Elon Musk starts banning critical journalists (Washington Post, NY Times, CNN) from Twitter

[Ultraforce]

15 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Twitter before musk purchase: "it's their platform, they can do what they like"

i guess it's not Elon's platform to do with what he likes

Really he can do what he wants, is just what he wants is really bad and or indicates hipocracy and the fact that he never should have been held up as a genius or a smart guy.

Personally, I would say that his every move isn't being tracked that twitter was just about following 4 private jets owned by his companies if they were used by a different executive it still would go off.

People are making a fuss about it because the Elon Musk basically said I love crap so much that I'm unbanning almost everyone who has crapped. And then within two months has gone to I love crap but this crap that has elon stinks written on it is gross in my opinion so they are banned.

[Heliian]

6 minutes ago, My_Computer_Is_Trash said:

Elon doesn't just do things for no reason.

The reason is that he's a megalomaniac.  

 

He's an unhinged lunatic with billions of dollars and his own personal social media platform.  Of course he thinks he can get away with his own hipocrasy, the muskovites are only feeding his ego. 

[My_Computer_Is_Trash]

7 minutes ago, Heliian said:

The reason is that he's a megalomaniac.  

 

He's an unhinged lunatic with billions of dollars and his own personal social media platform.  Of course he thinks he can get away with his own hipocrasy, the muskovites are only feeding his ego. 

Have you done research on that like I have by reading this book? (No bad intentions)

https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X

[LostInSpaceThings]

Twitter is sinking faster than the titanic 

[steelo]

I haven't followed every second of the latest debacle, so I may be missing some details. In all fairness, Elon does make a good case that journalists were doxxing his location and putting himself and his family in danger. I believe there is also a picture or video circulating where Elon caught a guy in a mask slowly driving by...I'm not sure if this was a 'hit job' or just an intimidation tactic. If this is indeed true, a ban (and possible charges) are 100% warranted for those responsible.

 

Elon can do whatever he wants, he owns Twitter. Unfortunately, at least in the states, 'honest' reporting is hard to find and you are forced to look at multiple sources to get a non-biased depiction of a story. There always seems to be 'political motivation' factored into how a story is reported. Let's just agree, both sides of the political isle are hypocrites when it comes to free speech.

[My_Computer_Is_Trash]

33 minutes ago, steelo said:

I haven't followed every second of the latest debacle, so I may be missing some details. In all fairness, Elon does make a good case that journalists were doxxing his location and putting himself and his family in danger. I believe there is also a picture or video circulating where Elon caught a guy in a mask slowly driving by...I'm not sure if this was a 'hit job' or just an intimidation tactic. If this is indeed true, a ban (and possible charges) are 100% warranted for those responsible.

 

Elon can do whatever he wants, he owns Twitter. Unfortunately, at least in the states, 'honest' reporting is hard to find and you are forced to look at multiple sources to get a non-biased depiction of a story. There always seems to be 'political motivation' factored into how a story is reported. Let's just agree, both sides of the political isle are hypocrites when it comes to free speech.

Elon Musk has revived tens of death threats dating back to 2016.

[steelo]

4 minutes ago, My_Computer_Is_Trash said:

Elon Musk has revived tens of death threats dating back to 2016.

Every single one of them should be treated seriously. Especially if they are directed towards family.

[Heliian]

11 minutes ago, My_Computer_Is_Trash said:

Elon caught a guy in a mask slowly driving by...I'm not sure if this was a 'hit job' or just an intimidation tactic

LOL, not elon.  

 

Regardless, if you're even a low tier celebrity, the crazies will be looking for you.  Luckily musk has the finances to provide adequate security for his family.  Its being used to excuse his rando banning of people who don't agree with him.  

 

It's fine though, I'm not a twitter user, it seemed like a dumpster fire pre takeover, now its the world's largest flaming trash pile. 

[My_Computer_Is_Trash]

5 minutes ago, Heliian said:

LOL, not elon.  

 

Regardless, if you're even a low tier celebrity, the crazies will be looking for you.  Luckily musk has the finances to provide adequate security for his family.  Its being used to excuse his rando banning of people who don't agree with him.  

