109 ms·

Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

• hackcasual 4y ago
  Difficult not to see this as anything other petulance. It's Musk's site and he's free to do whatever he wants with it, but this seems squarely against "any legal speech will be allowed"
  • the_optimist 4y ago
    • Eisenstein 4y ago
      Quick question: Is it wrong for you to kick puppies for fun? Do you get pleasure out of it? (I can asked loaded questions too.)
      • the_optimist 4y ago
        I do not believe this is a successful response for your intent, but it is for my intent.
    • richbell 4y ago
      > Quick question: Is it legal to repeatedly follow a person for the purpose of harassing the person with implied threats of violence? An airplane is not a person.
      • neodymiumphish 4y ago
        Not at all a fan of his actions on this, and I don't think publishing public information in the way elonjet did should be banned from any platform. BUT, it's a very bad faith argument to not correlate a mobile conveyance, like a private jet or personal car, to the individual who actively uses it the vast major of the time. It wouldn't be called "ElonJet" if it wasn't meant to track Elon, and it's highly unlikely ElonJet would continue to track that specific tail number if Elon traded it for another jet or sold it.
        • mvhvv 4y ago
          I think the distinction between tracking a private jet and tracking a private car is fairly clear cut. The point isn't to actually show where Musk is at any one point (who cares?), but I think the intent of the account is to show the intense disconnect between him and normal (non-private-jet-owning folks). Unless I'm misremembering, the ElonJet account listed the cost and the amount of fuel consumed for every flight right? His willingness to burn 10 tonnes of jet fuel on a whim definitely doesn't mesh well with his brand as "The EV-guy".
    • nilespotter 4y ago
      If they don't share the conformist, leftist authoritarian views of the HN crowd, then it is legal to do anything to them and they're probably transphobic.
      • dang 4y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870
    • SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
      In most American jurisdictions, yes, that's legal. The California stalking statute for example (Penal Code 646.9(a)) only applies if the person who's following you intends to make you afraid for yourself or your family. This why stalking victims so often struggle to do anything about it.
    • rodgerd 4y ago
      Is that why Musk supports LibsofTikTok, who are responsible for terrorist attacks?
  • vehemenz 4y ago
    Why not weakness or incompetence? The guy is clearly out of his depth here.
    • dmix 4y ago
      I defended Elon many times on HN but this is straight up incompetence. Even if they violated some silly location sharing rule they invented yesterday, there's no good excuse. The saddest thing is this only adds fuel to the pro-censorship crowd.
      • ModernMech 4y ago
        Have you realized yet that Musk has been in the pro-censorship crowd all along, even when you were defending him on HN?
  • andrewflnr 4y ago
    Not that this is a good defense, but I think "genuinely scared for his or his child's safety" is a real possibility. Especially if he (rightly or wrongly, no comment there) thinks someone threatened his child... well, protecting your children is one of the more powerful instincts humans have, one of the handful powerful enough to outweigh an ego like Elon's. Plus he has to be at least a little frazzled by Twitter having no credible plan for being financially solvent after scaring off all the advertisers, so I'm guessing he's not doing cold, rational threat assessments of anything. Maybe that interaction of fear and irrationality does start overlapping with petulance too, I don't know. I think people should take into account that something deep inside Elon knows he's in deep shit, and is probably contributing to him taking rash actions and generally lashing out. He was never a wise man, but I still suspect we're seeing him at a low ebb of rationality. Again, no sort of defense: this is a problem entirely of his own making.
    • GoodJokes 4y ago
    • jeremyjh 4y ago
      It seems more likely the story about his kid is just another lie to try win the moment. The LAPD statement is careful not to state that no crime has been reported or under investigation, but to leave that interpretation open. They are “aware of the tweet.”
      • andrewflnr 4y ago
        Definitely a solid possibility. Also a possibility he's just drinking his own koolaid, fully "believing" whatever is convenient. But honestly, the dude has probably been getting death threats for years already, in which case he already had reasons to be a little afraid. It's easy for me to imagine that fear cropping up here as being just one of the more prominent ways he's coming unglued under stress.
      • ceejayoz 4y ago
        Wouldn't be the first time, either. https://in.mashable.com/culture/42675/internet-slams-elon-musk-for-lying-about-his-childs-death-ex-wife-justine-drops-truth-bombs https://in.mashable.com/culture/42675/internet-slams-elon-mu... > Musk tweeted, "My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame." > Soon, Elon's ex-wife Justine Musk revealed the real story and stated that it wasn't the techie but she was holding the child. She wrote, "A SIDS-related incident that put him on life support. He was declared brain-dead. And not that it matters to anyone except me, because it is one of the most sacred and defining moments of my life, but I was the one who was holding him." If Musk wants to turn over a new leaf and decide free speech is secondary to protecting children, he should consider banning the accounts that have whipped up bomb threats against childrens' hospitals of late.
  • throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
    it is however perfectly in line with "private companies can do whatever they want"
    • absrd 4y ago
      Which is exactly the position that Musk is supposedly fighting against -- it's almost like he has no actual principles and is at best no different than the people he's replacing
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        I do not think any of that is in doubt anymore.
  • maxk42 4y ago
    Well in many cases doxing is considered illegal: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119 There are many shades of gray, of course.
    • frakkingcylons 4y ago
      I don't think there's legal consensus that posting the locations where an aircraft travels constitutes doxing in the usual sense of the word.
      • tshaddox 4y ago
        Posting a link to a web page that publishes the public tracking information without even mentioning any person’s name almost certainly does not constitute doxing.
    • rhcom2 4y ago
      That's applicable in a pretty small amount of cases.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • runlevel1 4y ago
      That seems pretty narrowly scoped to protecting witnesses, jurors, informants, public servants, and their immediate family members. The personal information it covers is also limited to SSN, home address, phone numbers, and personal email.
  • colechristensen 4y ago
    I have a feeling plenty of his investors are going to start taking issue and legal action with regard to him “doing whatever he wants”.
  • memish 4y ago
    Hopefully it's 5D Chess, playing the long game. "A warm welcome to all the newest converts to the great American cause of free speech!" @pmarca
  • fdschoeneman 4y ago
    Did you watch the same video I did? It's easy to see this as something other than petulance. It's not complicated. Elon is scared for his family. That's a very human thing. In his place I'd do everything I could to protect them. The elonjet account was a security risk to a public figure in the same way that publishing the home address of Supreme Court Justices is a legitimate security risk -- and in the same way that it led to an attempted assassination of Judge Kavanaugh.
    • cwkoss 4y ago
      A lot of people think he is lying about being scared for his family to justify unprincipled actions that satisfy his megalomania.
• warning26 4y ago
  "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means" —Elon Musk, April 2022
  • jfengel 4y ago
    Exactly. He has the free speech right to ban them from his platform. He was hoping they'd stick around long enough for him to do that.
    • tambourine_man 4y ago
      I hope you forgot to use the <sarcasm> tag.
      • jfengel 4y ago
        I assumed it was obvious, which made an ass out of me. (You are doing just fine, though.)
        • tambourine_man 4y ago
          Nah, just making sure. You never know, the internet is a weird place.
  • loloquwowndueo 4y ago
    That is not what free speech means, particularly not on a privately-owned service :) but him and us all know that.
    • x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
      It's not what Free Speech means, but in the run-up to his buying Twitter, that's all it seemed to mean in many of the discussions. Of course, we know that they weren't serious about such things as shown by their silence in the face of Elon's actions.
• tonetheman 4y ago
  And here is pg trying to defend it https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1603555493238435840 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1603555493238435840
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • tambourine_man 4y ago
    https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1603572959758663680 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1603572959758663680
  • kevinh 4y ago
    His follow-up: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1603572959758663680 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1603572959758663680 "Apparently not. That's bad."
    • lehi 4y ago
      Posted after tonetheman's link here, in case anyone thinks the follow-up was deliberately elided.
  • drunkpotato 4y ago
    Hey, why have facts when you can guess? More seriously, Twitter has been a toxic cesspool long before Elon made it worse, and I’m happy I deleted my account and have never missed it. Actually it’s been a boon when I visit a Twitter link and then Twitter nags me to sign in, it’s a great reminder to close that tab and move on with my life.
  • fluidcruft 4y ago
    And my guess is Elon's just spouting random half-ass commands like "banscript anyone who ever mentioned @elonjet" and the hardcore codemonkeys (read: trapped and unable to quit so obviously fearful of being fired) just run them rather than talkback.
  • jdgoesmarching 4y ago
• footlose_3815 4y ago
  [dead]
• eatonphil 4y ago
  > TechCrunch tweeted at Twitter’s new head of trust and safety for comment on the situation and will update this story if we hear back. Hmm. I guess there's not a number they can call or email to try.
  • eatonphil 4y ago
    > Twitter has not immediately responded to The Verge’s request for comment on the suspensions, though it currently does not have a press department. https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/15/23512004/elon-musk-starts-banning-critical-journalists-from-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/15/23512004/elon-musk-start... Seems so.
  • Natsu 4y ago
    I mean, apparently it's all about ElonJet based on the story, so "without explanation" doesn't make since here, since they're going by a pre-existing policy about real-time tweeting of one's current physical location to enable harassment.
    • kevingadd 4y ago
      It's a new policy.
      • Natsu 4y ago
        No, you can find it on the Wayback machine from a year ago. They only added a new sentence to it clarifying that they're worried about things that threaten someone's safety.
• perryizgr8 4y ago
  • jasmer 4y ago
    This is satire?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• rwbt 4y ago
  Is this his way of going through a public meltdown?
  • AnotherGoodName 4y ago
    I normally wouldn't post psyc articles about someone but in this case fuck it. https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-collapse/ https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-collapse/ Read through. The paragraph about how it manafests in the workplace is quite telling.
    • spritefs 4y ago
      I wonder if the Dave Chappelle thing in SF pushed him over the edge or something. He even went and posted cope on his twitter account afterwards
• afavour 4y ago
  So this is how Twitter goes out: not with a bang but with a seemingly endless stream of stories about the little ways Elon is ruining the service each day. Just staggers me that Elon could have just… not done any of this. And yet here we are. He’s had to sell billions in Tesla stock to finance this ongoing mayhem, this is surely going to be up there as one of the greatest examples of hubris in modern business.
