11 ms·

Doxxing is not free speech. The sensible majority of people understand that. It's only a vocal small minority of idiots and troublemakers that argue otherwise.

pgodzin 4y ago
Musk disagreed with you until today, he explicitly said that he would be leaving this exact account up because he believed in free speech even when it was about his location.
- theteapot 4y ago
  Yes I know. He changed his mind I guess. He should admit he was wrong and clarify that tweet.
  - pgodzin 4y ago
    What about all the other things he's wrong about that he just hasn't been personally aggrieved by yet?
    - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - kibwen 4y ago
      Maybe if one of Elon Musk's children came out as trans he'd realize that trans people are just people and stop needlessly demonizing them with right-wing invective. Oh, wait...
- WalterBright 4y ago
  It is possible for people to learn and change their minds. I'm pretty sure that doxxing is not allowed on HN, Reddit, and other platforms, including the D language forums. I'm good with that.
  - pgodzin 4y ago
    The problem is that he is only learning when it negatively affects him. Plenty of people have already learned many of these lessons, he just has no interest in listening to them.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      People learning from experience is a good thing.
      - bmlzootown 4y ago
        If we, as a species, only learned from our own personal experiences, we'd still be dwelling in caves.
      - rchaud 4y ago
        He is 50 years old.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        It would be, if they then use that experience to modify their stance in a consistent manner but that is not what is happening here.
      - AlexandrB 4y ago
        Sure. But if the only way Elon can learn why something is bad is through first-hand experience, will he act against speech that threatens minority groups he's not part of? What about those that are economically disadvantaged? You can already see this lack of empathy at work in how he's trying to claw back severance he owes Twitter's ex-employees.
  - brookst 4y ago
    I sincerely hope he learns and changes his mind. Evidence so far is that he’s not principled enough to do so. “Free speech absolutism” just meant he didn’t give a fuck as long as he wasn’t the one at risk. I don’t think that will change, but I’d love to be wrong.
adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
From a legal perspective it definitely is in the US at least (unless it's pretty clear that you are calling for immanent action to be taken against the person you're doxing). Still a dick move, and probably illegal in a lot of other countries.
ShredKazoo 4y ago
My preferred operationalization of free speech is "minimum intimidation". Slurs don't qualify for protection under this operationalization, because they intimidate the listener without providing any information content. Same goes for protesting a talk so loudly that the speaker is drowned out, or doxxing. If your speech serves only to intimidate others into silence, I don't think it should be protected. Curious to hear everyone's objections to this high-level approach. (Note: I would want to add a bunch of clarifying details before making this Twitter's official policy, but it seems more interesting to provide those details in response to objections, instead of writing a long boring comment.)
- komali2 4y ago
  Imo it's too simple a ruleset you've got here, though I get why we want to do this because in the end what we're all trying to do is find out how we could write down something enforceable, like a TOS or law. Those things can't be very vague... Sort of. Laws seem to allow for some discretion on the part of the justice system. Anyway to me it's similar to saying "violence is bad," yet we probably both believe people should be allowed to emoloy violence when violence is being done to them. I think similarly applies to hate speech. If a nazi shows up to campus to deliver their message of hate, it's ethical to drown them out and prevent any spread of the hateful message. "But both sides but hypocrisy but free speech" Imo tolerance is not a universal ethical position but instead a peace treaty. Peace treaties should not be suicidal. If you make a peace treaty with someone and they attack, you should abandon the treaty. Hateful speech (slurs etc) are a form of attack, they're a form of violence. They don't have a place in civil society, civil society should not allow this sort of speech or behavior in it. Someone who is saying these sorts of things is telling you clear as day that they don't tolerate some part of you. So why should you tolerate them? They've abandoned the treaty. What that doesn't mean is that civil society should go out of their way to hunt and kill anybody that likes to say slurs: that's the opposite of a peace treaty. More like they should be rejected utterly from participating until they're willing to again subscribe to a peace treaty (by being civil, not attacking people). Deplatforming vocal racists is thus ethical. Their language is attack on civility and our ability to maintain peaceful society. It's an important distinction.
kevinh 4y ago
Elon Musk, within the last hour, sent out a request for a person to be doxxed with a video of someone's license plate and face. This is not a principled policy.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  The loophole that Musk is relying on here is that it's not real-time and is therefore not against (the new) ToS.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    Would Musk reinstate Elonjet if his tweets were delayed by 12 hours? Doesn't seem like that's going to happen.
croes 4y ago
Is it doxxing if it's public available data?
jakelazaroff 4y ago
Yeah, there’s always a pretext. That’s the point. It’s easy to say “I’d only ban speech that violates the law!” when someone else is running the show. But when you’re in charge and reality hits, well, of course posting someone’s location doesn’t count as free speech! And so on and so forth. It happened with parody, it’s happening with this and it’ll happen with something else in the future. No one comes out and says “actually, I don’t support free speech anymore.” They just keep moving the goalposts. Which would be fine, except people keep trying to tell me they don’t exist.
koboll 4y ago
It's not obviously not doxxing to post publicly available information about the locations of aircraft. It never has been and it never will be.
zerocrates 4y ago
When you say "not free speech," what do you mean? It's not, at least in a general sense, illegal (in the United States).
dns_snek 4y ago
Reposting public information that is broadcast to the public in real time and required by law to be public while operating an airplane in the public airspace isn't doxxing. How come this is only an issue now that Musk is throwing a tantrum? It's not like his situation is unique, the location data of every aircraft is broadcast and published in the same manner.
panda-giddiness 4y ago
Posting public information about a public figure is not doxxing.
pjc50 4y ago
So is he going to re-ban Libs Of Tiktok again? Or any of the other conservative accounts which were banned for doxing and he reinstated?