 

It's fine though, I'm not a twitter user, it seemed like a dumpster fire pre takeover, now its the world's largest flaming trash pile. 

If you knew that people had threatened to kill you and your family, and you found out they were tracking you, would you do everything in your power remove the tracker?

[steelo]

18 minutes ago, Heliian said:

LOL, not elon.  

 

Regardless, if you're even a low tier celebrity, the crazies will be looking for you.  Luckily musk has the finances to provide adequate security for his family.  Its being used to excuse his rando banning of people who don't agree with him.  

 

It's fine though, I'm not a twitter user, it seemed like a dumpster fire pre takeover, now its the world's largest flaming trash pile. 

I mean, why would you NOT ban journalists, etc who literally are providing your location to 'crazies' throughout the day? Assuming Elon's side of the story is, in fact true. I have a VERY hard time believing these journalists are acting in good faith. It has been proven time and time again that many of them seek to destroy the lives of those whom they disagree with.

[darwin006]

Twitter is now banning links to Mastodon.

[Majinhoju]

 

Well this tweet aged nicely.

[Heliian]

33 minutes ago, My_Computer_Is_Trash said:

, would you do everything in your power remove the tracker?

Yes, I'd just shut all of twitter, problem solved? 

[My_Computer_Is_Trash]

8 minutes ago, Heliian said:

Yes, I'd just shut all of twitter, problem solved? 

yes

[Lurking]

CNN has journalists? 

 

It is a private company and they can require you to wear a shoe and shirt to be served. The right of free speech applies to governments not being able to prevent you from exercising your right. It doesn't apply to private companies. Can I go to CNN or Fox and force them to publish what I write? No, they are doing the same thing and only publish what they want. If I want to say what I want, I can create my own website. 

 

All those Twitter/musk haters still can publish whatever they want on their own websites. They have free speech. But they don't have a right to get an audience when no one visits their website or their "news" is just not popular or interesting. If they all hate Twitter/Musk so much, why are they so eager to be on Twitter? 

 

FWIW, I don't have Twitter, and don't understand why anyone would. I also think Musk is making a huge mistake wasting billions that could be used for real-life projects (like rockets, internet and cars). He is like Trump that his ego forces him to go after people who criticize him. And he found the best way to go after twitter users was to buy Twitter. 

 

Maybe he is right somewhere. I like that he invited people to a meeting with the words "only for people who actually program something" and he got rid of a lot of dead wood that are now whining. I'm happy to watch it burn down, I'm also happy if he turns it around and makes it better. Either way, I will be entertained. 

 

How can a company that doesn't produce anything of value or an actually usable product be so interesting to people especially since it isn't even profitable? If it isn't profitable, the problem will resolve itself sooner or later. 

 

 

[wanderingfool2]

On 12/16/2022 at 4:34 AM, HenrySalayne said:

This is literally what you can do on most sites (excluding the Twitter part)...

And just a quick reminder: the account wasn't called "Where is Elon Musk?" but "ElonJet". It is tracking an aircraft and not a person. And it wasn't even sharing real time locations but just take-offs and landings.

An aircraft that pretty much exclusively flies around a single person.

 

If we create a "Linus' car" and you know it's not tracking Linus, but rather the car; so it should be 100% okay /s

 

This guy is literally posting airplanes and which one is likely to be used by Musk.  It literally is telling you where Musk will be prior to being there (arrival time and location).  Do you honestly not understand how dangerous that can be for a public figure?

 

On 12/16/2022 at 4:34 AM, HenrySalayne said:

Did you read your own source?

On 12/16/2022 at 2:53 AM, wanderingfool2 said:

it's literally one of the justifications that news agencies thought was the reasoning for the ban.

No.

Quote

Replying to his own tweet, Musk alleged that, “Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving and climbed onto hood.”

“Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.”

It is not a fact, it is just the idea of a erratic, petty man.

The lack of empathy by you is mind boggling to assume that it's false and carry on as though it has no part of the discussion.  It's like telling someone who claims they are being stalked "I haven't seen anyone, you are just imaging things".  You don't get to pretend as though an accusation like that is false, or if you want to say it's false point to any proof that it is false.  Don't just blabber on about pseudo false without proof.