  • georgeg23 4y ago
    • dbreunig 4y ago
      Dude, go blog this and submit it instead of pasting it on everyone one of these threads.
      • dole 4y ago
        At least run it through GPT to make it sound new?
    • Zachsa999 4y ago
      Explain like I'm a 5 year old Canadian please.
      • georgeg23 4y ago
        Read here about Elon and then the Space Development Agency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career
    • ojbyrne 4y ago
      This seems very conspiracy-theory-ish. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
      • deleted 4y ago
• CloudRecondite 4y ago
  Is Musk revealing his true self or in the midst of some life crisis? He’s in a downward spiral that’s rapidly gaining speed.
  • Natsu 4y ago
    He got mad at people tracking (or trying to track) current IRL location to enable harassment after someone went after his son.
    • jacquesm 4y ago
      Except that that whole thing is bollocks. The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
      • richbell 4y ago
        > Sweeney said he hasn't received any notification of legal action, and the last time his bot tweeted anything was Dec. 12, "which is not last night, so I don’t get how that’s connected.” https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/twitter-suspends-elon-jet-account-that-tracked-elon-musk-plane-rcna61718 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/twitter-suspe... Last I checked, the police claimed they hadn't received any reports about the incident, either.
        • jacquesm 4y ago
          Color me surprised. Meanwhile: https://twitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1603454821700452365 https://twitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1603454821700452365
          • akiselev 4y ago
            Hey that's in my home town! I did a quick search and it looks like his girlfriend bought a house in Pasadena in 2018 [1]. So this stalker followed him home to Grimes' home and there's no police report? [1] https://observer.com/2018/06/grimes-buys-house-pasadena-los-angeles-elon-musk/ https://observer.com/2018/06/grimes-buys-house-pasadena-los-...
• jimmygrapes 4y ago
  • m348e912 4y ago
    You trolling? I don't care for Olbermann all that much but it's hypocritical for Twitter under Musk to ban him. If there are new "doxxing" rules perhaps a warning is reasonable instead of an immediate ban
• vehemenz 4y ago
  The Verge seems to have connected the dots: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/15/23512004/elon-musk-starts-banning-critical-journalists-from-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/15/23512004/elon-musk-start...
• browserman 4y ago
  It remains very funny that he paid forty-five billion dollars for the privilege of humiliating himself daily with these petulant temper-tantrums. Amazing bit.
  • rodgerd 4y ago
    "An insecure narcissist buys a criticism factory" remains the best one-line summary of the situation.
    • refulgentis 4y ago
      lmao
    • dredmorbius 4y ago
      Sauce: <https://nitter.net/ben_schachterle/status/1589893255340392448 https://nitter.net/ben_schachterle/status/158989325534039244...>
  • eropple 4y ago
    There's probably a portion of the TSLA slide that can be chalked up to this, too. So more than $45b, though how much more is anyone's guess.
    • gonzo41 4y ago
      https://openargs.com/oa645-we-badly-underestimated-just-how-terrible-elon-musk-is-at-business/ https://openargs.com/oa645-we-badly-underestimated-just-how-... This is very good podcast about this exact topic.
      • aaronharnly 4y ago
        Thanks for the recommendation!
  • makeitdouble 4y ago
    To note, he didn't pay the whole forty-five billion dollars, investment banks have a part of that and are also eating dirt. I have no sympathy for them either, but it brings more flavors to the whole thing. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/05/banks-financing-musks-twitter-deal-face-hefty-losses.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/05/banks-financing-musks-twitte...
• c54 4y ago
  The wave of bans from the muskjet thing has been quite dramatic. It'll be interesting to see if the people who've been lauding musk for his supposedly pro free speech attitudes will reckon with what's been happening in actuality, or if they'll just accept this as "freedom for me but not for thee".
  • mexicanandre 4y ago
    Look at the responses. They are all cheering it. Pathetic
    • asteroidbelt 4y ago
      Doxxing is a common attack on people who are guilty of wrongspeak. I have no strong opinion about how doxxing relates to free speech, but desire to hide your private life is understandable, and I don't see any benefit for the society from realtime doxxing.
    • c54 4y ago
      Sadly predictable...
      • Georgelemental 4y ago
        Please don't make blanket statements like that. Personally I'm disappointed by this turn of events
    • x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
      Or they are quiet, as they are getting the results that they've wanted and that the time of propping up ridiculous Free Speech Absolutism arguments has passed.
      • philosopher1234 4y ago
        We should thank musk for showing us what a billionaire and their leaches really are.
• bmarquez 4y ago
  > While we don’t know what’s going on here yet, it’s possible that the suspensions are the result of automated content moderation gone awry. Some of the suspended accounts shared Mastodon and ElonJet’s Twitter handles as well as images of the tweet that appears to have gotten the former account suspended. Automation gone crazy. I'm likely to believe this explanation rather than Musk personally hitting the "suspend" button on stuff he doesn't like.
  • input_sh 4y ago
    Wouldn't be too sure about that: > Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841
    • bmarquez 4y ago
      If the algorithm is suspending accounts that shared screenshots Elon doesn't like (matching via checksum) then it's banning regardless if the account belongs to a journalist or not.
      • ceejayoz 4y ago
        Which is bad, because the supposed policy has a specific media exemption. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-information https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-info...
        • monocasa 4y ago
          Interestingly it also explicitly says that you won't get permanently suspended unless your account is dedicated to live updates, or you do it again after being locked out and deleting the content. Damn, couldn't even follow his own policy for 24 hours since the accounts seemed to have been banned with no warning. > Sharing private or live location information: > The first time you violate this policy by sharing private information (such as home address, identity documents etc.), we will require you to remove this content. We will also temporarily lock you out of your account before you can Tweet again. If you violate this policy by posting private information again after your first warning, your account will be permanently suspended. > If your account is dedicated to sharing someone’s live location, your account will be automatically suspended.
• Entinel 4y ago
  @JoinMastodon has also been suspended which is amusing.
  • Natsu 4y ago
    From the article: > Twitter took action against Mastodon after the account linked to the Mastodon page of @ElonJet, a student-made bot that tracks the whereabouts of Musk’s private jet.
    • hayleox 4y ago
      Yeah, no. They've also blocked anyone from posting links to major Mastodon instances like mastodon.social or mas.to, and if you try to click any existing links to those sites on Twitter, you'll get a scary warning that it's a malicious site.
      • archagon 4y ago
        Can't even put it in your profile anymore! Nothing like free speech!
        • factcheckdec 4y ago
          Private platform, can do what they want. Wasn't that the mindless retort you'd scrawl in comment sections under previous ownership?
          • ceejayoz 4y ago
            Musk claimed he wanted to change that, then immediately started doing the stuff he decried. No one’s saying he can’t do this. They’re saying he promised not to. Including, specifically, banning the @elonjet account.
• mmaunder 4y ago
  One thing you can take away is the resilience of a network effect. Twitter as an application is laughably easy to build. But it's very hard to kill thanks to the massive audience and the individual connections. The only way Twitter will die is if the network effect is killed, or somehow used against Twitter to create a competing platform.
  • deadmutex 4y ago
    Could the same have been said of Facebook in 2014?
    • DiNovi 4y ago
      facebook knew this and bought instagram. twitter shit down vine which left the door open for tiktok
  • holler 4y ago
    > Twitter as an application is laughably easy to build. I think parts of Twitter may be easy to build in isolation, but the entire platform as a whole is certainly not easy by any means and would be very expensive to construct.
  • smrtinsert 4y ago
    Thus the perfect time for any large competitor to come out with an alternative. Even Google has a shot lol
• Jordrok 4y ago
  So this is the kind of "free speech" that you get when conservative ideals meet reality, huh? How utterly unsurprising.
• chiefalchemist 4y ago
  • specialist 4y ago
    What's your definition?
    • photochemsyn 4y ago
      A journalist is someone who gathers information on specific subjects from a variety of sources, including original documents, interviews with individuals, and others, then condenses that information down into a readable article or watchable video, with the goal of informing the public (in an unbiased manner) on that subject. The closest profession to 'journalist' is probably 'historian', but the former reports on current events, while the latter synthesizes past events.
      • chiefalchemist 4y ago
        Not really. That's a reporter. Journalism is more. Again: https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1 https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1 The problem is reporters have lowered the bar and the less aware bought in. Mediocrity has been normalized. That's ironic. But it's not journalism.
        • photochemsyn 4y ago
          How does one distinguish between a journalist and a state-sponsored or corporate-sponsored propagandist, then? I think I'm going to go ask ChatGPT about this.
    • smackeyacky 4y ago
      I can make a stab at that looking from that list. We're not looking at free speech here, we're looking at protected speech for nazis. Our latest batch of nazis seem to think that people objecting to things like inciting violence, encouraging hate of minorities, white supremacism and all the anti-science nonsense they use to recruit new cult members should be protected speech in safe spaces. A very different idea to free speech. Let Elon set fire to Twitter, it is a hard rule of the internet that any forum invaded by nazis is doomed to failure.
• toldyouso2022 4y ago
  Is this related to the account that was sharing Elon Musk plane location?
  • fluidcruft 4y ago
    Yeah. Which somehow has something to do with a car being stalked.
    • wahnfrieden 4y ago
      Alleged stalking. He filed no police report, and the photo of the car was taken far from any airport. The report is as suspicious as what was claimed.
      • Zigurd 4y ago
        Odd that, for such a vivid and threatening incident, nobody wanted to sign their name to a document where lying would be a crime.
• jasmer 4y ago
  'New Elon / New Kanye' I think is disillusioning for a lot of people. It's one thing to see a random celebrity or business person lose their marbles, but there was (and continues to be) high hopes for Elon at least with Tesla and Space X. I absolutely understand someone trying to shake things up for PR, but I can't see how he's winning here.
  • pantalaimon 4y ago
    I’m beginning to question whether starship will ever make it to orbit
    • holler 4y ago
      Really hope it does, it's a marvel of engineering.
    • NovaVeles 4y ago
      It will make it to Orbit. Despite all of Elons ways, there are good dedicated people working to make it happen. Making it to the Moon, I am doubtful. Making it to Mars... well lets get to he moon first.
