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

[WkdPaul]

6 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

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.

We usually don't discuss moderation publicly, but for transparency purposes ;

 

The subject isn't Tech News, that's why it's in the off-topic section, it was originally locked but seeing at it was reposted twice, we decided to merge and unlock, and we're keeping an eye on it.

 

IMO, it will 100% eventually be locked again, it's really just a matter of time, but we're giving members the benefit of the doubt, hoping they'll prove us wrong.

[Bitter]

Question: If Musk tweets where he is or where he will be at, or where he is enroute to, does he ban himself?

[wseaton]

Twitter, FB, etc. *ARE NOT* 5th amendment extension platforms. They are private organizations that can censor what they want. They are media/entertainment platforms, not newspapers.

 

Is Elon Hypocritical? Likely. Hes clearly got a rub vs progressive slanted media that's equally hypocritical, if not more.

 

When you were a kid, and you went to the rich kid's birthday party you played his favorite games and watched his favorite cartoons.

 

Elon is that kid.

 

He's made a lot of enemies including some heads of state. I can see him wanting to keep his travel itinerary as obscure as possible. 

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, wseaton said:

Twitter, FB, etc. *ARE NOT* 5th amendment extension platforms. They are private organizations that can censor what they want. They are media/entertainment platforms, not newspapers.

 

Is Elon Hypocritical? Likely. Hes clearly got a rub vs progressive slanted media that's equally hypocritical, if not more.

 

When you were a kid, and you went to the rich kid's birthday party you played his favorite games and watched his favorite cartoons.

 

Elon is that kid.

 

He's made a lot of enemies including some heads of state. I can see him wanting to keep his travel itinerary as obscure as possible. 

The way I look at it as well is this:

 

He is part of the program which provides new ID's every month to "avoid" getting tracked.  The guy involved tracks him anyways by using analytical data to de-anonymize the feed essentially.  At what point should that not be called doxxing, or be made against the law.  One can try arguing all the data is in the public, but here's the kicker though...the law I alway rail against because it's terribly written...it can come into play as well

 

California Penal Code Section 502(c) PC

Quote

    Knowingly accesses and without permission alters, damages, deletes, destroys, or otherwise uses any data or computer system to:
    Execute a scheme to defraud or extort a victim OR
    Wrongfully control or obtain money, property or data.
    Knowingly accesses and without permission takes, copies, or makes use of any data from a computer OR takes or copies supporting documentation. 3. Knowingly introduces any contaminant or virus into any computer system.
    Knowingly and without permission uses the Internet domain name or profile of another individual, corporation, or entity in connection with the sending of electronic messages that damage a computer system.
    Knowingly and without permission disrupts or causes the denial of governmental computer services.
    Knowingly and without permission disrupts or causes the denial of public safety infrastructure computer services.

 

If you intentionally deanonymize data that you know should be private (the PIA which Elon has on his jet, the P stands for private) then in theory you are in violation of the law.

 

So the general crux of the argument is, if ElonJet is gathering this information illicitly (again the law above, while not proven in court the way the law is written it could apply if a prosecutor wanted to) then journalists posting in regards how to still access the data from ElonJet is doxxing.  I have a lot less sympathy as well when it involves a kid being involved.

 

On another note, TaylorLorenz has been suspended.  She's a person who has been doxxed before and talked about the impacts on her life...she also has doxxed at least 2 people in her stories [In one the case of Jacob, there was literal screenshots of the text messages where she says getting the address from Jacob was "not for publication" just to fact check points of an article].

 

At a certain point we really need to question how much journalists can get away with.  I've talked about this before in other threads, but having worked for a company that got railroaded by a journalist because their friend had a bad experience has taught me that there is no recourse against journalists who are afforded greater protection

[HenrySalayne]

Another journalist was banned from Twitter after reaching out to Musk about a upcoming story.

Edit: Account was reinstated today.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If you intentionally deanonymize data that you know should be private (the PIA which Elon has on his jet, the P stands for private) then in theory you are in violation of the law.

You should add "not legal advice, just my opinion".

 

[Lurking]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The way I look at it as well is this:

 

He is part of the program which provides new ID's every month to "avoid" getting tracked.  The guy involved tracks him anyways by using analytical data to de-anonymize the feed essentially.  At what point should that not be called doxxing, or be made against the law.  One can try arguing all the data is in the public, but here's the kicker though...the law I alway rail against because it's terribly written...it can come into play as well

 

California Penal Code Section 502(c) PC

If you intentionally deanonymize data that you know should be private (the PIA which Elon has on his jet, the P stands for private) then in theory you are in violation of the law.

 

So the general crux of the argument is, if ElonJet is gathering this information illicitly (again the law above, while not proven in court the way the law is written it could apply if a prosecutor wanted to) then journalists posting in regards how to still access the data from ElonJet is doxxing.  I have a lot less sympathy as well when it involves a kid being involved.

 

On another note, TaylorLorenz has been suspended.  She's a person who has been doxxed before and talked about the impacts on her life...she also has doxxed at least 2 people in her stories [In one the case of Jacob, there was literal screenshots of the text messages where she says getting the address from Jacob was "not for publication" just to fact check points of an article].

