stated he wouldn’t squash this account) but my idea is, one of his peons is enforcing some policy about automated scripts controlling accounts. Has anyone read the TOS or seen what has changed?

Free speech is subject to rules?

Because Twitter had rules and they enforced those rules which led to bans/suspensions...and people were upset about that on free speech grounds.

Yeah, maybe Twitter instituted a new rule (not public) that you can't track Elon Musk's flight patterns.

Follow the rules, people.

If there was nobody would know about it because it literally just happened! This is one of the reasons I always flag these "breaking ragebait controversy" Twitter threads - even if someone's curious and genuinely wants to understand an issue in its full context, they can't. The only options right now are to wait for more information or get mad based on incomplete information.

I mean, he's openly been saying the level of death threats he's been receiving is exceedingly high. Seems like it could just be for security.

I am rarely on twitter (just reading financial macro discussions, for which twitter seems to be a center of excellence), so probably have skewed priors. That said, skimming this information I see nothing particularly bad in banning the account that posted screenshots of internal confidential discussions.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the freedom of speech. It is related to breaking the promise (made when joining any company as an employee) not to divulge confidential information. This is a restriction on the freedom of speech that one knowingly agrees to when joining the company.

If I knowingly posted sensitive internal discussions from my employer I would be kicked out. Or worse: if I worked in a hospital and shared some sensitive pictures I might be hit with heavy fines or spend time behind bars. My 2c.

Of course there are other narratives. You're limited by your creativity. Generally the one that involves the least creativity prevails. There's a huge constituency ready to jump on Musk for whatever, and here they are, because it's easy. Until there's facts just stay agnostic...

Are you asking for context and nuance?

What are you, a free thinker? Why not just joint he "Elon man bad" chorus?

> serious question, does free speech extend to doxing

Boy, what a complicated and serious question. We should form a committee to discuss exactly where our community places reasonable boundaries and adjudicate blurry edge cases. Who could have predicted that a policy like "if it's legal, it's allowed" would lead to problems? Surely no one with a few dozen billion dollars to set on fire would be that unbelievably stupid.

Flight data is already public, the account was "just" posting about it on Twitter.

I don't know whether I think it's free speech honestly, but I think the more relevant question here is whether Musk would consider it "free speech" to post the same type of information about someone else.

When he's not the object of the speech in question, he seems to think that things like calling people pedophiles is free speech, so he generally seems to be a free speech maximalist and I'm guessing the answer might be yes.

I don't consider a lot of things to be free speech that musk apparently does, but there's a big difference between him being a free speech maximalist in general and just supporting free speech when it's convenient.

It depends I think it's extremely hypocritical of Musk to ban speech like doxxing, based on his past comments.

Why is it okay if Musk does it?

Consider the following: The Twitter files contains a lot of private information and outs employees whom have received direct harassment.

The ElonJet account contains publicly available information on a very accessible site. This does not make a statement about Musk nor does it tell who is inside the jet at the time.

Which is closer to doxxing?

But elon musk owns the company. What it does is his responsibility. He is not some wayward ship swept up in a massive tide, he is the tide.

Flight information provided to the FAA is considered public information. This is funded with taxpayer money, and is not privy to privacy.

In the early days of aviation, when flight information was not public, hundreds of people would routinely die in airplane crashes. Those days are over because flight plans are now public information. When you're in the sky, you are under surveillance, no matter who you are. If you deviate from your flight plan, that is also known. It must be this way, for the safety of everyone else in the sky around you.

Privacy ends when you leave your home. Airspace is public. You have no expectation of privacy in public.

Why is https://twitter.com/PutinJet still up?

This question is clearly not relevant to the parent comment, since the linked tweet explicitly states that he would not ban this account as part of his commitment to free speech.

Tracking of personal billionare jets is absolutely legal and will take exactly 5 minutes of time and $0 for anyone who decide to do it. If Musk don't like it he is free to use a car instead.

> have very heavy toll on his persona

His supporters are fanatical - none of his previous abhorrent actions have had a heavy toll, so it's unclear why this one should.

He is certainly receiving a large backlash to his recent actions, but I think that's more a case of people (outside of tech) who would've paid little attention to him before being forced to be more fully aware of his existence, than anyone who previously supported him thinking less of him.

The problem is that if you do try to point out when he contradicts himself, you get banned.