 

On 12/16/2022 at 4:34 AM, HenrySalayne said:

A stalker would not just plug the registration number into any "flight radar" site. That's way too much work. They rather get their information in small pieces somewhere, sometime, hidden in a Twitter feed...

<Redacted by staff>

 

Not all stalkers have the mental fitness to do what this is doing.  There are plenty that will have drive, and brute force stuff and there will be an occasion one that actually has a brain to do sophisticated stuff, but the twitter account literally makes the information at the fingertips of those who want it.

 

I've even seen YouTube channels using the Twitter account to report on the whereabouts of Musk, when they speculate progress on projects.  There's a major difference between having something that's a real ease of access vs having to sift through data and compute it yourself and correlate that information with other databases to get arrival location.  You obviously have never dealt with someone who has a stalker.  If you do have someone like that in your life though, ask how they would feel about having the location where you are landing tweeted out for the world to see prior to landing.  iirc (and could be wrong) at the time Elon found out about ElonJet after fans appeared at an airport waiting for him, so yea it gets used by people who wouldn't have known otherwise.

 

Again, it uses data from the flight to correlate it with the anonymized FAA data.

 

The tl;dr you increase the pool from a handful of people who would know to now millions who have it at a touch of a button.

 

I also have little sympathy for Sweeney after being asked to remove it for "safety concerns", followed by an offer of "$5,000", where then he said it would require "$50,000".

 

On 12/16/2022 at 7:21 AM, mr moose said:

I see freedom of speech is only important when it's your views that are being suppressed.    For those of you who think this only applies to Elon then you need to look in the mirror.

The way I always look at it, are people not entitled to have changes of opinions?  It's a general problem that people have now and days that everything has to be so rigid and black and white, with no ability to change your mind on a topic.  That is I think a problem with modern society, someone can have a controversial opinion and then upon reflection realize it goes to far but everyone still tries holding to the more extremist view.

 

On 12/16/2022 at 5:20 AM, Coaxialgamer said:

f Mr Musk is so concerned about his aircraft's location being advertised to the world, perhaps he shouldn't fly private? No one would have to know what commercial flight he'd be taking and he gets the benefits of airports and airplanes being full of people too (making an attack against his aircraft potentially more difficult?). It would also be a whole lot greener too.

 

But hey, if asking billionaires not to use private jets when they could just as easily fly commercial borders on the unreasonable I'm all ears.

Well it depends how often one has to fly.  When he is flying 200+ times a year commercial flights make less sense as you need to then go based on the timeframe.  At a certain point it becomes a cost benefit analysis.  Private jets can fly faster, flexible timetables, they can "leave" pretty much at the time you board, you don't have to worry about being late to a flight, and you can get greatly reduced "security" times. It also gives them the privacy to conduct business.  In many cases it won't make sense for private jets, but in cases where you have a billionaire running companies and fling 200+ times a year it can make sense (just in the ability to reschedule a flight at your whim, if lets say you need to stay an extra 30 minutes).  Flying commercial would make that near impossible as the next flight might not be for another few hours (plus the being there before loading)

 

On 12/16/2022 at 8:05 AM, Avocado Diaboli said:

I agree. Any service that tracks people's whereabouts and actions should be shut down. So please, take all data krakens down. Let's start with Twitter themselves.

Public and private are two separate things, but at least Twitter is now working towards E2EE DM's.  With the statement that DM's should never have been looked at or analyzed.

 

  

On 12/16/2022 at 8:21 AM, Heliian said:

The reason is that he's a megalomaniac.  

 

He's an unhinged lunatic with billions of dollars and his own personal social media platform.  Of course he thinks he can get away with his own hipocrasy, the muskovites are only feeding his ego. 

Or you know, you could try looking at it from his perspective.  A guy apparently stopped a vehicle that his son was in and climbed on the hood of the car....but you know, lets just assume it's because he's a "lunatic" and ignore that even prior to owning Twitter that he saw this as a safety concern.  Let's also ignore the fact that the Canadian government also effectively suspended information to prevent some of the government planes being tracked out of security concerns.

