The Muskbrat and Twitter go on a banning spree: including news reporters!

[thewayne]

Mister "Free Speech Absolutist" sure likes banning people.

There's some interesting history here. Twitter - not the Muskbrat - posted a policy saying that you can't dox people, nor post real-time location information about third-parties. If you want to post real-time location information about yourself, feel free and go wild. The location information is in response to a Florida university student by the name of Sweeney who ran a Twitter account called (at)ElonJet which posted real-time information whenever Elon's private jet was in the air.

Now, Sweeney wasn't spying on Elon. He was using publicly-available transponder information that was available on the web. He wrote a bot that scraped the transponder information and posted it on Twitter whenever it changed. He does the same for Bill Gates, Air Force One, and a few other prominent individuals. He also posts it to Instagram and other social media sites. He also uses similar tech to post the locations of business mogul' super yachts.

This infuriates Elon. "IT'S A THREAT TO MY PERSONAL SECURITY!" This reached a head earlier this week in LA when some loon jumped on the hood of the car transporting his child, X-13 Rocket Plane, or whatever its name is, and he blames Sweeney. Next day the Twitter ban goes through and ALL of Sweeney's tracking accounts go dead. AND Sweeney's personal accounts also go dead. And the Muskbrat says he's going to sue Sweeney. For taking publicly-available information and rebroadcasting it? That should go well.

Too much caffeine, Space Karen?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/musk-bans-live-location-sharing-says-hell-sue-creator-of-plane-tracking-bot/


Last night, some news reporters saw their Twitter accounts go dead. They were from the Washington Post, CNN, and the New York Times. No warning or notice, apparently Elon thinks that posting a link to a different social media platform's ElonJet tracker to Twitter is doxxing him.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/musk-suspends-nyt-and-wapo-reporters-from-twitter-claims-they-doxxed-him/


If someone wants to take Elon out and is serious about it, ElonJet is probably not going to be a major tool that they would use.

Comments

[dewline]

Are you trying to link to either the Twitter or Mastodon account for ElonJet?

Frankly, I'm not looking forward to logging into Twitter later tonight. I keep finding people much saner than His Sinkness to follow there, and my block-hammer's getting a regular workout on fascists and other ne'er-do-wells.

[thewayne]

I forgot to mention him banning the Twitter account for Mastedon, I'll have to do that later.  I was not, I shouldn't have put the at there.  I'll edit the post right now.

[thewayne]

Oh, and thank you for pointing that out.  Myself, I think I'm about ready to start looking for a server to create a Mastedon account on.  It's clear that he's going to let Twitter become even more of a cesspool and he doesn't give a rat's ass.  I just need to see whom I'm following that has moved.

[disneydream06]

If his banning isn't bad enough, I read that NBC suspended a reporter for criticizing Musk on twitter. :o
Hugs, Jon

[armiphlage]

Happy Burpday!

[thewayne]

I didn't QUITE that much with dinner! (he says, eyeing the glass of eggnog sitting beside him)  Thank you!

[silveradept]

This is very much the kind of thing where someone who is theoretically going to be in charge of a social media company should already know and have made their peace with, if not consulted with good authorities on how to handle things that need moderation. This kind of thing is someone showing how little they know about what's already available and what kinds of purposes it can be put to. And that there's no spark of recognition about how difficult it must be for someone who can't ban anyone who talks about public data involving them, or for someone who can't deplatform their harassers and attackers by waving a wand or getting the staff to do it.

[thewayne]

The guy who replaced him as Richest Man In The World had a simple solution to his jet being tracked - he sold it and rents one whenever he wants to fly anywhere.  Probably saves a ton of money, I'm sure Elon isn't interested in that part.

[silveradept]

Likely does save money. Doesn't necessarily mean he's immune to being tracked, just that you have to expense a little more effort to put the dots together.

And yes, what Elon wants is to be able to classify his wealth and power and have people think he's brilliant and smart and mysterious, not be able to pay attention to him in ways he might find embarrassing or intrusive.

[thewayne]

I think he's a lot like our previous POTUS.  He's clever, but not as brilliant as he thinks he is.  He didn't invent Tesla: he was a major investor and helped it go public, then he turfed the inventors.  He's pretty good at ideas.  He's certainly not a good manager when it comes to running a social media company.  Speaking of 45, Roger Bolton has a telling line last week that is obvious when you look at him: he has no philosophy.  Nothing guides him except money and the spotlight.

[silveradept]

You would think that nothing but money and the spotlight would mean he would submit into obscurity fairly quickly, as normally the media abhors covering someone who is chasing them so obviously, but hollowing of the media combined with the ability to give a good soundbite, with possibly a dash of knowing which prejudices to play on, and here we are.