    • dzader 4y ago
      starship has nothing to do with Elon. I know some SpaceX employees. They let Elon run around like the child he his pretending to be an engineer while they do the real work (and take his money)
      • AlexandrB 4y ago
        I've heard that SpaceX pays below the industry average though. Seems like a bad deal, get paid less and have to "manage" your founder.
        • iends 4y ago
          Some people love space more than money.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• impulser_ 4y ago
  Apparently this is because they broke the "doxxing" rule. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841 I'm confused on why he thinks posting public information falls under doxxing. Doxxing someone usually requires you to share private information about someone that they themselves aren't willing to share. How can he say this is doxxing, but he's completely for people posting about Hunter Biden's laptop which actually contained private information not meant to be shared publicly. Seems like he just changing the rules that effect him and ignoring the rest. Essentially making Twitter the same as it was before he bought it lol.
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    He's making it up as he goes along. The hastily written new policy from yesterday carves out an explicit exemption for reporters that's being ignored today. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-information https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-info... > For media, the following are not in violation of our policy: > * the media is publicly available or is being covered by mainstream media; > * the media and the accompanying tweet text add value to the public discourse or are shared in public interest; > * contains eyewitness accounts or on the ground reports from developing events; > * the subject of the media is a public figure.
    • impulser_ 4y ago
      Apparently the bans were because journalists were posting about Mastodon being banned on Twitter. They shared a tweet containing a screenshot of a tweet from Mastodon linking to a Mastodon profile ran by the ElonJet guy. The tweets didn't include any "doxxing" materials even under Elon's new definition. So you are completely right about him making stuff up as he goes along lol.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
• xyst 4y ago
  Been on mastodon since space Karen ruined it. Haven’t looked back.
• birdhouse 4y ago
  Collectively, I wonder how many tens or hundreds of millions of hours are burned, scrutinizing Musk, Twitter, Tesla, and every move Musk makes. Don’t like Twitter? Don’t use it. It’s like a Twitter/Musk addiction. I don’t care for for social media or Musk. Don’t understand why he lives in everyone’s mind, rent free.
  • macintux 4y ago
    Facebook matters even if I’m not on it. Twitter matters even if I’m not on it. What billionaires do with the public square matters to our future.
    • furyofantares 4y ago
      It's not actually the public square
      • int_19h 4y ago
        It's privatized, but it still performs the same function in society, which makes the whole situation untenable.
        • furyofantares 4y ago
          What I'm claiming is that it doesn't perform that function, and never did, because most people just aren't that online.
    • SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
      I really want to encourage people to recognize, as I did just as strongly when Musk didn't own Twitter, that it isn't by itself "the public square". The site is designed to make you feel like you have to be on Twitter, that no other site could replace them in your daily life, that you'd better go check your feed right this second or you might miss out on some major world event. But none of that is true! It's an illusion they've constructed in order to keep your engagement metric high. If there's a Twitter exodus, the public square will survive it, just as well as we survived the Myspace and Digg and Tumblr and Friendster and Livejournal exodii. Hopefully most communities will relocate to sites with healthier engagement models.
• specialist 4y ago
  Such a weird, self-defeating move. For what is Twitter without the journalists? Here's yet another savvy take by Eve Fairbanks: We’re in Denial About the True Cost of a Twitter Implosion [2022-12-02] https://www.wired.com/story/musk-denial-true-cost-twitter-implosion/ https://www.wired.com/story/musk-denial-true-cost-twitter-im... "But if we judge Twitter’s influence by its active users, we underestimate it massively. It has no peer as a forge of public opinion. In political analysis, publishing, public health, foreign policy, economics, history, the study of race, even in business and finance, Twitter has come to drive who gets quoted in the press. Who opines on TV. Who gets a podcast. In foreign affairs and political analysis, especially, it often determines whom we consider an authority. Almost every academic and journalist I know has come to read Twitter, even if they don’t have accounts."
  • throw_me_5555 4y ago
    It is a bit funny. Just few years ago most people said Twitter is mostly pointless, just a gimmick, and can't really compare to other social networks. It looks it has founds its niche in the end.
• tjpnz 4y ago
  If you're claiming to be a free speech absolutist you absolutely must eat your own cooking.
  • x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
    I never believed the Free Speech Absolutists in the least. As you notice, the rancor that generally accompanied such posts is curiously absent.
• gonzo41 4y ago
  This is what will kill twitter. Out of the 10% who do the most tweeting, journalists are a big part. Elon is killing his biggest asset and replacing it with Nazi's. Insane!
  • kodyo 4y ago
    • gonzo41 4y ago
      He hasn't banned fox yet.
      • kodyo 4y ago
        Hopefully it’s an oversight.
    • MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
      Right, corporate journalists are are the enemy! That's why I get all my news from Karen on Facebook and John Q Anon on Twatter, they've done their own research didn't you know?
• liveoneggs 4y ago
  does this mean there will be less "news" about whatever some reporter saw in his twitter feed?
• ergonaught 4y ago
  He’s just signaling, the same smug snark “everything that entertains me is good” mentality, and people who probably ought to have a sufficiently functioning brain to detect that he isn’t on anyone’s side have decided instead that he is on theirs, and it’s “their turn now”, and basically the middle school cafeteria drama show becomes the story. It’s truly embarrassing what we’ve become. Or, if you like, what we’ve remained, even though we damned well ought to know better by now.
• jmyeet 4y ago
  This is great. Not the whole Elon-inventing-rules-and-banning-people-who-are-mean-to-him thing. Nor the destruction of Twitter. Banning legit jounralists because of "doxxing" is ludicrous. But Elon has done more in a few short months to shatter the myth of the meritocracy than anyone could have dreamed.
• vehemenz 4y ago
  I predict in the coming days, the conspiratorialists will claim this is all 4D chess. Personally, I think Hanlon's Razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) is as sharp as ever.
• i_have_an_idea 4y ago
  For those of us who wondered what form of governance Twitter 2.0 will have, I think it's now safe to say it won't be based on any particular set of rules, principles or ethics. It will be totalitarian -- whatever Elon feels like at any particular moment in time.
  • MisterMower 4y ago
    So… nothing changes? New management, same as the old management?
  • draw_down 4y ago
  • riffic 4y ago
    I saw Richard Kyanka do this once before.
    • MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
      Ended well for him too, didn't it?
      • mherdeg 4y ago
        A single strong moderator, or even a team of mods and admins with loosely coherent policies, can work fine. I think the largest community where I've seen this kind of autocracy go well is Fark -- people are generally reasonable, for whatever reason the trolls do not do as much boundary-pushing and rules-lawyering as on other sites, and it's generally a calm and funny place to hang out. Drew Curtis is just, like, a nice normal person.
  • ksherlock 4y ago
    Twitter has a very clear policy - anything that doesn't incite violence is allowed. And the test is simple: "Does it make me want to punch someone in the face"? Not "me" as in the average reasonable person, "me" as in Elon Musk. If you post something that makes Elon want to punch you in the face, you will be banned from his blog. "I personally wanted to punch Kanye, so that was definitely inciting me to violence. That’s not cool."
• WantonQuantum 4y ago
  Tech bro isn't good at corporate governance. News at 11.
• paradox242 4y ago
  If only we could get some transparency about the decisions to censor users on Twitter. It could be released as a set of files, a little at a time, to a prominent syncoph- I mean independent journalist. That way we can really dominate the news cycle for a week or so and get some attention on this thing. The only problem is what to call it. Twitter Periodic Information Bulletin? No doubt accurate, but a little on the nose and we're already cutting too deep into our precious 280 characters. Any ideas?
  • encryptluks2 4y ago
    TwitterGate? The Twitter Papers? TwitterLeaks? In all seriousness though the real Twitter Files will be about Musk running the company into the ground not this slow drip of right wing garbage.
  • chrisbaker98 4y ago
    That sounds like the kind of thing that would be worth discussing on HN! Someone should submit it here if it happens, I can't imagine this site would bury it.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• QuantumSeed 4y ago
  One possible effect of his craziness is that the banks that helped finance the buyout, thinking that Musk is driving the value of Twitter down to zero, will agree to sell the loans back to him at a big loss. Better to get 50% of their money back than nothing at all.
  • ifvictr 4y ago
    This would be a really cool 4D-chess move if it were to actually play out like that.
  • encryptluks2 4y ago
    Or the bonesaw Saudi crown prince asks Musks to come to Dubai for a weekend.
    • stu432 4y ago
      He's going to ask him to travel all the way around the world to a country that's not one he's in control of?
• photochemsyn 4y ago
  What defines a 'prominent journalist' in today's media world? Is it a record of groundbreaking investigative research, or something else?
  • MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
    Why, its based on the karma points you've earned, didn't you know?
    • photochemsyn 4y ago
      I hope it doesn't correlate to the size of one's salary, because that seems to have little to do with the quality of the content being generated in the corporate media world.
• woeirua 4y ago
  The only question now is how long before the banks fire him and try to right the ship.
• hcnews 4y ago
  As an early Tesla investor (from early-mid 2010s), I find Elon's behaviour change over last 2-3 years pretty toxic and inhumane. From the days of fighting california for covid lockdowns to now hiding behind "free speech" doing whatever he wants anyways (which is sucking up to republicans and russians and who knows who else). I want to say this isn't 100% unexpected (some people show true behaviour openly only once they have nothing to lose). However, this does indicate a very deep flaw in our existing society i.e. giving certain individuals too much power; either via their job position or capital. This is why I think we should have higher tax rates and prevent at least an individual just to gain too much control by their capital. I would even be ok with 50%-100% tax rate above 100 million dollars net worth. There needs to be less imbalance in society, not more. PS: Also I had divested away from individual Tesla stocks a year or so ago.
