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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 a

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.
      - adamrezich 4y ago
        the idea that only one of the two major US political parties is "pro-hypocrisy" (with the implication being, the other one is not) is hilarious
    - pannSun 4y ago
      With the recent exception of COVID, there has not been a significant reduction of even legal immigration during the periods when the supposedly "anti-immigration" party was in power.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      The US has no pro-immigration party. Both parties are anti-immigration in practice. The only difference is in their posturing to their respective bases around election time. Consider that the last major amnesty was under Reagan and the last major tightening of immigration rules was the IIRAIRA under Clinton. The modern deportation machine was really spun up by Obama - he removed more people from the US than any other president, almost 1% of the entire US population was deported by Obama. 50% more than Dubya and more than Trump. [1] It's been two years under full-on Democratic party rule, the remain-in-Mexico policy is being walked back but still in effect. [2] Children are still being separated from their parents at the border. [3] [edit] The public charge rule still exists, but was returned to the classical definition. [4] Indian-born folks are still in 50+ year queues to get green cards subject to deportation at the whims of their employers. Consulates abroad still have year-long backlogs for appointments to get visa foils so people here, legally, in the US, cannot leave the US as they wouldn't be able to get back in without a new foil. I have friends who haven't left the US in years to see their families. More of the US-Mexico border wall was built under Obama/Biden than it was under Trump, and Obama was behind the implementation of the biometric exit control program. [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/deportation-rates-historical-perspective https://www.cato.org/blog/deportation-rates-historical-persp... [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-suspends-biden-administration-termination-of-remain-in-mexico-border-policy/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-suspends-biden-administra... [3] https://www.vera.org/news/children-are-still-being-separated-from-their-families-at-the-border https://www.vera.org/news/children-are-still-being-separated... [4] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/09/08/dhs-publishes-fair-and-humane-public-charge-rule https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/09/08/dhs-publishes-fair-and-h...
      - runarberg 4y ago
        I would definitely say that the progressive caucus inside the Democratic party is pro-immigration. If it were not for the two party system, this would be its own party. Regrettably this sub-group does not have a ton of influence on their party’s policies, but their influence has been growing for sure since 2018, getting almost a 100 seats in this years mid-term election. Not all districts have the option of voting a progressive (which most likely happens in a democratic primary vote), and quite a lot of times a progressive actually looses to a moderate (or even a conservative in the case of Cisneros vs. Cuellar in TX-28). But my feeling is that the progressive caucus has not stopped growing, my hope is that this will result in a significant reform in the kind of immigration policy the democratic party endorses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Caucus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Cauc...
    - hprotagonist 4y ago
      Maybe, but 2/3 of both the house and senate and then 3/4 of the states as well? No.
    - monocasa 4y ago
      I mean, Ted Cruz wasn't born in the US either.
      - r00fus 4y ago
        With Ted, as with many politicians like him, it's always certain to be grift.
      - adastra22 4y ago
        The exact definition of natural-born citizen has never been tested. This is literally the only part of the constitution which uses that term, and it isn’t defined. Some interpret it to mean born of US parents, regardless of actual birthplace. Regardless, we can be confident that a naturalized citizen like Musk doesn’t meet the requirement.
        monocasa 4y ago
        You'd be surprised about how much wiggle room there is there. Particularly given that the first few presidents weren't US citizens at birth either.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    I wish that were true, but I think at this point it's technically mutable but ossified, much like the Bitcoin genesis block. You could change it, but you'd have to do a lot of work. So much work that it's just not gonna happen.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rsync 4y ago
  But just imagine - we could have had Schwarzenegger…
  - snotrockets 4y ago
    He seems like a nice old man, but wasn’t that great of a governor.
