This seems like a reasonable policy to me, especially when involving stalking well-known people (as opposed to taking a selfie with my mates at Micky D).
The problem is, that Elon very publicly and explicitly promised that @ElonJet would be allowed to continue as it is. His words mean less and less…
Other commentators are pointing out the potential for future abuse from this policy. I'm interested in how this is targeted against @elonjet, the account dedicated to posting public information available about Elon's flights.
I agree that my freedom of speech ends short of stalking and harassing people! I just don't think that re-posting publicly available information qualifies as stalking or harassing. And I think it's a very big stretch to claim that it even comes close to facilitating stalking or harassing. Has Elon himself even claimed any actual negative impacts due to this information/account, or has he just expressed concerns about the possibility?
Also, "and you know it" is insulting and rude, and I don't agree with it or appreciate it.
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.
A lot of people seem to be worried how this will effect various use cases, like coordinating protests and such.
I wouldn't worry. This policy was made specifically so that Elon could take down the account that posts where his plane is and any reincarnation of that. It won't be enforced on anyone else, unless you're protesting Elon. Or one of his autocrat friends. In which case you should use a different platform anyway.
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.
I think it's more than fair for him to publish the information... that said, it's also okay for Elon to ban doing such things on Twitter.
It comes down to ease of access, motivation and intent... In the end, Elon doesn't want third parties to disclose the location details of other people. I'm not sure if this would include posting a selfie at a disclosed location with a celebrity in the background.
In the end, I think the message is pretty clear, "don't f*ck with Elon's family."
Elonjet is on FB, Insta, Mastodon, and Truth Social. I'm not surprised if this blanket ban was partially motivated by his obsession over the made-up doxxing accusations over ADS-B data.
I can still bookmark Elon’s plane on FlightRadar or ADSBExchange… this doesn’t stop anyone “geo-stalking” … it just stopped one guy tweeting it. Oh and also hurt Elon’s free speech debate credibility.
It is easy to justify banning this kind of accounts. It is borderline stalking.
Would you like it if there is a twitter account that tweets everywhere you visit?
Elon can totally hire private investigators to follow the family members of a journalist just to prove that nobody would like this kind of accounts when they are the targets.
It's amazing to me the mental gymnastics one must have to do to defend the @ElonJet account, simply because you might not like Elon on a personal level. Of course that account should be suspended. Yeah I know, public information/ free speech, blah blah. But it is quite frankly a personal attack on Musk, and I consider it a form of Doxxing. As high profile as Musk is, something like that account is a real threat to his personal safety in my opinion. I don't see how anyone would think that's ethical or reasonable to allow to continue?
Elon himself didn't like that an account was tweeting the location of his private jet, generating bad publicity, going so far as paying for the owner of the account to stop.
Trivial, yes, but does show how it can be an annoyance even through simple things.
Twitter's policies define doxxing as the posting of private information that was not made publicly available by the owner. They also specifically allow "sharing information that is publicly available elsewhere, in a non-abusive manner".
ElonJet and all of the other similar bots tracking interesting aircraft are using information that is broadcast unencrypted by the aircraft itself to anyone within radio range (sometimes hundreds of miles) who has a compatible receiver (including the famous $15 RTL-SDR) and publicly shared through multiple aggregators like ADS-B Exchange, FlightAware, and FlightRadar24.
This data is legally required to be broadcast, so it's definitely not private, and it's definitely publicly available elsewhere.
Elon would probably argue that it was abusive, but that's a lot more subjective. As far as I'm aware the account never tweeted anything but the facts of his jet's movements.
Not only does it contradict his direct statement about not banning @elonjet, it contradicts his statements about twitter policy being decided by a committee, as well as his numerous other statements about allowing free speech in general.
The policy itself I think makes some sense, although it's interpretation is ripe for abuse, just posting any random picture of someone in real time could be interpreted as a violation.
I personally think this is an emotional overreaction and, based on the location of the recent incident (far from his plane), I think @ElonJet was not involved (and probably doesn't pose any threat to Elon), but I don't think that means his previous statements were a lie.
Anyone would change their mind and overreact after an attack on their child.
And in a broader context, the new policy seems like a good idea. In general, I suspect real-time location tracking does more harm than good, and none of us would tolerate a website tracking our location.
A lot of hypocrisy from Elon here, but I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to taking down these accounts that are tracking people as it's so close to a Doxing or could lead to something bad happening.
The problem is, that Elon very publicly and explicitly promised that @ElonJet would be allowed to continue as it is. His words mean less and less…
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