  • jmyeet 4y ago
    > ... some people show true behaviour openly only once they have nothing to lose Look at Kanye. He has probably lost more than a billion dollars by openly becoming a (literal) Nazi. That's a significant portion of his wealth. He will probably never recover from that. He's gone from being beloved for his music to being a pariah. I saw this to illustrate having nothing to lose I don't think is an accurate assessment. As long as you have something, you still have something to lose. I contend that Elon hasn't really changed over the last few years (just like Kanye). So what's changed? That's easy: the Overton window has simply moved further and further right where extreme right wing (ie alt-right) views have become mainstream. As such, those who whold those views have simply become more comfortable saying the quiet parts out loud. You had the former president spouting QAnon conspiracies [1]. Tucker Carlson, the #1 show on America's #1 "news" network, openly pushed the idea of the Great Rplacement Theory [2]. It's truly frightening how normalized and mainstream these extreme right views have become. > However, this does indicate a very deep flaw in our existing society i.e. giving certain individuals too much power; either via their job position or capital. Every billionaire is a policy failure. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/technology-donald-trump-conspiracy-theories-government-and-politics-db50c6f709b1706886a876ae6ac298e2 https://apnews.com/article/technology-donald-trump-conspirac... [2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/tucker-carlson-s-great-replacement-fox-news-segment-uses-newer-ncna1263880 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/tucker-carlson-s-great...
• kodyo 4y ago
  Old Twitter banned journalists, too.
• entropicgravity 4y ago
  Yikes Musk is quickly burning through a lot of public good will. For me it started with trashing Dr. Fauci a week or two ago which was really dumb for a supposedly smart person. And now these mainstream journalists. As the marketing face of Tesla Musk is doing a lot of damage. No wonder he had to sell TSLA shares today as they were tanking.
  • aschearer 4y ago
    Stuck by him through the Pelosi attack but Fauci was the limit, huh?
    • jacquesm 4y ago
      The statements about Vernon Unsworth should have been enough for anybody.
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    They are tanking because he is selling. Twitter is going to be Musks' undoing at this rate.
  • kristopolous 4y ago
    Hopefully Tesla will be finally decoupled from electric cars in people's minds. There's a bunch of people normally on the environmental left that have become reactionary morons on electric cars, fear mongering driverless efforts and conflating all electric cars with the Tesla brand while misrepresenting the extremely rare fire problem as if it's more common than gasoline car fires (it's not by orders of magnitude) I'm sick of ostensibly progressives demonizing decarbonization efforts because they're too technically ignorant to separate Elon musk and his terrible management, which includes extremely hostile racism, from an underlying technology that every car company is engaged in now. It's classic FUD tactics that in practice just defends the existing order of the carbon economy, which is the most important problem humanity has ever dealt with and somehow the tech won't save us, verso books, this machine kills, etc crowd is now strongly aligned with what Rush Limbaugh's position used to be. So musk can't fall fast enough. good riddance
  • 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
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• thinking4real 4y ago
  • m3kw9 4y ago
    Exactly, sometimes coming here seeing people just jump to conclusions pisses me off. How about wait for more detail comes out before calling Elon a douche bag for banning these people because he felt like it
    • malshe 4y ago
      The article has Musk’s tweet where he says the same rules apply to ‘journalists’. What exactly are you waiting for?
  • aschearer 4y ago
    That you, Elon?
  • dzader 4y ago
    lol you picked the two things no one has said about Elon in 5 years. Basicallyeverything else he has said he would do he has failed at.
    • thinking4real 4y ago
      Only elon haters could have so much cognitive dissonance that they’ll see self driving cars and privatized space and say “yeah, well what else has he done?”
      • dzader 4y ago
        lol yeah all those self driving cars out there. coming next year right?
  • encryptluks2 4y ago
    Did you really make an account just to defend Elon?
• m3kw9 4y ago
  People taking in this news and then automatically blame Elon really have no critical skills. I’d wait till some more detail comes out before judging and follow the mob
  • DiNovi 4y ago
    he’s already said he banned them and mocked them by calling them “journalists” there is no mob here and the person without critical thinking skills is you.
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    > I’d wait till some more detail comes out before judging and follow the mob The detail already came out. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• g42gregory 4y ago
  In the article update, it says that Elon commented on suspensions and it looks like the suspensions are for doxxing. If that's the case, it makes perfect sense to me. The doxxing has been rampant of Twitter, including by many of the journalists.
  • scarface74 4y ago
    How is that a bridge too far for a “free speech absolutist”?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• bilsbie 4y ago
  I’ve never seen so many smart people trying to one up each other on hating on Elon. I feel like I’m back in middle school.
• gafferongames 4y ago
  "Free Speech Absolutist"
  • buzzdenver 4y ago
    He is more of a: "Free Speech" Absolutist
• fells 4y ago
  And so the truth is made abundantly clear now. Elon & his right wing sycophants have never actually cared about free speech & fight against "cancel culture." What they want is simply being the ones who get to cancel under vague tropes of "safety."
• boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Someone posted yesterday that the beginning of Musk's Twitter buy happened shortly after elonjet refused his $5000 offer to buy the account. The rational part of me says he surely couldn't have spent $45 billion dollars to shut the account down, but it's kinda feeling more and more true as the story continues. It's like this is the 21st century version of the San Francisco story where Yung refused to sell their house to the robber baron Cocker, leading Cocker to build an expensive three story tall fence around the house forcing Yung to move.
  • iaw 4y ago
    The story https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Crocker%27s_Spite_Fence https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Crocker%27s_Spite_Fe...
    • Tokkemon 4y ago
      Amazing. Thanks for sharing!
    • thefourthchime 4y ago
      reminds me of the rumor that Trump only ran for president after he was humiliated by Obama at the dinner
    • xracy 4y ago
      I am now wondering if the misspelling in the original post was an accident... or intentional. "Crocker" :D
      • boomboomsubban 4y ago
        An accident likely caused by too much Pulp. Too late to edit, but my mistake.
        • xracy 4y ago
          Oh, I definitely liked thinking it was intentional. Made it a fun freudian slip.
• hprotagonist 4y ago
  ah yeah, we’re at “rasengan k-lines channel operators for saying the word “libera”” stage. Great, the fork is almost over!
• narrator 4y ago
  One thing that bugs me about the commentary here is that absolutely everything comes down to whether someone is mean or nice. It doesn't matter what they're saying, it's the TONE. Like we could all die fighting over the last gallon of gas in some burnt out hell world and it would be fine as long as everyone was nice to each other. It's like there is no past, there is no future, there is only the every present now and everybody's feelings and that's the only thing that exists.
  • colordrops 4y ago
    "Tone" is a part of what one says. It's not meaningless. It carries a message as well.
    • narrator 4y ago
      Except tone is a function of the observer. It's purely subjective and thus one can make absolutely anything offensive by complaining about the tone. Watch: I don't like the tone of your comment. Now prove to me that you're not saying something in a tone that's not offensive to me. You can't. My feelings are authoritative "lived experience."
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • colordrops 4y ago
        It's no different from the words themselves. Sometimes tone is vague and other times it's direct and obvious.
  • semireg 4y ago
    Zen can be uncomfortable
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • Pxtl 4y ago
    Yup. Fundamentally Elon's "free speech" thing was about anti-trans hate. And you can find the same hate here on HN, and it's fine as long as you weird it politely and ignore that those are real people we're talking about.
• tsol 4y ago
  It's because they linked to the ElonJet site. He said as much; https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841 >Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    Except they said the opposite yesterday, in the policy they hastily put together to explain the @elonjets ban. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-information https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-info... "For media, the following are not in violation of our policy..."
    • tstrimple 4y ago
      It's all just post-hoc justifications to buy cover for Elon's ego.
  • sp332 4y ago
    The Twitter ToS have been updated multiple times in the last day to try to target this particular thing that Musk didn't like. ADS-B is literally a broadcast designed to make planes trackable. Publishing it is not doxxing.
  • strathmeyer 4y ago
    He put journalists in quotes in order to disparage them, no it was not because they linked the Elonjet site.
• stevespang 4y ago
• sudden_dystopia 4y ago
  The censorship’s not happening, you are just imagining it. This is a spurious conspiracy theory. But even if it was, just build your own Twitter. Karma
• neuronexmachina 4y ago
  I'm curious if this will ultimately extend to people being banned for linking to Mastodon in any context, and not just ElonJet: >The situation followed the company’s decision to suspend the Twitter account of Mastodon, an open source social media alternative that’s built momentum since Elon Musk took over at the company. Twitter took action against Mastodon after the account linked to the Mastodon page of @ElonJet, a student-made bot that tracks the whereabouts of Musk’s private jet.
• m348e912 4y ago
  It appears that journalists were suspended for posting a link similar to this: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=32.124&lon=-78.055&zoom=3.1&showTrace=2022-12-16 https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=32.124&lon=-... Musk really doesn't want people to know where his jet is.
• lettergram 4y ago
  He actually did provide an explanation in this thread: https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1603570995490455552 https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1603570995490455552 They were linking to the jet tracker. To be clear, a crazy person jumped on the hood of a car carrying elons kid. Can’t really blame him for reacting by banning someone tracking his movements in real-time.
  • dml2135 4y ago
    Or he could, you know, fly commercial.
  • SpanishBrowne 4y ago
    oh. didn't know the jet tracker also published the specific location of his car as well.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• zanethomas 4y ago
  Elon seems to fail to recognize that he's well-down the slope Yoel et al were down.
• riffic 4y ago
  Journalists: Are you ready to try ActivityPub yet? You can like, do this today if you wanted to and it could be a part of your content management system. Please look at it.
• jimbok 4y ago
  He went full Citizen Kane, never go full rich guy citizen kane
• jeffbee 4y ago
  All links to certain prominent Mastodon instances are being automatically blocked by Twitter right now. If I try to link to anything on my Mastodon I get this: "We can't complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful. Visit our Help Center to learn more."
• cmcaleer 4y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ I wonder if the people who thought this xkcd was the ultimate rebuttal against those who think that these platforms should be more neutral are rethinking their stance on having a few very wealthy, very powerful people control major speech dissemination platforms.
• barbariangrunge 4y ago
  > Update: Musk just weighed in on the suspensions, characterizing them as intentional. “Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else,” he tweeted in a reply. > It’s worth noting that the policy these accounts violated, a prohibition against sharing “live location information,” is only 24 hours old. It seems like a good rule, but in this case the application of the rule seems less impersonal than it could be Let’s try to make a comment that creates less outrage than most… This is why it would be interesting to post public information about politicians collected from the online spyware that tracks all of us. It would rapidly motivate new laws that at least somewhat improve privacy. This always happens when rule makers are personally affected by a problem: the problem starts getting attention
  • JohnTHaller 4y ago
    It's not a good rule. It was implemented for the sole reason of preventing people from saying where Elon Musk's private jet is, even though that is publicly available information by law.