 

At a certain point we really need to question how much journalists can get away with.  I've talked about this before in other threads, but having worked for a company that got railroaded by a journalist because their friend had a bad experience has taught me that there is no recourse against journalists who are afforded greater protection

I have no idea if you are right or wrong. But I ASSUME Musk explored legal options a long time ago before thinking of buying Twitter. And banning that tracker from Twitter still let's him publish that on other websites. So since Musk hasn't done any legal things, I ASSUME his lawyers advised him it won't work and the twitter ban is all he can do.

[Bitter]

Oh?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34037780

Can someone verify this?

[HenrySalayne]

39 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Oh?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34037780

Can someone verify this?

Why do you need verification for something you can

a - easily look up yourself?*

b - everybody in this thread (except this one individual) said all along?

 

*

Spoiler

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

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

If you are

a - a stalker without the "mental fitness" or

b - incredibly lazy

here is some help. But I believe you could have figured that out on your own, or couldn't you?

 

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a64304

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a2ae0a

https://web.archive.org/web/20221213074257/https://twitter.com/ElonJet

 

 

 

 

 

[Bitter]

I see a bunch of people saying that Sweeney was breaking a law because Musk was using PIA, but seems Musk wasn't which if he really has a problem being tracked on his plane he would be using PIA to protect himself because it's a pretty basic step isn't it or am I missing something?

[Arika]

45 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I see a bunch of people saying that Sweeney was breaking a law because Musk was using PIA, but seems Musk wasn't which if he really has a problem being tracked on his plane he would be using PIA to protect himself because it's a pretty basic step isn't it or am I missing something?

Doxxing is just using public information that anyone can find as well, is that ok now too?

[wanderingfool2]

50 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I see a bunch of people saying that Sweeney was breaking a law because Musk was using PIA, but seems Musk wasn't which if he really has a problem being tracked on his plane he would be using PIA to protect himself because it's a pretty basic step isn't it or am I missing something?

https://web.archive.org/web/20220203104313/https://twitter.com/jxcksweeney/status/1486438058694111234

 

Sweeney stated he's used PIA and broken the system.  At a certain point though maybe he stopped using it (as it becomes pointless if it doesn't stop the tracking).  Internationally though it can't be used, only on US domestic.

 

3 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Why do you need verification for something you can

a - easily look up yourself?*

b - everybody in this thread (except this one individual) said all along?

 

*

  Hide contents

If you are

a - a stalker without the "mental fitness" or

b - incredibly lazy

here is some help. But I believe you could have figured that out on your own, or couldn't you?

 

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a64304

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a2ae0a

https://web.archive.org/web/20221213074257/https://twitter.com/ElonJet

 

 

 

 

 

You miss the complete concept of barrier to entry and also the concept that with the Twitter one you literally get notifications on it. 

[Bitter]

32 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220203104313/https://twitter.com/jxcksweeney/status/1486438058694111234

 

Sweeney stated he's used PIA and broken the system.  At a certain point though maybe he stopped using it (as it becomes pointless if it doesn't stop the tracking).  Internationally though it can't be used, only on US domestic.

 

You miss the complete concept of barrier to entry and also the concept that with the Twitter one you literally get notifications on it. 

So why hasn't Musk just made himself a private jet rental company as a spinoff that operates multiple private jets from multiple locations. He could simply rent his own jet from himself and fly fairly anonymously, right? ADSB doesn't tell anyone who's on the plane, so if it's registered to a company and that company is flying lots of planes from many places with lots of different passengers...does this make sense? It doesn't seem like it would be so hard for the 'smartest guy' to figure out?? I mean it seems like a privacy focused private jet rental business would do pretty well in modern times!!

[wanderingfool2]

4 hours ago, Bitter said:

So why hasn't Musk just made himself a private jet rental company as a spinoff that operates multiple private jets from multiple locations. He could simply rent his own jet from himself and fly fairly anonymously, right? ADSB doesn't tell anyone who's on the plane, so if it's registered to a company and that company is flying lots of planes from many places with lots of different passengers...does this make sense? It doesn't seem like it would be so hard for the 'smartest guy' to figure out?? I mean it seems like a privacy focused private jet rental business would do pretty well in modern times!!

Jets are notorious for costing a lot of money, and doing a private jet rental would just exasperate the problem.  If you schedule a time to fly, it means at any given location you would now have to have multiple jets.  There just aren't as many clients out there to effectively make it sustainable.  Jets are pretty reserved for the extremely wealthy and that means there are only a handful of clients in America.  It's ultimately what PIA was supposed to be for, but that ship has effectively sailed if people are using analytics and flying data to deanonymize that information.

 

Effectively, what would start happening is just analyzing the flight data of the jets and figuring out which airport it's going to then assuming you know who is on the flight based on the location.  (Again, there aren't too many people who can afford private jets).