It's all about what we call a "reasonable expectation of privacy" right? And all Sweeney did was publish information that was already publicly available[1], right?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sweeney

Tail numbers and flight paths is publicly available information.

https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info

Relitigating this is not going to be fruitful: Elon Musk is a public figure who chooses to fly by private jet. Callsigns and flight status are public information by necessity.

Just so we're clear: I'm not free speech absolutist.

Oh no, a billionaire felt bullied because someone posted public flight tracking data on social media? That’s nowhere near the bar for “targeted harassment”. You know what is? That same billionaire has been calling people pedophiles in a targeted attempt at character assassination.

I'm not ... but...

So which is it?

Hacker News fell for it, hook line and sinker. The number of people saying "give him a chance" and "he actually believes in free speech" dominated those who were like, "he'll probably just change who gets banned to be more in line with his personal beliefs."

I mean all things considered, pre-Musk buyout, Twitter was largely the least moderated of the major social media sites I'm aware of. Yes, people constantly brigaded and flooded the like buttons, but unlike Facebook groups or subreddits, users couldn't ban other users comments, so you'd just have to accept the extremists.

So if Musk literally did nothing but continue that pattern, he could justifiably make the claim that it's as close to a bastion of free speech as could be allowed on a social media site of its size.

Are you referring to Twitter right?

I believe that is only the tip of the iceberg, given anti-vax narrative and transphobia is endlessly repeated by those on the far/alt-right. I see the "Prosecute/Fauci" tweet as a signal towards his intended audience for what kind of place he wants Twitter to be.

I have believed from the start that Musk's main motivation for buying Twitter was giving a boon to the Republicans to buy favorable treatment for his companies, because he isn't getting that from the Democrats.

I'll probably work.

I think the predictable right on cue overreaction is hilarious.

Remember: Don't feed the trolls

It's petty, I find it tasteless, but I still must admire how easily he plays everyone.

This is more like paparazzi following famous people around. Doxing some random person is different matter than posting the travel patterns of a Russian oligarch or an American oligarch like Elon.

It appears that all automated flight tracking accounts utilizing open source data from @ADSBexchange have been banned from Twitter, including @RUOligarchJets.

He's demonstrated he's generally in favor of speech he likes. I don't think there's any obvious connection between those accounts getting banned/unbanned under his leadership other than "does Elon like this account?"

He certainly has not demonstrated that he's in favor of free speech. He did restore a bunch of accounts - mostly far right trolls - and banned a bunch of others. It's not like Twitter wasn't a cesspool before, but he managed to make it worse while blaming the previous regime for being asleep at the wheel. The guy who used to be in charge of content moderation recently had to flee his home after Musk suggested Twitter had been turning a blind eye to child abuse and his army of sycophants went on the warpath. This is after he fired the entire team responsible for dealing with that garbage. He accuses companies who are cutting back advertising of being against free speech. The guy is a straight up cyber bully. Anyone paying attention has known that for years. Free speech only matters when it's his own free speech.

> he's certainly demonstrated that he's generally in favor of freer speech.

He's just changed who gets banned to be more in line with his personal beliefs. Accounts banned under the previous regime are unbanned and accounts that either were or likely would be permitted previously are now banned, with recent examples being the account that initially hosted the viral clip of Elon being booed on Chappelle's show and now ElonJet.

The latter example is particularly important, since both the public and Elon himself seemed to view this account as a litmus test of his commitment to "free speech."

Ah yes, unbanning the lovely creator of Stormfront, while keeping leftist accounts banned.

Billionaires walk hand in hand with fascists. Nothing free speechey about it.

Twitter has also banned lots of left wing activist accounts, maybe we can agree that he has demonstrated that he's in favor of some free speech but not of free other speech?

*freer speech that he likes

seeing this as supporting "freer" is a take that falls apart pretty quickly when you specifically look at who's benefiting from this newfound "freerness"

This is what I'm referring to. I am expecting Elon to go after him the same as he did with Yoel Roth, now that Jack has publicly told him he's wrong.

Jack didn't reply to his follow-up though:

> Jack: No, it is not.

> Elon: When Ella Irwin, who now runs Trust & Safety, joined Twitter earlier this year, almost no one was working on child safety.

> She raised this with Ned & Parag, but they rejected her staffing request.

> I made it top priority immediately.