    • SamBam 4y ago
      And it was forseeable. People were joking that Musk was paying $40B to buy Twitter simply to just down the ElonJet account.
      • kennywinker 4y ago
        Which is hilarious because as I recall the account admin asked for something like $50k to shut it down…
        • huhtenberg 4y ago
          And that would've caused an avalanche of copycat accounts, each going after their own 50K.
          • iso1631 4y ago
• paxys 4y ago
  Where are the "Twitter files" that explain this decision?
• aml702 4y ago
• yyyk 4y ago
  The underlying issue: Musk's incentives don't give him much reason to care if Twitter goes under. Musk likely feels he might as well push for any changes he likes, and gain whether Twitter survives or not. What was Musk's biggest bugbear about 'old' Twitter? The moderation system. If Twitter goes under, the only practical alternative at the moment is Mastodon, and Mastodon can't replicate Twitter's moderation due to its architecture. So Musk gets what he wants anyway. He doesn't have much to lose in this scenario: Financially, he'd remain a very rich person. One can argue he'd be better off without Twitter anyway.
  • jquery 4y ago
    Hate speech is far more tolerated on Twitter than on Mastadon. It’s not a free for all.
    • yyyk 4y ago
      Doesn't that depend on the instance (with some not being as strict)? Regardless, such people could always decamp to their own servers - an option that was not available with Twitter. Also, volunteer instance admins will never have the resources Twitter has had to combat abuse.
      • ThatPlayer 4y ago
        "Their own servers" has always existed, just look at Truth Social. And in the same way you don't have to go to that site, Mastodon supports blocking entire instances. Lots of instances also screen signups. There's no requirement for them to accept everyone. The server that Marcan (M1 Linux) and Alyssa Rosenzweig (Linux GPU drivers) are on claim a total of 700 active users for example. You'll still get new content as your users can boost (retweet) from other servers, while they act as gatekeepers by not boosting others. Tumblr announced they would join the Fediverse. That would be interesting. Of course nothing stops Twitter from joining either.
      • justbored123 4y ago
• toolz 4y ago
  Do we have evidence of bias here or is this actually as elon claims, rules being applied consistently? Hypocrisy or not, I don't think it's unreasonable to ban realtime doxxers if the rule is applied consistently. His mistake was saying he wouldn't ban the realtime doxxer, not banning the realtime doxxer - imho
• epa 4y ago
  Could it be internal employee / hack ? True white knight
• itbeho 4y ago
  I don't like seeing anyone banned by any social media company. This is a fail by Elon considering his previous absolutist stance. I'd rather shine the light on both stupid and brilliant and let people decide on their own what they'd like to consume in terms of information and entertainment. The VC Elite should raise a fund, hire former Twitter employees, and mount a competitive alternative. They could "Build a better Twitter". Call it "Bitter" if you will... <smirk>
  • SpanishBrowne 4y ago
    can't wait to post by first beets ;)
  • zetazzed 4y ago
    I believe https://post.news/ https://post.news/ is the attempt to do this (though mostly not with past Twitter employees). Basically the same as Twitter but with a little more emphasis on publishers. Seems fine, though occasionally it gets a little sluggish, and the content skews towards general popular interest without a big tech community yet.
    • s3000 4y ago
      Do they have an ActivityPub interface? If not, how does post.news convince their users that the time spent on establishing their social network isn't wasted when the company is sold to yet another abusive investor somewhere in the future?
    • cauthon 4y ago
      I’ve seen some members of the science twitter community set up accounts over there too, though most seem to be hedging their bets with mastodon accounts as well. Will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
• paxys 4y ago
  I haven't seen the list, but I'm going to make a wild guess and say that none of them are right leaning.
• JohnTHaller 4y ago
  They also banned the Mastodon Twitter account @joinmastodon.
• spritefs 4y ago
  Oh cool. Another Elon thread. How exciting He says that journalists were doxxing him? Where's the proof? Where are the Elon fans with a counter argument? Or are we all in agreement at this point that Elon "free speech absolutist" Musk is a fucking idiot who has no business running a social network? Weird how Kanye, Trump, and Elon are all simultaneously going even deeper off the deep end. I feel like I'm watching the Gadarene swine story play out in real time
• hsuduebc2 4y ago
  True free speech. Well done.
• unity1001 4y ago
  Im not a Musk stan, but which of those are 'prominent journalists'? Is there any of those left in the US or Anglosphere? Those who lied for 8+ years about nonexistent WMDs to facilitate the Iraq war are still at Twitter, Facebook etc - complete with their official blue check marks. Apparently, that is not 'misinformation'. And those people are still 'journalists'.
  • unity1001 4y ago
    Its amazing how people can downvote such a comment when not even 20 years passed since Iraq war.
• 0x4d464d48 4y ago
  I wonder what Jack Dorsey has to say about all of this.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• zmmmmm 4y ago
  This is probably a good thing ... journalists are the people keeping Twitter afloat since they do their own form of toxic amplification by constantly injecting Twitter into other media forms and using it as a medium to post updates. It is better that they understand the deal they are making early and that it is with the devil.
• robertsdionne 4y ago
  Maybe they were live-location-tracking
• 3rdXtheCharm 4y ago
  ElonJet should be increased to constant surveillance of where Elon and his family are at all times. Including all friends and family and workers and their families and private associates. Any attempts to ban those accounts as doxxing should be met with public humiliation and judgement of Elon and Twitter, and evidence of their delusive and degraded states of mind.
• areoform 4y ago
  At the start of this saga, I pointed to Napoleon as an example of what happens when hyper-ambitious and capable people meet an unyielding challenge, > It seems that when you are touched with greatness, you end up believing that you can do anything. And far more often than not, you can. > > Right up until the moment you can't. But never in my wildest dreams I could have imagined this turn of events. Forget Napoleon's retreat from a burning Moscow, this decision is as if Napoleon had decided to light the city on fire himself. It is unfathomable. What happened? All he had to do was nothing. One strategy could have been to wait for a few months, kept teams in place, offers assurances of continuity, do an audit of systems, and then swoop in to make changes. Even at $4M/day it would have cost far, far less than this. - In my mind, the most valuable thing about these circumstances is that they offer an opportunity for us to learn. Right now, the burning question I have in my mind is one I asked a few weeks ago, what's the MTBF for such a platform? From a thread 23 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33701999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33701999 , There's a pattern of diverging expectations here, one is the non-technical/naïve one, - Twitter is going to go down tomorrow and it's all over. RIP. The second is, - Twitter is going to experience a failure cascade over time. The third is, - It's all going to be fine. I suspect that the real question is, how many individual wires can break before the cable holding the suspended platform snaps? I am not that good of a developer, but watching Twitter I can't help but be reminded of Arecibo, except at a larger, more abstract scale. There was no single massive event that caused the failure, rather a series of factors and events, tiny cables breaking that eventually leads to a failure cascade that then causes the suspended platform to crash. From what I can tell, in the past week or so, [note: this was written 3 weeks ago] - Twitter's copyright system failed - Two Factor Authentication broke down (it seems to be back up?) - (anecdata) Tweets have been loading sporadically for me and other people, sometimes we try to open a tweet and it says that it doesn't exist. Happens more frequently with new/recent tweets. - (unconfirmed) Twitter's managed account backend is behaving "strangely." For e.g., "One of my campaign managers logged in last week and found all our paused creatives from the past 6 years had been reactivated." from https://www.teamblind.com/post/i-told-my-team-to-pause-our-750kmonth-twitter-ads-budget-last-week-4dnbo1Ft ———— Friends have told me other similar stories Are these failures symptomatic of a larger problem, or are they well-isolated parts misbehaving? Can Twitter even experience a failure cascade like Arecibo? Can that be paused/stopped? I am asking this question because I don't know. And I'd like to develop a better mental model to understand what happens next.
• NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  "so far, i’ve been able to confirm about half the accounts suspended posted links to the jet tracker thing in violation of the new doxx’ing policy. unclear just yet about the rest, but i think it’s safe to say the rule is for real." https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1603570995490455552 https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1603570995490455552 Musk replied: "Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603573725978275841
• kpennell 4y ago
  This is being done to distract from his large stock sales, right?
  • fragmede 4y ago
    Except Tesla's already tanked since Q3, so I don't know that it worked.
• anigbrowl 4y ago
  Echoing David Sacks, he's now tweeting that the journalists in question were tweeting 'assassination coordinates.' https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603587970832793600 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603587970832793600 Starting to think there might be some national security issues with one guy being the nominal linchpin of the US space program, satellite internet, and global public messaging infrastructure.
  • lambic2 4y ago
    But aren't the coordinates of his plane public anyways? And wouldn't shutting down ElonJet account be enough, why all these journalists' accounts as well?
    • kevingadd 4y ago
      Yeah, it was public ADS-B data. A lot of the suspended journalists never even posted his location, they just posted about the situation or the supposed stalker incident.
      • TheHappyOddish 4y ago
        From what I've read, this is untrue. He has requested a privacy ICAO (https://nbaa.org/aircraft-operations/security/privacy/privacy-icao-address-pia/ https://nbaa.org/aircraft-operations/security/privacy/privac...), and as such the ownership was not public. The data published was not just ADS-B data, but ADS-B data + content intended to violate the specific privacy ICAO. I'm not defending Musks actions, simply providing additional context.
        • pera 4y ago
          Well ADS-B Exchange just got suspended (https://twitter.com/ADSBexchange https://twitter.com/ADSBexchange) so it seems that publishing public radio data is now against their TOS.
          • 4y ago
• egberts1 4y ago
  These journalists were banned because they doxxed a live location of Elon Musk’s child.
• emodendroket 4y ago
  So much for free speech. I guess we were wasting our time thinking about how the layoffs would affect the site because it’s not going to survive as Parler 2.0.
• EastSmith 4y ago
  "Think for the children" is the stupidest justification to do anything. (someone's father)
• sdtriton 4y ago
  I'm sympathetic to the many newly minted free speech absolutists in this thread, but this sort of banning was always the status quo for right wingers until Musk bought Twitter anyways.