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      I'd support him just for the joke in Demolition Man.
      - papito 4y ago
        Demolition Man is the most prophetic sci-fi movie every made. I even wrote about it: https://papa-andy.medium.com/these-movie-classics-aged-in-curious-ways-90a799d18534 https://papa-andy.medium.com/these-movie-classics-aged-in-cu...
    - adastra22 4y ago
      He was far above any other governors we’ve had in living memory.
      - snotrockets 4y ago
        He literally worked to hurt people by vetoing same-sex marriage (twice), refused to supervise healthcare providers or approve a public option (again, vetoed twice), expanding use of private vehicles (he’s too old to care about climate disaster). I can rant about Brown and Newsom for days, but he’s worse.
richbell 4y ago
Elon Musk is the kid on the playground shouting "time-out" and inventing a new rule every time he's about to get tagged.
- leereeves 4y ago
  I've known Musk was crazy ever since he baselessly called Vern Unsworth (the diver who rescued the children trapped in a cave in Thailand) a "pedophile". But there was a reason he invented this new rule, and I think it's unwise and unfair to dismiss a stalker attack as "being tagged on the playground".
  - epistasis 4y ago
    Most of those banned have nothing at all to do with providing updates from the public database of jet flight plans. The only common thread is that they report in Elon Musk. They have nothing to do with the stalking incident, just with annoying Musk by doing other journalism. Further, if he was doing what you were saying, that's not a new rule. The new rule that Musk made as to bring back doxxers and targeted harassers like LibsOfTikTok, that had been putting innocent people at great bodily risk by inflaming people with falsehoods and then sending them after people in real life. Yet LibsOfTikTok is still on Twitter!!
    - leereeves 4y ago
      > The only common thread is that they report in Elon Musk. They have nothing to do with the stalking incident According to Reuters (not linked because paywall), Ella Irwin (Twitter's head of trust and safety) said all accounts that linked to ElonJet were reviewed. Most of the suspended accounts probably did that; I've seen screenshots of such links from a couple of them. I don't know anything about LibsOfTikTok, but I took a quick look at their Twitter feed and didn't see any real-time location information. Perhaps you could point it out?
      - epistasis 4y ago
        The Reuters article I found said this: > It was unclear if all the journalists whose accounts were suspended had commented on or shared news about @elonjet. Also, I have never encountered a paywalled Reuters article, and didn't know that could exist! Could you link it? Also no reason not to link to paywalled material, paywalls hit the top of the front page all the time at HN.
nabla9 4y ago
Most of HN completely miss the intent of conventional doxxing rules and widely accepted privacy laws in most countries. - Public figures, like politicians, top businessmen, and so on don't get the same amount of privacy and protection as regular Joe. You can follow them and track them. If you have power and influence, you don't enjoy the same privacy protections as others. That's a really good principle to have. - Elon Musk himself is know for punching down that violates this principle. His M.O is to point his crazy followers against regular Joes and then playing innocent. "It was not me".
- slibhb 4y ago
  It's funny how this debate has shifted. Now that Elon owns twitter, it's Elon haters bringing up the law whereas before they were talking about how twitter can do what they want as a private company. For my money, there's absolutely nothing wrong with twitter disallowing "person trackers". Legality aside, whether it's Elon Musk or Nancy Pelosi, the subtext of these trackers is creepy and threatening and banning them from some platform is fine.
  - aceazzameen 4y ago
    The debate hasn't shifted. Everyone is pointing out his blatant hypocrisy and lies since taking ownership. He's allowed to do whatever he wants with Twitter. And the rest of the world is allowed to call out his hypocrisy every time we see it.
  - memish 4y ago
    Exactly, the hypocrisy knows no bounds. They were defending Twitter's biased nontransparent censorship before only because it aligned with their bias. Now that it doesn't match their bias, they see the problem. Finally, welcome to the club!
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Who is they? Not every one who is against current Twitter and Elon are hypocritical. Leftists in particular were against Twitter’s non transparency and in general are non-hypocritically against big tech. The right in general on the other hand. They are on the side of business and capital but when big tech happens to ban and annoy both the left and right, the right whines about how bad big tech is and how it needs to be reigned in. Not all business of course, only which businesses they are against and consider “woke”.
