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Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

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Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#751

> 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 c…

> 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. I don't think so. The New York Times demonstrated this three years ago, nobody really cared: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat...

There's history of this kind of thing spurring political action: what comes immediately to mind is the Video Privacy Protection Act, enacted after a reporter got hold of Robert Bork's video rental records. At the time, Bork was in the middle of a contentious (and ultimately failed) confirmation process to be named to the Supreme Court, and Bork's views on the lack of a constitutional right to privacy gave the writer an idea.

The actual movies were nothing interesting, but general distaste for the move, plus a healthy dose of worry from members of Congress about the contents their own records, led to a law that explicitly penalized video stores that handed out that kind of info about their customers.

I think you're right in general that people are pretty blasé about tracking now, though.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#752
post #684

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/15894149585086914...

Publishing personal information should not be covered by "free speech" at all. It provides no value to society and can cause real harm to individuals.

Elon was wrong in that tweet. It would be much better to show zero tolerance to doxxing.

It doesn't matter if the data is already available from public sources - publishing aggregated personal information from public records is dangerous and should be banned.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#753

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…

> 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.

He could have banned the account on day 1, but he tweeted in defense of it. I don’t buy the theory that he had to wait to save face, he seems perfectly content to change his mind and make new rules on the spot without worrying about the backlash.

It seems more likely that he had idealistic reasons for buying the site and is becoming less idealistic as time goes on. Every worldview is flawed, you just don’t know it until you try to implement it. I think he’s moving past any initial altruistic aspirations and is now treating Twitter more like a tool that can be customized to achieve certain goals. I’m sure he thinks the goals are good for everyone, including himself, but from the outside it’s not mirroring the “public square”, “absolute free speech” mantras pre-acquisition.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#755

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-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,…

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.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like a good rule, but in this case the application of the rule seems less impersonal than it could be I don't think it seems like a good rule. Not only is the information public but I think it is not hard to dream up reasons why it would legitimately be in the public interest to report on the comings and goings of someone's private jet.

Public or not, it is a security concern, especially for a celebrity/politicized figure/widely hated person. I wouldn't want my live location posted on the internet either, and there's a lot fewer people who want to hurt me than Musk (AFAIK, no one wants to hurt me).

You do realize you can buy a $100 antenna on Ebay and pull the live-to-the-second location of every airplane in your visible sky, directly from the aircraft, right?

There are websites displaying this exact same data where you can watch US Military Air Tankers in active refuelling operations with both US and other nation's aircraft in active war zones.

The security risk is entirely overblown.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#757
post #29

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".

I think he was legit shaken by the incident with the kook stalker and his son. Which is certainly understandable. People need to dial the hate way down. Way, way down. And the rule change was quite clear that linking to the jet tracking was prohibited. That all said, he's gone too far here. And it's an unwinnable fight anyway.

Uh, no, that just proves that he will do stupid shit on a whim regardless of any ramifications.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#759
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, just like when pre-Musk Twitter banned NY Post/journalists over a true story about Hunter Biden's laptop. I don't see how an anti-doxxing rule banning people tracking Elon Musk's whereabouts is worse.

He’s banning journalists who criticize him or expose the countless lies he tells.

Still lighter than manipulating the election previous Twitter management endulged in

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#760
post #738

Quoted post unavailable.

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.

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.

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