• jimjimjim 4y ago
  wow, he really didn't like being booed
• minimaxir 4y ago
  Elon Musk has now given an explanation, sort of. > They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603587970832793600 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603587970832793600 (None of the journalists banned did that: even the ones referencing ElonJet referenced stale data)
• jeswin 4y ago
  While I don't agree with the bans, here's a counter argument. Will it be ok to ban someone if they tailed a car every day and live-posted the driver's location on Twitter? One can argue that someone with has a plane has more resources to protect themselves. At the same time, they face more threats too.
  • Waterluvian 4y ago
    How often does it happen?
    • jeswin 4y ago
      Very, very rarely. Both for planes and cars.
• student2k 4y ago
  This was just released yesterday https://bisonrelay.org/ https://bisonrelay.org/ Peer to Peer social media. No censorship, no surveillance and no advertising working with Lightning Network.
• aaron695 4y ago
• sergiotapia 4y ago
  It's a 7 day suspension for doxxing, relax. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603591994244071424 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603591994244071424 Gives them time to think about it the next time they want to doxx someone's real location.
  • Waterluvian 4y ago
    Posting publicly available information is wrong.
    • forgotpwd16 4y ago
      Big deja vu with the Kiwi Farms case few months ago.
• Grim-444 4y ago
  Not trying to be snarky here, but I'm curious what percentage of the people complaining in this thread also complained about the constant censorship and deplatforming by Twitter pre-Musk? Don't get me wrong, I think it's all bad, both ways, it's just the outcry now is extremely telling. Do you not believe it was happening before? Or were you not told that it was happening before? Or did you just not care before because it was directed towards people you were told are "bad"? I wonder how many people in this thread are actual human beings, vs. bots/shills working overdrive to force the narrative through, but that's a topic for another day ..
  • kredd 4y ago
    It’s just a bit funny how “absolutely no censorship” turns into “lol k only censorship that I like”. Somehow quite a lot of people who were “free speech absolutists” playing mental gymnastics to explain why THIS type is acceptable. Disclaimer: I am not a free speech absolutist, and realize its shortcomings in public forums.
    • spoils19 4y ago
      Luckily this forum doesn't have any of those - and if any claim to be, it encourages curious discussion, so I'm willing to chalk it up to playing devil's advocate.
  • happytoexplain 4y ago
    It's oversimplistic, to put it lightly, to just point to "everything after Musk" and "everything before Musk" and assert they're equal and anybody who smells like they've expressed more criticism on one side of that divide than the other is a hypocrite. There are a million variables that any honest person considers. Some bans are high profile, some aren't. Some bans are en masse, some are individual. Some are permanent, some are temporary. Some show bias, some are just for breaking rules while happening to also be apparently right/left-wing. Some are honest mistakes. Some are reversed. People like Elon are particularly good at generating the image of disproportionate criticism, because he is the highest of high-profile, and he is a classic modern provoker. I.e. he invites rebuke and bitterness by mocking/trolling and generally being petty/childish toward those he disagrees with, which can work in his favor ("look at all the haters"). In this case, it's pushed even further by the fact that he is so aggressively pro-free-speech and critical of those who may take a more measured approach, and yet we keep seeing him apparently falling into the exact same trap of "well OK except for this case - let me modify the rules to be more subtle/pragmatic", except the result is perhaps now even less free than before by his own apparent definition. The irony/hypocrisy is mountainous. Additionally, "the same people who X are now Y" is an extremely common fallacy. It may be true, but much more often than not, you're assuming that two groups of people are mostly the same people when they are not (i.e. that every person is either left or right, pro-Elon or enti-Elon, etc; and every opinion a person expresses must fall on one side of each line). It's very easy to project one's internal concrete images of enemies onto the enormous, dynamic masses of the internet, or a particular forum, and "discover" hypocrisy.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• wellbehaved 4y ago
  "Journalists" (sic).
• stackedinserter 4y ago
  There IS an explanation, if you bother to open the link: those who participate in "doxxing" (spread links to Elon Jet trackers), are getting banned.
• gafferongames 4y ago
  Can we please stop putting the douchebag on a pedestal. Thanks.
• scaramanga 4y ago
  I guess recreating the 19th century system of robber barons may have been a mistake? Huh.. The more you know...
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• jupp0r 4y ago
  At some point people will hopefully be sad for him, ignore him and move on. I hope he's got somebody in his life that can tell him this is increasingly looking like self destructive behavior.
• w1n5t0n99 4y ago
  I love the daily seethe posts about Musk. Surely He's finished this time. Nothing will happen. Normal people don't care and journalists are too addicted to Twitter t o actually leave.
• EGreg 4y ago
  Once again - private ownership means some small number of people (such as 1 dude) can capriciously control a platform. Supposedly he was a “free speech absolutist.” You may say there’s “nothing wrong” with privately owning huge platforms (like Elon and Zuck), huge swaths of land (like Bill Gates) or otherwise have ludicrousoy outsize power in society accrue to one dude. But I say that trusting our public forums to privately owned platforms isn’t the best thing we can do. Our democracy is now greatly affected by that stuff. And even conservatives who love private property now understand that there may be diminishing returns from private ownership on that scale. Jeff Bezos built a great company that helps a lot of customers. (It also exploits a lot of wage slaves.) But does that automatically mean Jeff is also the best man to allocate all those billions? Jeff complained it’s “very hard” for him to allocate his billions philanthropically, but his ex-wife seems to be doing a far more prolific job of it. After a certain point (say, 10 billion) those dollars become just a silly number game for him — something he could never conceivably spend even on penis-shaped rockets - while others could use those billions to end food insecurity, or get preventative checkups. We don’t need government to come in and use force to solve this. As a society, we do have a libertarian alternative. It’s called autonomous, decentralized open source networks — which are now available (I build two of them). Instead of putting your crypto in FTX or Celcius to be managed by the whims of Sam Bankman-Fried or Alex Mashinsky, why not use the blockchain and private keys and smart contracts? Because it’s too difficult to understand and build solutions Well, that’s why we spent years buulding the solutions to help you and your brand and your organizations to break free of Big Tech and billionaires. And what can be more libertarian than that? Want to see more info?
• nonbirithm 4y ago
  I'm wondering what's going to happen to the massive public record of tweets if Twitter as a company does indeed implode. Thousands of tweets are referenced in news articles and blog posts via links to Twitter. Are all of them going to evaporate from the web at once? It would probably turn out to be the biggest case of link rot in history. It would also be pretty interesting 10 years from now if we characterized this time to people growing up as "there was once this huge social networking platform called Twitter at one point, but you can't post anything there anymore, only browse through this public-service archive."
  • xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
    Twitter has been rotting pretty steadily since he initially stated his intent to buy it. Many, many accounts I follow are gone, their tweets deleted. And now all the tweets referencing mastodon are gone too.
  • mayankkaizen 4y ago
    I don't have a source right now but I did read some years ago that US govt (NSA?) does save every single tweet in its archive.
• hgdfhgdfhgdfbgf 4y ago
  • TulliusCicero 4y ago
    And anyone can criticize him for making stupid rules, just like any other CEO of a company.
    • bb88 4y ago
      Free Speech! Certainly within the realms of a so-called Free Speech Absolutist!
      • labster 4y ago
        The true meaning of free speech means freely saying things that Elon likes. It’s hard to tell now, but pretty soon we will have Musk chips in our brains to tell us which free speech is absolutely free.
• andrewinardeer 4y ago
  ...for breaking Twitter's ToS
• mensetmanusman 4y ago
  You can tell what bubble we are in when comparing the comments here to those when HN discussed the full twitter blackout on other topics.
  • s3000 4y ago
    Do you have links for comparison?
• throwawayqlk 4y ago
  I was one of few people who were calling out his bullshit for a decade around. People didn't like us and called loosers. It turned out we were right all along. You reap what you sow. Enjoy guys
• di456 4y ago
  Is there a subreddit where ElonJet can live instead?
  • di456 4y ago
    Yep! https://www.reddit.com/r/ElonJetTracker https://www.reddit.com/r/ElonJetTracker Striseland effect in full force here.
• CloudRecondite 4y ago
  We’ll never know and I’m sure some will say the average person doesn’t care, but the number of car sales Tesla is losing must be staggering
• clouddrover 4y ago
  Musk says (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603591994244071424 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603591994244071424): "7 day suspension for doxxing. Some time away from Twitter is good for the soul …" Maybe it's time for him to follow his own advice. And maybe stop doing polls, especially ones he doesn't like the result of and must "redo": https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603609278664712192 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603609278664712192
• kweingar 4y ago
  It is ironic that only a week or so after the Twitter Papers were released (where a primary focus was suppressing stories and accounts with little justification and hastily written new rules), Musk is now doing the exact same thing.
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    What Musk is doing is much worse. There is zero deliberation on this, just the whims of a thin skinned guy.
• yalogin 4y ago
  That doesn’t make sense, there are legit reasons to report location, there cannot be a blanket policy like this. It needs to be handled on a case by case basis if it gets reported. Problem is, musk is figuring out how to create and run a social media company on the fly and in full public view. He need not have stopped to this but his ego and seemingly infantile need for attention has blinded his judgement. He is still good enough and Twitter still really strong as a brand to survive this all.
• Operative0198 4y ago
  I think the people conflating this to an absolute free speech issue are missing the bigger picture. Sure Elon is doing this now for personal reasons just like he refused to reinstate Alex Jones' account. But having public data on a website with few eyeballs doxxing your jet vs groups of coordinated users live broadcasting, retweeting, verified accounts amplifying the same data on a social media app. These are two different things.
• memish 4y ago
  Elon's content moderation decisions so far: - no swastikas - no continuous real-time doxxing The people who shrieked loudest that Elon would allow hate and safety threats on Twitter are now shrieking that he's banned hate and safety threats on Twitter. @DavidSacks
  • rajup 4y ago
    Tweeting publicly available information is not “doxxing”.
• hcurtiss 4y ago
  Amusingly to me, at least, the Twitterfiles and Musk’s behavior have both taught us the same thing —- centralized moderation by humans does not work well.
