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Isn't he suing the person behind the tracking thing? Musk thinks this is against the law, so he isn't being inconsistent with that tweet.

But even if he was, one tweet isn't really much of a commitment. People throw out tweets they don't mean all the time. 140 characters isn't enough to lay out an ideological position. Running a company like twitter is a bit more serious - they can't moderate just based on interpretations of what Elon tweets. And they were never going to.

Although if he was committing to keeping the plane account around he is definitely didn't think that through.



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Let's not forget the time Musk tried to get a guy to take down a Twitter account that tracks Elon's private jet. If Elon owned Twitter he would just close the account himself.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-offered-5k-remove-...


Is this supposed to be a counter example? These actions are localized to twitter and afaik no one has gone to prison for it.

Like it or not (and I don't) Twitter is Musk's property, it's his 44B toy and he can break it if he wants.


‘Mr. Musk tweeted last month: “My com­mit­ment to free speech ex­tends even to not ban­ning the ac­count fol­low­ing my plane, even though that is a di­rect per­sonal safety risk.” On Wednes­day, though, he equated the prac­tice to doxxing, or the pub­lish­ing of pri­vate in­for­ma­tion on­line with ma­li­cious in­tent, tweet-ing: “Real-time post­ing of some­one else’s lo­ca­tion vi­o­lates doxxing pol­icy, but de­layed post­ing of lo­ca­tions are ok.”’

Your entire first comment was an assumption of bad faith on the part of Musk. Given that Twitter is now a private entity, there's no motivation to act fraudulently. I think Musk's track record merits at least a few quarters of actions before everyone jumps to conclusions?

Don't be silly. Musk just wants to ban their Twitter account if they start to post the information to his specific plane. As long as they post specifics about someone else's plane, their account will be considered in good standing.

Since it was an individual not linked to a website, it's an even easier decision for him.


Is Musk seriously that unhinged that he publically commits to allowing the account to tweet what it does and then a few weeks later he nukes it?

Does anyone know the reason for the suspension? Perhaps a false positive on the ML behalf?


Anyone else curious how Musk would handle that Twitter account tweeting about his private jet flights if he owned Twitter? Strange to think that might be the real litmus test of how much he cares about free speech.

Isn't Musk, or any other individual, allowed to change his mind? Many comments here seem to imply that a tweet sets your behavior in stone and any subsequent deviation is hypocrisy.

He even changed Twitter's policy and specified that it's ok to share the information of where a person was, just not track their movements live. You can argue in favor or against the policy, but we expect people to change opinion because of experience.


I'm curious. What has Twitter done that seems wrong to you? I've been following this a bit out of curiosity and only see bad faith on the side of Musk. Of course I could have missed something, but that's what I've seen so far.

He is probably trying to take down the flight-tracking bot (https://www.protocol.com/elon-musk-flight-tracker). Funny how he talks about Free speech on twitter while actively trying to take down a twitter account.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/twitter-suspends-acco...

  That came just weeks after Musk wrote that he had not banned the
  @ElonJet account due to his "commitment to free speech."
el oh el

  "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the
  account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal
  safety risk," he tweeted on Nov. 6.
Freedumb of peach indeed.

Is this “speak the truth” Elon is the same Elon who wants to stop a Twitter user from publishing his plane’s activities?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/technology/elon-musk-jet-...


Right... running a social media company is different from running a rocket company or an electric car company. I wouldn't bet against Musk though. He has already adjusted his position on what is allowed on Twitter, now that he is running the company. Previously he said anything that is legal would be allowed but now he says Twitter won't be a "free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences"! [1]

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728/phot...


So because a Twitter is single purpose its bad? If the twitter account followed two peoples private jets would that be enough? Or does it need to be a whole sale repost of the entire flight tracking feed? Can the person parse ANY flight data from this type of a Twitter account? Where do you draw your arbitrary line here?

This entire premise is so very weak to me. Elon is famous and a public figure and it's his own choice that people have as much interest in him as they do. He does everything he can to be in the public eye. There are tons of plane tracking accounts or applications. There is even one that tracks AF1 which carries one of the most powerful and important people in the world.

And this isn't a location tracker. This account doesn't follow Elon around and Tweet where he's headed once he lands, how long he might be staying, where he went for lunch, etc. And Elon can use completely legal methods to reduce how much of this information is publicly available.

> Just because you can publish information like this doesn't mean it's ethical

And just because some actions MIGHT have negative outcomes doesn't mean they are unethical.

Elon has all the tools to avoid being tracked by a random flight tracking service. If he doesn't use those tools then he doesn't care that much about his privacy. He posts images of him sleeping in the Twitter HQ, which has a publicly listed address. We aren't talking about some powerless individual who is having big companies abuse their privacy.


Sweeney's personal account has also been suspended: https://twitter.com/jxcksweeney

Some additional info: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/14/elonjet...

> On Wednesday evening, the account was briefly restored, with Twitter outlining new rules seemingly designed to prevent Sweeney from posting the real-time locations of planes used by Musk and other public figures as long as he included a slight delay. Sweeney, over Twitter, asked Musk how long he’d have to delay the data to comply.

> But Wednesday evening, Musk threatened to escalate the conflict against Sweeney, saying a car carrying Musk’s son, X Æ A-12, had been “followed by [a] crazy stalker” in Los Angeles, implying without providing evidence that location data had been a factor in the purported episode. “Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family,” Musk tweeted.

> Sweeney, 20, shared publicly available information about Musk’s flights, not his family members or his cars. The records stopped and ended at airports, and Musk has provided no further detail as to what legal basis Musk would cite in a lawsuit.


Elon Musks actions are questionable? Probably.

This account didn't track a flight of a plane but Elon Musks movement. That purpose of registration numbers (and ADS-B) is helping air traffic control and general safety. Not surveillance of personal movement. The same accounts for license plates of cars.

If Twitter want to do something useful they should reconsider their own standards regarding privacy in general.


Is that why Twitter is suspending accounts that tweet things that hurt Musk's feelings? That sounds like tight content restrictions to me.

That is entirely baseless. I'm fairly certain that whole affair was just some social media assistant offering money to someone for Musk to have slightly increased privacy and PR(since private jet use is really bad for the environment). They offered like $5k to take itf down which to Musk is literally like giving a homeless person a couple quarters. All flight traffic is public though. Banning a Twitter account would do nothing as all that information is already public record. You can track whoever you want on sites like Flightradar. I really doubt Musk cares that much at all, if he was ever actually even aware that the Twitter account existed.

This is a bizarre take.

Elon isn't tweeting as an alt. He is tweeting from a verified account linked to his name, which is further considered official messaging of Tesla.

Your argument makes no sense here since it doesn't apply at all.

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