 

On 12/16/2022 at 7:12 AM, Kisai said:

Nope, this was petty and spiteful, and again, you do not need to defend billionaires here. What you have here is a Streisand effect. Elon decides he doesn't like what someone posts, suspends them, and then uses that as an excuse to suspend anyone who tweets about it. That is censorship.

I'm defending something I feel strongly about, the ability to track someone.  Honestly, put yourself in his shoes.  If your kid had someone stop the vehicle and climb onto the roof of your car because they thought it was you, how would you react?  Literally Musk is saying that ElonJet could come back if they agree to delay tracking to a point where it doesn't pose a safety concern.

Edited December 18, 2022 by WkdPaul
Cleanup

[WkdPaul]

Since nobody seems to want to discuss the thread matter (journalists being banned) and rather talk about the ElonJet account, and before it devolves further into pointless bickering ;

 

* thread locked *

[conqueredbanana]

Summary

Twitter has banned a couple of journalist tonight who are critical of Elon musk/Tesla and apparently have note broken any of its guidelines. One of those people is Matt Binder from mashable who is also part of the Majority Report, an show which headlined the author of the first twitter files, Matt Taibbi,  18 times for an in lengthy interview (I didn’t watch the show back then but now they have authors/academics on for 30 to 45 minutes interviews). Today he was on their show for a bit as part of his media tour after getting banned, first link starts  @1:19:00. In addition I added some relevant analysis of the whole twitter saga which is quite good. Such as pointing out what the main stories is and what stories should be there.

Quote

“I’m looking and scrolling through twitter and I see CNN Donie O’Sullivan share out a statement he received from the LAPD and the statement basically says… …And the LAPD statement says “we have heard about this, we have reached out to Musk, Elon Musk. We have not heard back and there has been no police report. We haven’t received a report or anything.” So Donie O’Sullivan from CNN shared this

So I shared it, immediately after I quote tweeted it I noticed it wasn’t showing up because it turns out Donie O’Sullivan got suspended moments after. Because it was still open on my screen I took a  screenshot and I added additional information which I thought was also newsworthy. Moments after posting this tweet Donie got suspended and I embedded this in the tweet… … the next thing I know I refreshed my page and saw that I am permanently suspended from twitter”

interview starts around 1:19:00 in the first link

 

My thoughts

To start with the obvious it is bad for society that individuals can amass such power, it ought to be democratized and transferred to the people which includes the public funding of politicians not by individuals.

But the reason I posted about this particular show and journalist is that I found their takes on this topic quite good. So I also will post links on the bottom to their reaction of the first and second iterations of the twitter files. And a very good reaction on the morality of operating on “hostile” communication platforms

Finally I put a link at the bottom from 7 months ago for transparency sake to see if their assessment of the situation has changed (the search results where bad and I dint want to put much effort in an old video for transparency).

A small disclaimer, I am quite busy so I haven’t seen any of their daily content this week with the exception of the part where the banned journalist comes back for a quick interview. This is a political show but they mainly start with an 30-45 min interview of an academic who wrote a big book in the other cases they have journalist/opinion writers on to talk about their big stories.

Have a nice day

Sources

Schreenshot of Matt's Tweet: https://i.redd.it/vtix69xe876a1.png

First Link: interview with banned journalist; today 16 December; Title: Elon’s twitter purge begins w/Matt Binder; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJhFtmIBVw

Second Link: reaction to first “twitter files” from Matt Taibbi; 6 December; Title: Matt Taibbi's Embarrassing Elon Musk Collaboration Was a Huge Fail; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw4fwrQ1Q3s

Third link: reaction to the second “Twitter Files” from Barri Weis; 11 December; Title: Elon’s twitter files fail somehow gets worse; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik2RJg482vM

Forth Link: response to question of the morality of operation on hostile platforms; 15 December; Title: Should the left Abandon Twitter?; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm0cyXya6Aw

Fifth Link: Old video for transparency of their takes; 27 April; Title: Ben Shapiro ask Elon Musk to fire all twitter employees; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkVTF65cIFo  

[Sauron]

There isn't much to say, obviously Musk's words about supposedly protecting free speech were hollow and nonsensical and anyone paying attention knew this from the start. In reality he just wanted the people he likes on the platform and the people he doesn't off it. Like a child with unimaginable power.