• prawn 4y ago
  He's now running a poll about when said accounts should be unsuspended. Then cancelled the poll. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603609278664712192 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603609278664712192
  • d23 4y ago
    Is he capable of opening his mouth without lying? Which of these journalists doxxed his “real time location”?
  • awb 4y ago
    “Now” won. Biggest bot attack ever I’m guessing…
  • funOtter 4y ago
    Updated poll with > 2.3 M votes: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603609466301059073 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603609466301059073
• skyfaller 4y ago
  I don't remember direct links to Twitter being so prevalent until recently. Is it... time to reconsider this? Twitter no longer seems like a reliable source for anything except Elon Musk himself, since he presumably won't suddenly suspend himself, or block links to things he wants to link to.
• random314 4y ago
  Musk is going to attract some stellar employees from now on.
• dang 4y ago
  All: be on whichever side of this saga that you please, but make sure you're following HN's guidelines while posting. There has been a drop in comment quality lately. Not cool. Here's the short version. Good: thoughtful, curious conversation. Bad: snark, fulmination, and flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• imchillyb 4y ago
  "Free Speech doesn't mean just being able to say what you want, whenever you want! Your words could hurt someone!" Uh. That's /exactly/ what free speech is. I have the ability to say whatever I want, because in our society it is impossible to not offend. I wish someone would electronically silence musk for a month or twelve. Take away all his toys, gadgets, conveniences...
• dang 4y ago
  We've changed the URL from https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603593201683599360?s=46&t=9UpCrTmScsHkp0vCCATebw https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603593201683599360?s=46..., which doesn't have much information, to an article that has more information (the most out of the half a dozen I looked at). If there's a better article, we can change it again.
  • herpderperator 4y ago
    Could you un-paywall it?
    • fathyb 4y ago
      Mirror: https://archive.ph/fVhKm https://archive.ph/fVhKm
    • dang 4y ago
      Sorry, I didn't realize (it wasn't paywalled when I looked). Would https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/15/23512004/elon-musk-starts-banning-critical-journalists-from-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/15/23512004/elon-musk-start... be better? It seems to have most of the same info, just in a somewhat more sensational way.
  • fdschoeneman 4y ago
    Why though? What public interest does this serve? I'm a veteran. I support your right to post links to the location of Elon's jet, or links you can follow to find same, in the same way I'd die to protect some shitbird's right to burn a US flag or kneel during the anthem, but what are you trying to accomplish? Other than to make yourself look like a jerk?
    • dang 4y ago
      Sorry, but I don't quite understand what you're asking here.
• jrmg 4y ago
  Musk on November 6th: My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456 https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/15894149585086914...
  • bigiain 4y ago
    “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that’s what free speech means” —@elonmusk 20220425 https://twitter.com/artywah/status/1603592195046400000 https://twitter.com/artywah/status/1603592195046400000 (I don’t have a direct link to that tweet, but I’m confident that screenshot tweet isn’t faked.) Edit: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518623997054918657 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518623997054918657
    • camjohnson26 4y ago
      And in the 3 minute call where he popped onto a Twitter space tonight, he now says doxxing is zero tolerance and journalists aren't above the rules. But the alleged "doxxing" was the journalist doing nothing more than linking to the @elonjet account. @elonjet can be found on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/@elonjet https://mastodon.social/@elonjet Incredibly, links to Mastodon instances are now flagged as a safety risk on Twitter. Video of the Twitter spaces meeting, until this link gets removed: https://twitter.com/ForeverEversley/status/1603612770892918784 https://twitter.com/ForeverEversley/status/16036127708929187...
      • Laaas 4y ago
        Honestly, I was on the side that expected Twitter to get better (like pg), and have mostly not been against any of what he's done until now, but this seems like a bad decision all around. I assume he got emotional because his child was involved, then did this in a fit of rage, and is now unable to admit that he was wrong. There is no way you can look at this and say what he did was right, no matter what political stance you have. A newly created rule, the violation of which isn't clear either. I suppose this is unavoidable if you give one person complete control over a platform. Perhaps it should be illegal for big social media platforms to have a shareholder with over 50% of the voting power.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• diebeforei485 4y ago
  I think it's a perfectly reasonable rule. Most of the reporting on where people go will not suffer from having a next-day delay on social media. Journalists who cover Bezos / Zuck / Elon full time can always constantly refresh ADS-B tracking websites, but that doesn't mean they have to be able to post live location tracking on Twitter.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• david_allison 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/fVhKm https://archive.ph/fVhKm
• Ekaros 4y ago
  And why them being journalists make them any different? Does journalists deserve any better protection? Or if we think sensibly shouldn't they be held to highest possible standards. Like single mistake and they get a strike and with like two or three strike they are permanently out.
  • threeseed 4y ago
    Journalism is a fundamental part of a well-functioning society. They provide vital checks and balances against the government in charge.
• hakanderyal 4y ago
  Every time I see a new episode of this saga, I remember this[0] thread from Yishan, predicting these troubles. [0] https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440?s=46&t=xALO8q6S8FrUX5BmqNARrg https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440?s=46&t...
  • jeanloolz 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing this. First time I read it, and the accuracy of Yishan's predictions, made back in April, are incredibly spot on. Phenomenal analysis as well on the difference between censoring ideas versus censoring behaviours. Great read.
  • chrisbaker98 4y ago
    The problem with Yishan's analysis... > Both sides think the platform is institutionally biased against them. ... is that it could still be true that the platform is institutionally biased in one direction. Both sides could think it, but one could be right and the other could be wrong. Of course, if I try to stick up for one side then I'm playing into Yishan's hand. He's rigged the game so that if you try to argue back then he can just say you're proving his point: "no, you just think it's biased against you, but other side thinks that too! See what I mean?" But considering the revelations we've seen in the recent leaks, the "both sides" rhetoric now rings pretty damn hollow.
    • lanternfish 4y ago
      I think this is a pretty significant misreading. The basic argument of Yishan's thread (external to the 'all tech companies want to do is tech, not politics' angle which is honestly kinda tangential) is that social media is hard because it's social, not because it's media. The part you're pointing to is meant to develop this because it's a fundamentally social effect which causes both sides of the aisle to feel marginalized by the institution - something I think we can agree is pretty empirically true. All that's needed for the (increasingly accurate) predictions of Musk's difficulties piloting the ship to stick is the intractability of _calm social discourse_ in what Yishan is calling the new 'culture'. I don't think Twitter having a political bias is relevant there.
• tibbydudeza 4y ago
  This exactly how a dictator behaves - imagined threats from everywhere ordering his minions "lop of their heads". I wonder how the VC folks and banks who helped fund the takeover feels about the billions they just blew away - twitter is going to be slowly dying as the crazies in the asylum takes over. Long live the King.
  • tibbydudeza 4y ago
    Twitter Spaces is now gone as well after an Elon meltdown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znFNKlzuTSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znFNKlzuTSc
• Laaas 4y ago
  It seems like he's finally preventing people from tracking his aircraft: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N628TS https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N628TS
• gwn7 4y ago
  • blntechie 4y ago
    Completely fair banning them over policy violation. But Elon promised 'absolute' free speech when he took over? No one would be complaining about these bans if not for the hypocrisy. I have never seen this two face stand. Elon is now understanding the risk and fallacy of absolute free speech when some rando stalked his family. But glossed over when others shouted at the same.
    • gwn7 4y ago
      Apples and oranges. I think the doxxing policy makes sense. It's absolutely not okay posting people's real-time locations, especially for famous figures who are already targets. I don't hear anybody criticizing the policy. Because it is right. Instead people are attacking Elon's past promise, as it is the only thing they can attack. So maybe "absolute" free speech is not a very good idea after all. What matters is good moderation.
      • blntechie 4y ago
        Doxxing is a fair policy and sharing real time location to be included in the doxxing policy is fair. No disagreements there. Elon backtracking from the absolute free speech is fair to be mocked and laughed at as 'I said so'.
        • gwn7 4y ago
          I agree with both points. Still I don't think changing one's mind is that big of a crime. Especially if there are very good reasons which are explained transparently.
• alangibson 4y ago
  Meta, but do any space nerds here now questions Musk's claim to be dedicated to making life multiplanetary? Now that it's clear how 'flexible' his principles are, I'm not so sure he has any intention of sticking with it. Or worse maybe it was all a hustle to get SpaceX employees to work 80 hour weeks.
• elurg 4y ago
  Good. There should be zero tolerance for anything that approaches doxxing.
• gwnywg 4y ago
  I'm glad my wellbeing is not built based on me being part of platforms like Facebook or Twitter or Google Play or any other platform...
• gwn7 4y ago
  I don't care whether the Washington Post is right or not on this one; but it is good to see that these people are now getting a taste of their own medicine. Nobody from that camp was lifting a finger when "conspiracy theorists" were being banned from Twitter. People were saying that "Twitter was a private company who could ban whoever it wanted". Here is a past thread of mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31154200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31154200
  • forgotpwd16 4y ago
    Fwiw I checked comments of the ones that commented in your past thread and from those whoever has commented on recent Twitter threads has retained their opinion. So based on that cannot imply the people saying "Twitter can do whatever it wants" and people calling out what happens now are the same.
    • gwn7 4y ago
      You mean based on 3 people. Ok. Btw thank you so much for checking. Since you bothered that much, why not kindly share the proof with us? Because you see I have this little problem: I cannot believe you without seeing the material that allowed to make you this conclusion. If you don't answer, I'm afraid I might think that you weren't being truthful.
      • forgotpwd16 4y ago
        >Since you bothered that much, why not kindly share the proof with us? 3/5: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33916379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33366810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33366810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31163090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31163090 >I cannot believe you without seeing the material that allowed to make you this conclusion. You misunderstand something. I make no conclusion. "Based on that" refers to the thread linked. It is you making an implication. It is you that is supposed to be providing proof that those are the same people. >If you don't answer, I'm afraid I might think that you weren't being truthful. What's up with that? Is this an interrogation and wasn't aware of? But considering you knew they're 3, will call this dishonest.
• fdschoeneman 4y ago
  It's not that complicated. This is a credible threat to his family and Musk is scared. I'd be scared, too. I'd have shut down the jet account and any account linking to it as well. If you think you'd have done something different, you're a liar or a robot or a fool. There are some legitimate things to pick on Musk for. This isn't one of them.