 

https://www.businessairportinternational.com/news/analysis-reveals-scale-of-private-jet-fleet-in-the-usa.html

There are only 14,632.  So that realistically means there are less than 14,632 potential customers for that business.

[Arika]

4 hours ago, Bitter said:

So why hasn't Musk just made himself a private jet rental company as a spinoff that operates multiple private jets from multiple locations. He could simply rent his own jet from himself and fly fairly anonymously, right? ADSB doesn't tell anyone who's on the plane, so if it's registered to a company and that company is flying lots of planes from many places with lots of different passengers...does this make sense? It doesn't seem like it would be so hard for the 'smartest guy' to figure out?? I mean it seems like a privacy focused private jet rental business would do pretty well in modern times!!

why should he have to go that far? why should anyone have to? a PIA should have been enough.

[HenrySalayne]

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You miss the complete concept of barrier to entry and also the concept that with the Twitter one you literally get notifications on it. 

Let's get this straight:

On 12/16/2022 at 8:53 AM, wanderingfool2 said:

To put further to bed the whole "public data".  He [Sweeney] utilized ADS-B, and cross-referenced the movements from what is supposed to be an anonymized FAA flight plan to essentially deanonymize it and know when and where it will land.

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

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

 

The ElonJet account did nothing else but posting screenshots from ADSBexchange every time the registration N628TS did a take-off or a landing and estimated the fuel consumption for the flight. That's around 50 lines of Python code.

 

 

This entire thing is nothing more than a convenience bot and a reminder how much CO2 some individuals are blowing into the atmosphere.

If this makes it "too easy" in you opinion, you are not only wrong but you should really be on the watch out for this other thing: the Google search.

 

So maybe we can move on from spreading fake news about ElonJet and put this part of the story to rest.

There was an alleged incident, Musk - as we see so often these days by questionable figures - blamed it on the next best thing he dislikes and used it as a pretence to get rid of it. And then he started to go after the people who try to make the general public aware of what's going on.

 

And after not only two month he has lit enough dumpster fires for a lifetime:

 

 

[Neroon]

I find it incredibly hilarious that his reign might end with a twitter poll after he basically destroyed the company. Can't wait for the movie of his life, gonna win all the prizes for best comedy. 

 

 

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

It's amusing to see the discussion surrounding doxxing here, with one side claiming that presenting publicly available information is doxxing while the other denies it. So let me be an honest voice here and say: I don't care if posting flight tracker data is doxxing or not, and here's why: I fully condone doxxing Elon Musk. The same way I fully condone doxxing every single other rich and powerful bastard in control of any service built on datamining its users. This is that lesson I mentioned a few pages back that needs to be taught. Dox every single bastard until they turn off their tracking and demonstrably delete all the "necessary" data they gather as soon as that necessity runs out. Make it easy for people to delete their data once they stop using a service and by god, put this shit under government audits for compliance. Then we can talk again about how doxxing is bad.

[Needfuldoer]

16 hours ago, Lurking said:

I have no idea if you are right or wrong. But I ASSUME Musk explored legal options a long time ago before thinking of buying Twitter. And banning that tracker from Twitter still let's him publish that on other websites. So since Musk hasn't done any legal things, I ASSUME his lawyers advised him it won't work and the twitter ban is all he can do.

Ironically, Elon banning the Elonjet account brought it more attention than ever.

 

Barbara Streisand, her mansion photographed.

 

 

[Lurking]

4 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Ironically, Elon banning the Elonjet account brought it more attention than ever.

 

Barbara Streisand, her mansion photographed.

 

 

This just shows that people still have free speech and can distribute their opinion. 

 

The real news is, some kid can get more readers than the mighty CNN/Fox/MSNBC. instead of complaining about being kicked off Twitter, those news companies should think about why people don't read them on their own website. 

 

FYI, I just read Musk lost his poll where he asked users if he should continue as CEO. Now I'm curious if he steps down based on his personal's kingdoms democratic process. 

[Bitter]

19 minutes ago, Lurking said:

This just shows that people still have free speech and can distribute their opinion. 

 

The real news is, some kid can get more readers than the mighty CNN/Fox/MSNBC. instead of complaining about being kicked off Twitter, those news companies should think about why people don't read them on their own website. 

 

FYI, I just read Musk lost his poll where he asked users if he should continue as CEO. Now I'm curious if he steps down based on his personal's kingdoms democratic process. 

I'm sure he will not, claim it rigged or something, and carry on being budget Howard Hughes.

[HenrySalayne]

19 minutes ago, Lurking said:

Now I'm curious if he steps down based on his personal's kingdoms democratic process. 

I like your oxymoron. Good job.

[suicidalfranco]

So if someone buys some ad time for a billboard in time square, which you'd be shocked how cheap that actually is, and decide to use it to let people know a journalist's home address, since that address is public and already know cause it was already distributed through SN in the past, that will not count as doxxing, right?

 

[WkdPaul]

* thread locked *

 

So, since the thread warning wasn't clear, political bait (posing this as a left vs right thing) isn't allowed.

 

This will now remain closed, any new thread related to this will be merged here, and hence locked also.