[LinusTech]

Wait, this is an option?? 

 

*warms up his ban hammer*

[WkdPaul]

* threads merged and unlocked *

 

Please stay on-topic and keep the Community Standards in mind at all time.

[Bitter]

What's sad/funny is years back he could have just thrown $50,000 at the kid and the whole thing would have been forgotten by now. Instead it seems he paid 44bln just to ban one person and now is on a tear to push anyone else he doesn't like out of his view.

As for those arguing private company and free speech I'd contend that it's a trickier subject than it seems, would you like your internet or cellular provider to ban you or censor you because what you posted or said didn't align with their whims at the time? Those are private companies too. Ages ago, at least in the US, there was a ruckus about telephone providers and whether or not they should be classed as a public utility or not because there's a few rules and regulations that go along with that as well as some benefits. I'd argue that unfortunately social media companies like Twitter and Meta are bordering on being public utilities and here's my reasoning. Federal, state, and local governments routinely use them to communicate with the public and not just silly stuff like the date of the farmers market or to watch out for raccoons. I don't have any answers to these issues, they're kind of new and uncharted and there won't be a simple easy solution to any of this and it won't be quick and probably no one will be happy with it when it's all settled. That's how you know it's good though, it took too long and no one likes it.4\

 

Edit: yes, I understand having community standards and rules of conduct on a platform is very important however it seems like Twitter (and Meta, and almost any platform) seem to make those rules flexible depending on who they're being applied to. Seems like if you're in the good graces with the company or it's staff, a friend of the owner, are driving lots of platform interaction, are a celebrity, or just very wealthy the rules apply differently than to the rest of the user base.

[HenrySalayne]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:42 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

If we create a "Linus' car" and you know it's not tracking Linus, but rather the car; so it should be 100% okay /s

Yes, it is. But we can only see the rough location in an area ranging from 5 to 30 km² (or 124 to 741 furlong²).

 

On 12/16/2022 at 6:42 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

Not all stalkers have the mental fitness to do what this is doing. 

And not all stalker have the physical fitness to jump on hoods, so we can be sure it wasn't somebody in a wheelchair. Or maybe it was and this person just wanted to pitch their amazing wheelchair idea.

 

On 12/16/2022 at 6:42 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

having to sift through data and compute it yourself

This is literally the description of Twitter. The platform is an algorithmic driven steaming pile and If you want to find anything on this platform, you google it.

 

On 12/16/2022 at 6:42 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

The lack of empathy by you is mind boggling to assume that it's false and carry on as though it has no part of the discussion.

Do you need a fake tissue for your fake tears?

On 12/16/2022 at 6:42 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

It's like telling someone who claims they are being stalked "I haven't seen anyone, you are just imaging things". 

What is?

On 12/16/2022 at 6:42 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

You don't get to pretend as though an accusation like that is false, or if you want to say it's false point to any proof that it is false. 

Oh, so we live in a post-factual world where "accusation = truth" and somebody has to prove their innocence? What is wrong with you?

On 12/16/2022 at 6:42 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

Don't just blabber on about pseudo false without proof.

For the record (correctly used by the way): you are treating Elon's claims as divine truth without any proof. Good luck proving that this particular individual would not have been there if the ElonJet account would not have existed. And good luck showing how "Sweeney & organizations" in any form support harm to his family.

Quote

"Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family."

 

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned *

 

Apologies, I missed insults, which aren't allowed or tolerated, please report any rules violations instead of quoting and replying.

[TempestCatto]

3 minutes ago, WkdPaul said:

* thread cleaned *

 

Apologies, I missed insults, which aren't allowed or tolerated, please report any rules violations instead of quoting and replying.

I said from the beginning this thread was gonna turn and it should be locked. Someone else commented the same thing. Yet our two comments were removed and here we are.