eric_cc 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. I think it’s you that’s missing the point here. It’s only abuse of power if the rule against doxxing is invalid. So it does come down to the rule and whether or not doxxing is acceptable. If we decide that doxxing is acceptable and posting anybody’s real-time location data is acceptable (without their consent), then he is abusing powers. If that is your conclusion, then you don’t have the right to complain should it happen to you. If you believe the opposite, that doxxing is unacceptable, then the rule should apply equally to everybody. Critics and journalists do not get a free pass to break the rules.
- JeremyNT 4y ago
  > If we decide that doxxing is acceptable and posting anybody’s real-time location data is acceptable (without their consent), then he is abusing powers. If that is your conclusion, then you don’t have the right to complain should it happen to you. This really does not follow. We already have plenty of exceptions for what is appropriate when reporting on public versus private figures in other aspects of life. As Musk himself has demonstrated, "absolutism" of any sort is a difficult view to hold when one's feet are put to the fire, and nuance is actually important. Even if you think that reporting on Elon's plane (or in the case here, the "reporting on the reporting" on Elon's plane) should be forbidden, I would suggest that this development is still difficult to defend. This is a reversal in policy that Elon made because it was about him personally. Are you sure Elon will continue to agree with you on who/what to censor in the future?
  - eric_cc 4y ago
    > Are you sure Elon will continue to agree with you on who/what to censor in the future? I am 100% sure that I WON’T agree and that Twitter is inherently flawed pre-Elon and post-Elon. The only point I was making is that within the context of this flawed system, given a rule is broken, it should not matter who the rule breaker is. “Silence opponents” narrative is only true if the people being silenced are being treated unequally. If they are, then the narrative is true.
  - 4y ago
memish 4y ago
Welcome to the new Twitter, just like the old Twitter. At least now everyone understands the value of a neutral free speech town square and can see that "it's a company, they can do what they want" was always a disingenuous argument. It was never principled, it was always predicated on bias alignment. It's the same with those who are happy about these journalists being banned. Blatant bias and hypocrisy on both sides.
- bitcharmer 4y ago
  I have no idea why you're getting down voted. Previously you could tweet "kill all white men" and nothing would happen. Not so much with the same statement targeting a different group.
  - zaccusl 4y ago
    Source or examples?
    - bitcharmer 4y ago
      You're trolling, right? Just in case you've never visited twitter... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahar_Mustafa_race_row https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahar_Mustafa_race_row http://i.imgur.com/iojbGhE.png http://i.imgur.com/iojbGhE.png http://i.imgur.com/W4uU8ZN.png http://i.imgur.com/W4uU8ZN.png http://i.imgur.com/ia3aZxo.png http://i.imgur.com/ia3aZxo.png http://i.imgur.com/8vg96Cz.png http://i.imgur.com/8vg96Cz.png http://i.imgur.com/AWLJS2P.png http://i.imgur.com/AWLJS2P.png http://i.imgur.com/LbS3mdS.png http://i.imgur.com/LbS3mdS.png http://i.imgur.com/tRtLegn.png http://i.imgur.com/tRtLegn.png http://i.imgur.com/2vP3vyh.png http://i.imgur.com/2vP3vyh.png http://i.imgur.com/jrVFtd4.png http://i.imgur.com/jrVFtd4.png http://i.imgur.com/un2pErA.png http://i.imgur.com/un2pErA.png
      - runarberg 4y ago
        From your own source: > However, on 26 October the Metropolitan Police dropped the charges, revealing that they had discontinued their criminal case against Mustafa because there was "not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction".[25][26][24] Under the Victim's Right to Review Scheme, one of the complainants in the case then requested that the Crown Prosecution Service review their decision to terminate criminal proceedings. #killallmen is not meant as a serious threat against any one person, or even a group of people. It is meant as an—albeit radical—battle-cry to topple the patriarchy. At least that is how most courts and most moderators see it, so censoring it like if it were a serous death threat would always be rather silly.
whodunnit 4y ago
> He acts like a-hole, but then expects unquestioning adoration. Very typical narcissistic personality disorder symptoms. Narcissists are made not born, by other narcissists, thru treatment that is dehumanizing and inhumane from a very young age. We should give him our compassion and empathy, but not allow him any power. Power in the hands of a narcissist is dangerous, as the orange man showed us.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  > but not allow him any power Agree, but I mean, how do you do that?