• infrawhispers 4y ago
  Musk joined a Twitter Spaces discussion about the bans and was mocked after he left [1]. Notably, suspended accounts were on stage with Elon during the discussion [2]. The space was ended abruptly 30 minutes later and it appears it was killed on Twitter’s side given that the usual metadata does not match what a closed Space has. This Space was being recorded and the replay is not available [3]. Musk now claims that they are fixing a “legacy bug” [4] and this is why Spaces has been disabled. In my opinion, Musk is behaving like a petulant child and his group of cheerleaders look more ridiculous and without backbone each day. [1] https://twitter.com/forevereversley/status/1603612770892918784 https://twitter.com/forevereversley/status/16036127708929187... [2] https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/1603604571288469504 https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/16036045712884695... [3] https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1603622824177848326 https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1603622824177848326 [4] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603649264290123778 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603649264290123778
  • napolux 4y ago
    OMG, and thank god he can't run for POTUS.
  • randomsearch 4y ago
    I think calling anyone defending Musk at any level a “cheerleader” isn’t a helpful framing of the debate. It’s important not to make any issue an “I align with X so you’re against me” conflict. Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact. Musk is also behaving erratically, inconsistently, and seemingly also unethically over Twitter. And has done so in the past, eg in the dispute with the diver or against short sellers. One aspect of Elon’s actions does not cancel the other out. We should celebrate the good and debate the bad. I feel like this melodrama is driven by Musk’s detractors ready to pounce and dismiss, say, the development of reusable rockets, by Musk being petulant. That is not an argument that makes any sense. And the same goes for any fans who think Musk’s incredible achievements give him permission to ban and censor those who annoy him.
    • mattmanser 4y ago
• despera 4y ago
  Now that the location of the supposed "attack by stalker" has been geolocated by someone affiliated to Bellingcat[1] and obviously that (if ever happened) had nothing to do with services or bots that share aviation public data; can we move past the, arguably naively made, smokescreen and ask what this supposed to disorient us from? I mean, the hypocrisy of using a jet plane instead of driving for 40 minutes in your "environmental green" car is a thing[2], but shouldn't be enough to randomly ban journalists. [1]https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1603454821700452365 https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1603454821700452365 [2]https://nypost.com/2022/08/22/elon-musk-planes-9-minute-35-mile-flight-sparks-outrage/ https://nypost.com/2022/08/22/elon-musk-planes-9-minute-35-m...
  • osrec 4y ago
    Or it may be his huge stock sale earlier that day?!
• desuforever 4y ago
  this thread sure has a lot of clairvoyants. you cant predict chaos only sit back and enjoy the spectacle. for real though its been pretty funny watching the left now use the same complaints the right did when twitter wasnt owned by elon musk. its a private company and he can allow or disallow who he wants on his platform and honestly everyone on twitter could use a 7 day suspension, preferably a 21 day suspension to help kick the addiction a lot of people seem to have.
• drummer 4y ago
  Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you. - Friedrich W. Nietzsche Musk lived long enough to become the villain.
• randomsearch 4y ago
  This seems like a big drama without the complexity that would justify it. Essentially, Twitter should have a clear and consistent moderation policy. Musk should not be able to arbitrarily change that policy, or certainly not when the situation directly concerns him. So you publish a policy and then it gets regularly reviewed, and that’s it. Tbf, it seems that pre-Musk Twitter was also fairly arbitrary, it’s just now it’s for his benefit rather than the murky hidden incentives of the previous regime. They do seem to have set precedent by responding to arbitrary pressures.
• benjaminwootton 4y ago
  Why did Elon enter this shit storm? He’s going to be spending all day every day arguing about controversies like this when he could have been building out much more interesting and significant companies, or simply enjoying his money.
  • randomsearch 4y ago
    This is my main concern. Twitter seems like such a waste of time. Either Elon’s judgement is way off, or there’s a bigger picture he can see. But in the short term at least, this circus just seems like a waste of time.
    • benjaminwootton 4y ago
      It’s also something that he can never really win. There will always be half the world that disagrees with everything he does. If I was a multi billionaire it’s certainly not how I would want to be spending my days.
• tibbydudeza 4y ago
  Twitter Spaces has been banned - the Dear Leader was upset about being questioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znFNKlzuTSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znFNKlzuTSc
• trasz2 4y ago
  Predictably, this story, despite almost a thousand upvotes, is nowhere to be found on HN front page. Daily reminder that HN is a commercial entity and works hard to avoid annoying their potential business partners.
  • dang 4y ago
    It was on the front page for 6 hours, and btw the reason for that was that we specifically turned off the flags on it.
• EasyTiger_ 4y ago
  Re: the drop in comment quality - it’s because this subject is being massively astroturfed at the moment, across all big sites.
  • toofy 4y ago
    astroturfed by who?
• jeffybefffy519 4y ago
  Has anyone seen that Simpsons episode where they sing a song along the lines of “just dont look, just dont look”. They do this and then the advertisements that are taking over Springfield all die and go away. We need to do this with Elon. Just stop watching/reporting on his nonsense because 90% of it is just a form of disruptive marketing that people cant look away from. Just dont look people.
• tromp 4y ago
  The one "doxxing" Musk is not @elonjet but Elon himself by boarding a private jet whose location is public info.
• plaguepilled 4y ago
  Its frustrating because my immediate response to people like Musk in my day to day life is to ignore them at all costs. This is a largely successful strategy in person. My strategy collapses however when the belligerent is able to buy a whole platform and then become a perpetual victim on that platform. Worse, mastodon has fallen short for me as an escape hatch. The activity just isn't there.
  • Pfhortune 4y ago
    > Worse, mastodon has fallen short for me as an escape hatch. The activity just isn't there. What kind/level of activity are you looking for? Just curious, not trying to make a criticism of you or anything, to be clear.
    • plaguepilled 4y ago
      Fair question, but I'm also unsure how to answer it in a meaningful way. "Regular engagement" both to and from accounts of interest is probably a good start.
  • wreath 4y ago
    If twitter is this important to your life, take time in this holiday to reflect on that
• patrec 4y ago
  PR-wise, this might actually be a pretty clever (partial) recovery from banning and threatening to sue Jack Sweeney. The world's second richest man legally going after a pimply college kid, after bragging about how he won't even ban his account due to his love of free speech is and looks just pathetic. Baiting the establishment press like this and making the plebs vote on their fate is actually a pretty good distraction move and gives him an opportunity to climb down in a somewhat face-saving fashion (I'm doubtful he's crazy enough to go through with suing Jack Sweeney, but we'll see). Of course this doesn't change the fact that Musk is an unprincipled and pampered hypocrite and could have handled this much better. A no-live-tracking policy would have offered very little real attack surface if it had been rolled out in a remotely competent fashion.
• jarek83 4y ago
  The only comment that is appropriate here from me: hahahahahaha
• Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  It's interesting that many are debating the value of this 'rule', when this action is blatant abuse of his powers to silence his critics. He has now a lengthy and growing history of this type of behavior, so it was 100% foreseeable. He could just come out and say that its his twitter and he can do what he wants, but no, because he also wants to be seen as a 'defender of free speech'. He acts like a-hole, but then expects unquestioning adoration.
  • klyrs 4y ago
    It's a comfort to me that the Constitution forbids him from running for president.
    • haliskerbas 4y ago
      That is a mutable document.
      • klyrs 4y ago
        You think that the anti-immigration party would galvanize around that issue?
        • DonHopkins 4y ago
          You mean the anti-immigration pro-hypocrisy party? What do you think?
          • klyrs 4y ago
            They're all hypocrites. But the final hurdle of ratifying an amendment requires 3/4 of state legislatures to be on board. And while the rural gerrymander projects have been alarmingly successful, that's still pretty far off. https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_composition_of_state_legislatures https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_composition_of_state_legisl... So on the balance, I feel pretty good about this. For at least the next 3 elections. And if Musk keeps following in Ye's footsteps, he'll be a washed-out has-been by then.
• Roark66 4y ago
  Wait a minute, so did they dox him or not? One side says yes, the other says no, but no one produces the actual tweets. I find it hard to believe a tech journalist would waste his time to report on Elon's whereabouts on twitter. His pals at the newspaper claim "he was reporting on the story". So perhaps he attached a screenshot of the doxing tweet? Seriously, this whole story is worthless without seeing the relevant tweets.
• 4b11b4 4y ago
  It's a good way to announce that the policy is being enforced. Plus, it's only 7 days, no permanent suspensions have occured. The doxxing rule is a good one. Free speech remains. You shouldn't be able to shout into the internet megaphone: "they're over there"... especially in an automated fashion.
• pms 4y ago
  At this point it looks like Musk is somewhat paranoid about his life, which reminds me of dictators being paranoid about their life. That's not very surprising given that Musk is far from being honest to consumers. For instance, Tesla was found to be deactivating the autopilot mode at the second before a crash [1], to make their system look safer than it is in reality. [1] PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INOA-EA22002-3184.PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INOA-EA22002-3184.PDF
  • cwkoss 4y ago
    I speculate he's been taking a lot of amphetamines to work long hours and is currently in a state of mild psychosis.
    • 93po 4y ago
      Glad we're having rational evidence based discussions around a stranger's medical status.
      • cwkoss 4y ago
        I think that's a weird bar to set, especially for one of the richest and most powerful people on the planet. Sorry I don't have any urinalysis results to cite, if I did I would! When the king goes mad from drinking too much lead, the right response isn't for the populace to finger wag people suggesting it might be lead poisoning.
        • 93po 4y ago
          It's a weird bar to set that it's reasonable to speculate on a stranger's medical history with no supporting evidence
      • pms 4y ago
        Given that the author clearly wrote it's a speculation, I don't see a problem here. It's low probability, but it could be the case.
• yencabulator 4y ago
  Can't wait to see how the Internet connection of the first Mars colony is gonna get censored.
• giardini 4y ago
  How about we put our effort behind campaign finance reform instead of complaining about Twitter? I'd like to start by proposing that a law be written to declare corporations to be non-persons, get them out of our elections and to allow only citizens (and not corporations) to contribute money and spam to elections.