Live data from Hacker News

Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

washingtonpost.com

551–560 of 1001 posts

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

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those journalists weren't reporting specific locations of his jet...they were reporting on a legit news story about it. Musk didn't like it so the journalists are now banned. The dude is truly off his rocker now. The "rules" are whatever he makes up on the spot. He's self-destructing before our eyes...no longer the richest man in the world. Telsa stock tanking all because he can't STFU and acts like a spoiled 12 year…

> The "rules" are whatever he makes up on the spot. He paid for that privilege.

Sure. I don’t think anyone would debate his capacity to do what he wants to his own toy.

But it is certainly worthwhile pointing out the hypocrisy of his statements. When people’s words don’t line up with their actions you should be wary.

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

#552
post #22

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.

He just tweeted that doxxing is a 7 day ban.

Journalists are not going to stand for being randomly kicked off a service they depend on for their work for 7 days every time Musk has a bad hairday.

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

#553

> 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…

Those journalists weren't reporting specific locations of his jet...they were reporting on a legit news story about it. Musk didn't like it so the journalists are now banned. The dude is truly off his rocker now. The "rules" are whatever he makes up on the spot. He's self-destructing before our eyes...no longer the richest man in the world. Telsa stock tanking all because he can't STFU and acts like a spoiled 12 year…

[deleted]

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

#554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those journalists weren't reporting specific locations of his jet...they were reporting on a legit news story about it. Musk didn't like it so the journalists are now banned. The dude is truly off his rocker now. The "rules" are whatever he makes up on the spot. He's self-destructing before our eyes...no longer the richest man in the world. Telsa stock tanking all because he can't STFU and acts like a spoiled 12 year…

> The "rules" are whatever he makes up on the spot. He paid for that privilege.

And we all have the privilege of leaving a network that is turning fascist and joining Mastodon.

Now that he forbid people from posting links to that too: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkEg9iyUUAAUFI6?format=jpg&name=...

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

#555
post #22

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.

The silver lining here is that we are quickly learning beyond all shadow of doubt that you would not want to live on Mars in a dome owned by Elon Musk, at the same time the odds of that ever happening are dropping faster than his net worth.

Oxygen? That will be $8.

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

#557
post #325

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…

I believe 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.

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

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those journalists weren't reporting specific locations of his jet...they were reporting on a legit news story about it. Musk didn't like it so the journalists are now banned. The dude is truly off his rocker now. The "rules" are whatever he makes up on the spot. He's self-destructing before our eyes...no longer the richest man in the world. Telsa stock tanking all because he can't STFU and acts like a spoiled 12 year…

> Those journalists weren't reporting specific locations of his jet...they were reporting on a legit news story about it. Come on now. They were linking directly to the tracker that Sweeney was banned for, not just reporting on the story about it. It was a childish petulant doxxing on purpose and they got treated the same as Sweeney.

Perhaps now we can see how Freedom Ain't Free. You can't claim to be a free speech absolutist, or a supporter of the second amendment, but then go ban stuff you don't like as soon as it concerns YOU.

Doxxing isn't illegal. I thought Elon claimed that ONLY violation of national laws could be the basis for deplatforming. As if his understaffed team can make legal decisions on the spot, and output true/false about millions of tweets that fall into gray areas. They don't even KNOW the whole body of law, and they aren't the judge or jury either.

I had two discussions with Noam Chomsky about how capitalism has co-opted Freedom of Speech, just like it has done with Women's Lib and many other things

In 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HovxY1qBfek

A year later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv5mI6ClPGc

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

#559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

> I think "genuinely scared for his or his child's safety" is a real possibility. I think he's scared for his own safety. In fact he has basically said as much. As rich as he is, he still owes a lot of money and favors to a lot of people. Some of them are quite powerful and ruthless. They're likely displeased at how he's pissing away the value of an asset in which they have an interest. Just because he's paranoid doe…

That's as good of an explanation as I've seen so far. The only problem is that nothing that he has done so far would reduce that exposure, in fact plenty of his actions increased it.

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

#560

He actually did provide an explanation in this thread: 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.

oh. didn't know the jet tracker also published the specific location of his car as well.
Post reply on HN