  - whodunnit 4y ago
    Walk away. Let Twitter fail. If you stick with someone who abuses power you reward the behavior.
    - snotrockets 4y ago
      Too many people in power wouldn’t like to see him fail, as it would reflect badly on their own opinions. Walking away isn’t enough.
- Method-X 4y ago
  Not going to take a position on the latest Twitter drama; just want to point something out: >Narcissists are made not born I have a background in abnormal psychology and this is false. Narcissists are either born or the behavioural disorder forms in very early childhood. I'm on mobile right now but will find a source and come back to edit this reply. Again, not taking sides or even care much about the Twitter thing. Just wanted to point that misconception out.
  - whodunnit 4y ago
    “Narcissistic features can come from childhood environments characterized by excessive deviations from ideal rearing, where either neglect/abuse (not enough caring attention) or over-pampering (too much caring attention) is present (Stone, 1993).” https://estd.org/narcissism-consequence-trauma-and-early-experiences https://estd.org/narcissism-consequence-trauma-and-early-exp... “Narcissism tends to emerge as a psychological defence in response to excessive levels of parental criticism, abuse or neglect in early life. Narcissistic personalities tend to be formed by emotional injury as a result of overwhelming shame, loss or deprivation during childhood.“ https://www.farahtherapycentre.co.uk/blog/narcissism-and-the-trauma-of-narcissistic-abuse https://www.farahtherapycentre.co.uk/blog/narcissism-and-the...
PM_me_your_math 4y ago
Blocking those who want to give the general public up to-the-minute location information on him and his family is "silencing his critics?" Nothing could be further from the truth. You have no fundamental right to track Elon Musk, just like I would have no fundamental right to track the whereabouts of you and your family. Disagree? When do you let us attach a tracking device to your conveyance? Few, if any, would be comfortable having their family movements tracked by the public. Also, journalist is a bit of a stretch. Journalism died a long time ago. Corporate script-readers at best, and state-run media parrots at worst. Either would be a better description than "journalist." I remember when that "journalist" from WashPost published the home address of a woman she didn't like. Everyone was all for that... Now it seems the shoe is on the other foot and the hypocrites don't like it.
- eatsyourtacos 4y ago
  GPS tracking on his plane is public information. So you can spin this shit any way you want but you are just wrong. >up to-the-minute location information on him and his family Nice exaggeration- you make it sound as if people are posting his real-time location at every moment from his phone or something. All the plane info tells you is where he is in the sky, and then basically what city he landed into.
- Terretta 4y ago
  > You have no fundamental right to track Elon Musk, just like I would have no fundamental right to track the whereabouts of you and your family. Disagree? When do you let us attach a tracking device to your conveyance? Nobody's tracking Musk, they're tracking his plane. Further, "they" aren't tracking it, the gov is, and publishing it, as public information. Everyone lets the same tracker be attached to their conveyance ... WHEN THEY OWN A JET.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
dukeofdoom 4y ago
Let me fix your reasoning. Pro government journalists suspended after trying to intimidate a powerful critic by doxxing his location. FBI likely involved.
- aagha 4y ago
  This is completely false. Either you're blatantly lying or completely misinformed about what happened.
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    Saying something is false doesn't make it so. Granted , political truths can be somewhat subjective. My conclusions flow from; Elon being directly intimidated by a stalker. The politically motivated violence in the last few years, makes it completely reasonable for Elon to feel threatened to have his location released. Keith Olbermann being a very pro government journalist, along the other journalist is true. And the FBI now having a documented history of interfering in what media companies publish ( by Twitter's own records, and Mark Zuckerberg public statements). Provides FBI motive to try to intimidate the man that help to exposed them. There's little value in journalists carrying about releasing Elon Musks location... especially given all the journalistic principles these same "journalists" previously did not care about.
8note 4y ago
I think it's funny that he's using ha platform he owns to silence his critics, but not an abuse. He owns it; he gets to decide the rules, and everyone else gets to decide whether we want to use a platform with those rules It's not going to work out well for musk financially when nobody wants to use it anymore, but that's his problem. Our problem is finding alternatives