Why doesn't he set the record straight on this?

> Still.. amazing cars.

Are they really that nice? I've been in a few but never owned one. I hear a lot about fit and finish issues unbefitting a car of that price range.

What does a Model S get you that an S-class doesn't, or a Model 3 against, I don't know, an Audi A4? Is it just all about that electric drivetrain? I don't yet have a strong preference on electric vs. ICE, but I would gladly pay more to have a car without the "slap an iPad in the middle for every UX" design of the Tesla.

A lot of this just boils down to people wanting to justify, defend, and tolerate anything he does because they want to believe that the nerdy entrepreneur will usher in their cyberpunk fantasies about going to Mars and interfacing directly with machines.

I dunno, with all of the recent leaks, Twitters internal workings have all been made public. Sounds pretty transparent to me!

well this is rather the perfect test case - is Elon willing to allow the freedom of speech for someone who is doing something that is pretty trivial but to him personally annoying at a pretty low level?

The answer seems to be "No, Elon only wants the speech that he likes"

This does not bode well for twitter's future, or for that matter SpaceX/Tesla if Elon is going to be spending all his time as Twitter's chief censor

Unfounded hope of course: no one who has, or had, monetary interest in the success of Twitter would or would have gained from transparency.

Twitter is a public company, and may be a digital public square, but it does not have the public good as a rewardable goal.

Agreed, I wanted to believe but this is disappointing.

Even worse, there's no transparency here: What rule was violated, how long is the suspension, etc.

Did that thinking not apply to ElonJet's case, or was there something about that case that made it special?

Why didn’t he use his block button on the Jet account then?

I'm not drawing a dichotomy between genius and asshole, I'm saying that Musk has revealed himself to be quite a dumbass in reality. For instance, you have to be exceptionally dumb to pay $44B for a company worth $12B.

I'm not saying he doesn't have some talents. But like SBF and Elizabeth Holmes, his superpower seems to be creating a reality distortion field, not economics, physics, or anything else that makes for a long-term success.

There are a lot of anecdotal stories about teams at Tesla and SpaceX managing up to keep him from making terrible decisions all the time. I used to thing it just grousing, but now I'm not so sure.

> I never really understood why his financial backers would knowingly light a pile of money on fire

Think about FTX, cryptocurrencies, Juicero... it's becoming pretty overwhelmingly clear that having money is not in any way correlated to being able to spend it intelligently. It's time to start seriously thinking about wealth caps.

> I'm guessing bankruptcy has always been the plan

Why? What advantage would that bring to him?

Honest question. With him overpaying for Twitter already (maybe not completely voluntary), bankruptcy looks like the fastest way to make the deal even worse.

Bankruptcy would be really bad for Musk in this case - his creditors will get 10s of billions worth of Tesla shares as collateral.

Musk's grand plan is to lose $30B or so of his own money, plus $13B from bankers who trusted that he would pay them back? That does not seem plausible to me.

The public data about the deal seems to indicate that backers wouldn't care as they have solid collateral from Musk personally in form of Tesla stock, so unless Tesla goes down as well, the Twitter deal will be profitable for them as all the losses are on Musk.

Depends on what securities Elon had to provide to get the loans. If it was Tesla stock, well, thej it might not be as bad as deal for his financial backers, especially the banks. It might be for him, so.

What if he (or his investors) just wanted all of Twitter's data? What happens to the company's data if it goes bankrupt?

I think you need to avoid taking Musk’s word at face value and instead look at his actions. Avoiding paying rent and severance is not what a financially healthy company does.

The only logical reason I can think of to not pay something you know you’re legally obligated to pay is if you’re intending to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying. Otherwise you’re going to end up paying and pay a load of legal fees on top.

I guess one alternative is effectively taking a risky loan: you are running low on cash but you have a large cash flow coming in the future. Stop paying rent, eventually after a protracted court battle pay your debts with that future cash flow and the legal fees are “interest”.

Neither feels like the actions of a financially healthy company.

Judging by the quality of ads that are being presented on twitter these days (when I see any at all), this is very obviously not true, no matter how much Elon claims otherwise.

Twitter still has to pay severance for the staff they fired - plus arbitration fees, damages, etc.

And other lawsuits will be coming in soon now that they got rid of their content moderation staff.

He needs 1b a year just to service the debt.