pgodzin 4y ago

Musk disagreed with you until today, he explicitly said that he would be leaving this exact account up because he believed in free speech even when it was about his location.

theteapot 4y ago
Yes I know. He changed his mind I guess. He should admit he was wrong and clarify that tweet.
- pgodzin 4y ago
  What about all the other things he's wrong about that he just hasn't been personally aggrieved by yet?
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kibwen 4y ago
    Maybe if one of Elon Musk's children came out as trans he'd realize that trans people are just people and stop needlessly demonizing them with right-wing invective. Oh, wait...
WalterBright 4y ago
It is possible for people to learn and change their minds. I'm pretty sure that doxxing is not allowed on HN, Reddit, and other platforms, including the D language forums. I'm good with that.
- pgodzin 4y ago
  The problem is that he is only learning when it negatively affects him. Plenty of people have already learned many of these lessons, he just has no interest in listening to them.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    People learning from experience is a good thing.
    - bmlzootown 4y ago
      If we, as a species, only learned from our own personal experiences, we'd still be dwelling in caves.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      He is 50 years old.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      It would be, if they then use that experience to modify their stance in a consistent manner but that is not what is happening here.
    - AlexandrB 4y ago
      Sure. But if the only way Elon can learn why something is bad is through first-hand experience, will he act against speech that threatens minority groups he's not part of? What about those that are economically disadvantaged? You can already see this lack of empathy at work in how he's trying to claw back severance he owes Twitter's ex-employees.
- brookst 4y ago
  I sincerely hope he learns and changes his mind. Evidence so far is that he’s not principled enough to do so. “Free speech absolutism” just meant he didn’t give a fuck as long as he wasn’t the one at risk. I don’t think that will change, but I’d love to be wrong.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago

From a legal perspective it definitely is in the US at least (unless it's pretty clear that you are calling for immanent action to be taken against the person you're doxing). Still a dick move, and probably illegal in a lot of other countries.

ShredKazoo 4y ago

My preferred operationalization of free speech is "minimum intimidation". Slurs don't qualify for protection under this operationalization, because they intimidate the listener without providing any information content. Same goes for protesting a talk so loudly that the speaker is drowned out, or doxxing. If your speech serves only to intimidate others into silence, I don't think it should be protected. Curious to hear everyone's objections to this high-level approach. (Note: I would want to add a bunch of clarifying details before making this Twitter's official policy, but it seems more interesting to provide those details in response to objections, instead of writing a long boring comment.)

komali2 4y ago
Imo it's too simple a ruleset you've got here, though I get why we want to do this because in the end what we're all trying to do is find out how we could write down something enforceable, like a TOS or law. Those things can't be very vague... Sort of. Laws seem to allow for some discretion on the part of the justice system. Anyway to me it's similar to saying "violence is bad," yet we probably both believe people should be allowed to emoloy violence when violence is being done to them. I think similarly applies to hate speech. If a nazi shows up to campus to deliver their message of hate, it's ethical to drown them out and prevent any spread of the hateful message. "But both sides but hypocrisy but free speech" Imo tolerance is not a universal ethical position but instead a peace treaty. Peace treaties should not be suicidal. If you make a peace treaty with someone and they attack, you should abandon the treaty. Hateful speech (slurs etc) are a form of attack, they're a form of violence. They don't have a place in civil society, civil society should not allow this sort of speech or behavior in it. Someone who is saying these sorts of things is telling you clear as day that they don't tolerate some part of you. So why should you tolerate them? They've abandoned the treaty. What that doesn't mean is that civil society should go out of their way to hunt and kill anybody that likes to say slurs: that's the opposite of a peace treaty. More like they should be rejected utterly from participating until they're willing to again subscribe to a peace treaty (by being civil, not attacking people). Deplatforming vocal racists is thus ethical. Their language is attack on civility and our ability to maintain peaceful society. It's an important distinction.

kevinh 4y ago

Elon Musk, within the last hour, sent out a request for a person to be doxxed with a video of someone's license plate and face. This is not a principled policy.

hackerlight 4y ago
The loophole that Musk is relying on here is that it's not real-time and is therefore not against (the new) ToS.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  Would Musk reinstate Elonjet if his tweets were delayed by 12 hours? Doesn't seem like that's going to happen.

croes 4y ago

Is it doxxing if it's public available data?

jakelazaroff 4y ago

Yeah, there’s always a pretext. That’s the point. It’s easy to say “I’d only ban speech that violates the law!” when someone else is running the show. But when you’re in charge and reality hits, well, of course posting someone’s location doesn’t count as free speech! And so on and so forth. It happened with parody, it’s happening with this and it’ll happen with something else in the future. No one comes out and says “actually, I don’t support free speech anymore.” They just keep moving the goalposts. Which would be fine, except people keep trying to tell me they don’t exist.

koboll 4y ago

It's not obviously not doxxing to post publicly available information about the locations of aircraft. It never has been and it never will be.

zerocrates 4y ago

When you say "not free speech," what do you mean? It's not, at least in a general sense, illegal (in the United States).

dns_snek 4y ago

Reposting public information that is broadcast to the public in real time and required by law to be public while operating an airplane in the public airspace isn't doxxing. How come this is only an issue now that Musk is throwing a tantrum? It's not like his situation is unique, the location data of every aircraft is broadcast and published in the same manner.

panda-giddiness 4y ago

Posting public information about a public figure is not doxxing.

pjc50 4y ago

So is he going to re-ban Libs Of Tiktok again? Or any of the other conservative accounts which were banned for doxing and he reinstated?