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.
    - adamrezich 4y ago
      the idea that only one of the two major US political parties is "pro-hypocrisy" (with the implication being, the other one is not) is hilarious
  - pannSun 4y ago
    With the recent exception of COVID, there has not been a significant reduction of even legal immigration during the periods when the supposedly "anti-immigration" party was in power.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    The US has no pro-immigration party. Both parties are anti-immigration in practice. The only difference is in their posturing to their respective bases around election time. Consider that the last major amnesty was under Reagan and the last major tightening of immigration rules was the IIRAIRA under Clinton. The modern deportation machine was really spun up by Obama - he removed more people from the US than any other president, almost 1% of the entire US population was deported by Obama. 50% more than Dubya and more than Trump. [1] It's been two years under full-on Democratic party rule, the remain-in-Mexico policy is being walked back but still in effect. [2] Children are still being separated from their parents at the border. [3] [edit] The public charge rule still exists, but was returned to the classical definition. [4] Indian-born folks are still in 50+ year queues to get green cards subject to deportation at the whims of their employers. Consulates abroad still have year-long backlogs for appointments to get visa foils so people here, legally, in the US, cannot leave the US as they wouldn't be able to get back in without a new foil. I have friends who haven't left the US in years to see their families. More of the US-Mexico border wall was built under Obama/Biden than it was under Trump, and Obama was behind the implementation of the biometric exit control program. [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/deportation-rates-historical-perspective https://www.cato.org/blog/deportation-rates-historical-persp... [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-suspends-biden-administration-termination-of-remain-in-mexico-border-policy/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-suspends-biden-administra... [3] https://www.vera.org/news/children-are-still-being-separated-from-their-families-at-the-border https://www.vera.org/news/children-are-still-being-separated... [4] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/09/08/dhs-publishes-fair-and-humane-public-charge-rule https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/09/08/dhs-publishes-fair-and-h...
    - runarberg 4y ago
      I would definitely say that the progressive caucus inside the Democratic party is pro-immigration. If it were not for the two party system, this would be its own party. Regrettably this sub-group does not have a ton of influence on their party’s policies, but their influence has been growing for sure since 2018, getting almost a 100 seats in this years mid-term election. Not all districts have the option of voting a progressive (which most likely happens in a democratic primary vote), and quite a lot of times a progressive actually looses to a moderate (or even a conservative in the case of Cisneros vs. Cuellar in TX-28). But my feeling is that the progressive caucus has not stopped growing, my hope is that this will result in a significant reform in the kind of immigration policy the democratic party endorses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Caucus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Cauc...
  - hprotagonist 4y ago
    Maybe, but 2/3 of both the house and senate and then 3/4 of the states as well? No.
  - monocasa 4y ago
    I mean, Ted Cruz wasn't born in the US either.
    - r00fus 4y ago
      With Ted, as with many politicians like him, it's always certain to be grift.
    - adastra22 4y ago
      The exact definition of natural-born citizen has never been tested. This is literally the only part of the constitution which uses that term, and it isn’t defined. Some interpret it to mean born of US parents, regardless of actual birthplace. Regardless, we can be confident that a naturalized citizen like Musk doesn’t meet the requirement.
      - monocasa 4y ago
        You'd be surprised about how much wiggle room there is there. Particularly given that the first few presidents weren't US citizens at birth either.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  I wish that were true, but I think at this point it's technically mutable but ossified, much like the Bitcoin genesis block. You could change it, but you'd have to do a lot of work. So much work that it's just not gonna happen.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rsync 4y ago
But just imagine - we could have had Schwarzenegger…
- snotrockets 4y ago
  He seems like a nice old man, but wasn’t that great of a governor.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    I'd support him just for the joke in Demolition Man.
    - papito 4y ago
      Demolition Man is the most prophetic sci-fi movie every made. I even wrote about it: https://papa-andy.medium.com/these-movie-classics-aged-in-curious-ways-90a799d18534 https://papa-andy.medium.com/these-movie-classics-aged-in-cu...
  - adastra22 4y ago
    He was far above any other governors we’ve had in living memory.
    - snotrockets 4y ago
      He literally worked to hurt people by vetoing same-sex marriage (twice), refused to supervise healthcare providers or approve a public option (again, vetoed twice), expanding use of private vehicles (he’s too old to care about climate disaster). I can rant about Brown and Newsom for days, but he’s worse.

richbell 4y ago

Elon Musk is the kid on the playground shouting "time-out" and inventing a new rule every time he's about to get tagged.

leereeves 4y ago
I've known Musk was crazy ever since he baselessly called Vern Unsworth (the diver who rescued the children trapped in a cave in Thailand) a "pedophile". But there was a reason he invented this new rule, and I think it's unwise and unfair to dismiss a stalker attack as "being tagged on the playground".
- epistasis 4y ago
  Most of those banned have nothing at all to do with providing updates from the public database of jet flight plans. The only common thread is that they report in Elon Musk. They have nothing to do with the stalking incident, just with annoying Musk by doing other journalism. Further, if he was doing what you were saying, that's not a new rule. The new rule that Musk made as to bring back doxxers and targeted harassers like LibsOfTikTok, that had been putting innocent people at great bodily risk by inflaming people with falsehoods and then sending them after people in real life. Yet LibsOfTikTok is still on Twitter!!
  - leereeves 4y ago
    > The only common thread is that they report in Elon Musk. They have nothing to do with the stalking incident According to Reuters (not linked because paywall), Ella Irwin (Twitter's head of trust and safety) said all accounts that linked to ElonJet were reviewed. Most of the suspended accounts probably did that; I've seen screenshots of such links from a couple of them. I don't know anything about LibsOfTikTok, but I took a quick look at their Twitter feed and didn't see any real-time location information. Perhaps you could point it out?
    - epistasis 4y ago
      The Reuters article I found said this: > It was unclear if all the journalists whose accounts were suspended had commented on or shared news about @elonjet. Also, I have never encountered a paywalled Reuters article, and didn't know that could exist! Could you link it? Also no reason not to link to paywalled material, paywalls hit the top of the front page all the time at HN.

nabla9 4y ago

Most of HN completely miss the intent of conventional doxxing rules and widely accepted privacy laws in most countries. - Public figures, like politicians, top businessmen, and so on don't get the same amount of privacy and protection as regular Joe. You can follow them and track them. If you have power and influence, you don't enjoy the same privacy protections as others. That's a really good principle to have. - Elon Musk himself is know for punching down that violates this principle. His M.O is to point his crazy followers against regular Joes and then playing innocent. "It was not me".

slibhb 4y ago
It's funny how this debate has shifted. Now that Elon owns twitter, it's Elon haters bringing up the law whereas before they were talking about how twitter can do what they want as a private company. For my money, there's absolutely nothing wrong with twitter disallowing "person trackers". Legality aside, whether it's Elon Musk or Nancy Pelosi, the subtext of these trackers is creepy and threatening and banning them from some platform is fine.
- aceazzameen 4y ago
  The debate hasn't shifted. Everyone is pointing out his blatant hypocrisy and lies since taking ownership. He's allowed to do whatever he wants with Twitter. And the rest of the world is allowed to call out his hypocrisy every time we see it.
- memish 4y ago
  Exactly, the hypocrisy knows no bounds. They were defending Twitter's biased nontransparent censorship before only because it aligned with their bias. Now that it doesn't match their bias, they see the problem. Finally, welcome to the club!
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Who is they? Not every one who is against current Twitter and Elon are hypocritical. Leftists in particular were against Twitter’s non transparency and in general are non-hypocritically against big tech. The right in general on the other hand. They are on the side of business and capital but when big tech happens to ban and annoy both the left and right, the right whines about how bad big tech is and how it needs to be reigned in. Not all business of course, only which businesses they are against and consider “woke”.

eric_cc 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. I think it’s you that’s missing the point here. It’s only abuse of power if the rule against doxxing is invalid. So it does come down to the rule and whether or not doxxing is acceptable. If we decide that doxxing is acceptable and posting anybody’s real-time location data is acceptable (without their consent), then he is abusing powers. If that is your conclusion, then you don’t have the right to complain should it happen to you. If you believe the opposite, that doxxing is unacceptable, then the rule should apply equally to everybody. Critics and journalists do not get a free pass to break the rules.

JeremyNT 4y ago
> If we decide that doxxing is acceptable and posting anybody’s real-time location data is acceptable (without their consent), then he is abusing powers. If that is your conclusion, then you don’t have the right to complain should it happen to you. This really does not follow. We already have plenty of exceptions for what is appropriate when reporting on public versus private figures in other aspects of life. As Musk himself has demonstrated, "absolutism" of any sort is a difficult view to hold when one's feet are put to the fire, and nuance is actually important. Even if you think that reporting on Elon's plane (or in the case here, the "reporting on the reporting" on Elon's plane) should be forbidden, I would suggest that this development is still difficult to defend. This is a reversal in policy that Elon made because it was about him personally. Are you sure Elon will continue to agree with you on who/what to censor in the future?
- eric_cc 4y ago
  > Are you sure Elon will continue to agree with you on who/what to censor in the future? I am 100% sure that I WON’T agree and that Twitter is inherently flawed pre-Elon and post-Elon. The only point I was making is that within the context of this flawed system, given a rule is broken, it should not matter who the rule breaker is. “Silence opponents” narrative is only true if the people being silenced are being treated unequally. If they are, then the narrative is true.
- 4y ago

memish 4y ago

Welcome to the new Twitter, just like the old Twitter. At least now everyone understands the value of a neutral free speech town square and can see that "it's a company, they can do what they want" was always a disingenuous argument. It was never principled, it was always predicated on bias alignment. It's the same with those who are happy about these journalists being banned. Blatant bias and hypocrisy on both sides.

bitcharmer 4y ago
I have no idea why you're getting down voted. Previously you could tweet "kill all white men" and nothing would happen. Not so much with the same statement targeting a different group.
- zaccusl 4y ago
  Source or examples?
  - bitcharmer 4y ago
    You're trolling, right? Just in case you've never visited twitter... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahar_Mustafa_race_row https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahar_Mustafa_race_row http://i.imgur.com/iojbGhE.png http://i.imgur.com/iojbGhE.png http://i.imgur.com/W4uU8ZN.png http://i.imgur.com/W4uU8ZN.png http://i.imgur.com/ia3aZxo.png http://i.imgur.com/ia3aZxo.png http://i.imgur.com/8vg96Cz.png http://i.imgur.com/8vg96Cz.png http://i.imgur.com/AWLJS2P.png http://i.imgur.com/AWLJS2P.png http://i.imgur.com/LbS3mdS.png http://i.imgur.com/LbS3mdS.png http://i.imgur.com/tRtLegn.png http://i.imgur.com/tRtLegn.png http://i.imgur.com/2vP3vyh.png http://i.imgur.com/2vP3vyh.png http://i.imgur.com/jrVFtd4.png http://i.imgur.com/jrVFtd4.png http://i.imgur.com/un2pErA.png http://i.imgur.com/un2pErA.png
    - runarberg 4y ago
      From your own source: > However, on 26 October the Metropolitan Police dropped the charges, revealing that they had discontinued their criminal case against Mustafa because there was "not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction".[25][26][24] Under the Victim's Right to Review Scheme, one of the complainants in the case then requested that the Crown Prosecution Service review their decision to terminate criminal proceedings. #killallmen is not meant as a serious threat against any one person, or even a group of people. It is meant as an—albeit radical—battle-cry to topple the patriarchy. At least that is how most courts and most moderators see it, so censoring it like if it were a serous death threat would always be rather silly.

whodunnit 4y ago

> He acts like a-hole, but then expects unquestioning adoration. Very typical narcissistic personality disorder symptoms. Narcissists are made not born, by other narcissists, thru treatment that is dehumanizing and inhumane from a very young age. We should give him our compassion and empathy, but not allow him any power. Power in the hands of a narcissist is dangerous, as the orange man showed us.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
> but not allow him any power Agree, but I mean, how do you do that?
- whodunnit 4y ago
  Walk away. Let Twitter fail. If you stick with someone who abuses power you reward the behavior.
  - snotrockets 4y ago
    Too many people in power wouldn’t like to see him fail, as it would reflect badly on their own opinions. Walking away isn’t enough.
Method-X 4y ago
Not going to take a position on the latest Twitter drama; just want to point something out: >Narcissists are made not born I have a background in abnormal psychology and this is false. Narcissists are either born or the behavioural disorder forms in very early childhood. I'm on mobile right now but will find a source and come back to edit this reply. Again, not taking sides or even care much about the Twitter thing. Just wanted to point that misconception out.
- whodunnit 4y ago
  “Narcissistic features can come from childhood environments characterized by excessive deviations from ideal rearing, where either neglect/abuse (not enough caring attention) or over-pampering (too much caring attention) is present (Stone, 1993).” https://estd.org/narcissism-consequence-trauma-and-early-experiences https://estd.org/narcissism-consequence-trauma-and-early-exp... “Narcissism tends to emerge as a psychological defence in response to excessive levels of parental criticism, abuse or neglect in early life. Narcissistic personalities tend to be formed by emotional injury as a result of overwhelming shame, loss or deprivation during childhood.“ https://www.farahtherapycentre.co.uk/blog/narcissism-and-the-trauma-of-narcissistic-abuse https://www.farahtherapycentre.co.uk/blog/narcissism-and-the...

PM_me_your_math 4y ago

Blocking those who want to give the general public up to-the-minute location information on him and his family is "silencing his critics?" Nothing could be further from the truth. You have no fundamental right to track Elon Musk, just like I would have no fundamental right to track the whereabouts of you and your family. Disagree? When do you let us attach a tracking device to your conveyance? Few, if any, would be comfortable having their family movements tracked by the public. Also, journalist is a bit of a stretch. Journalism died a long time ago. Corporate script-readers at best, and state-run media parrots at worst. Either would be a better description than "journalist." I remember when that "journalist" from WashPost published the home address of a woman she didn't like. Everyone was all for that... Now it seems the shoe is on the other foot and the hypocrites don't like it.

eatsyourtacos 4y ago
GPS tracking on his plane is public information. So you can spin this shit any way you want but you are just wrong. >up to-the-minute location information on him and his family Nice exaggeration- you make it sound as if people are posting his real-time location at every moment from his phone or something. All the plane info tells you is where he is in the sky, and then basically what city he landed into.
Terretta 4y ago
> You have no fundamental right to track Elon Musk, just like I would have no fundamental right to track the whereabouts of you and your family. Disagree? When do you let us attach a tracking device to your conveyance? Nobody's tracking Musk, they're tracking his plane. Further, "they" aren't tracking it, the gov is, and publishing it, as public information. Everyone lets the same tracker be attached to their conveyance ... WHEN THEY OWN A JET.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

dukeofdoom 4y ago

Let me fix your reasoning. Pro government journalists suspended after trying to intimidate a powerful critic by doxxing his location. FBI likely involved.

aagha 4y ago
This is completely false. Either you're blatantly lying or completely misinformed about what happened.
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  Saying something is false doesn't make it so. Granted , political truths can be somewhat subjective. My conclusions flow from; Elon being directly intimidated by a stalker. The politically motivated violence in the last few years, makes it completely reasonable for Elon to feel threatened to have his location released. Keith Olbermann being a very pro government journalist, along the other journalist is true. And the FBI now having a documented history of interfering in what media companies publish ( by Twitter's own records, and Mark Zuckerberg public statements). Provides FBI motive to try to intimidate the man that help to exposed them. There's little value in journalists carrying about releasing Elon Musks location... especially given all the journalistic principles these same "journalists" previously did not care about.

8note 4y ago

I think it's funny that he's using ha platform he owns to silence his critics, but not an abuse. He owns it; he gets to decide the rules, and everyone else gets to decide whether we want to use a platform with those rules It's not going to work out well for musk financially when nobody wants to use it anymore, but that's his problem. Our problem is finding alternatives