Jack Sweeney is a guy who operates a Twitter account called @elonjet. It uses public information to track the location of Elon Musk's private jet and post it in real time.
A few days ago there was a kerfuffle about the account being de-amplified: it still existed but a search for it brought up nothing. I was going to write about this, but Sweeney said the search ban had been in place for months, well before Musk took over. So I skipped it.
Today, though, a month after saying this . . .
My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022
. . . Musk suddenly took down the @elonjet account entirely. No shadow banning, no search banning, no warning. It's just gone:
To mask the personal nature of this suspension, Musk took down a bunch of other accounts that followed the planes of various billionaires and celebrities. Then he added the following violation to Twitter's privacy policy:
Twitter promptly went nuts. Regardless of how you feel about tracking private jets, this violation is so broad that it's nonsensical. Are reporters not allowed to tweet about events where some celebrity is about to show up? Or what the president's daily schedule is? Or a car chase on some Southern California freeway?
At the very least, this policy needs to include variants of "routinely" and "permission." That is, it needs to be aimed at people who could be described as stalkers, obsessively tweeting the locations of a particular person constantly. And it needs to include exceptions for explicitly permitted information, like where the president is throughout the day, or announcements obviously designed to publicize someone's location ("Kevin Drum will will be appearing live at Carnegie Hall Friday at 8:00!").
But no one thought of that, I guess. It's just whatever comes out of Elon Musk's brain, and he's shown many times that he's never thought through the nuts and bolts of how Twitter actually works. I imagine this policy will go through the usual Twitter sausage grinder now, getting redefined and reclarified until eventually it's relatively well worded.
And then we'll all go off to Discord or Instagram to see the location of Elon's jet.
POSTSCRIPT: Speaking of that, life must be sweet for Mark Zuckerberg right now. He could announce a new policy saying that a team of ninja assassins will kill anyone who posts insults about Nickelback and no one would even notice. Social media is all Elon all the time, at least for now.
POSTSCRIPT THE SECOND: I expect the political right will suddenly discover that they've always been at war with Eastasia opposed tracking people. Hell the Fourth Amendment forbids it, as anyone with half a brain can see! Stupid liberals.
UPDATE: The @elonjet account was reinstated briefly earlier today, but then suspended again after about an hour. ffs.
> expect the political right will suddenly discover
And this whole thing is so ridiculously stupid that it isn't even worth digging up Michelle Malkin's sideline in reviewing granite countertops.
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The terms of service, in their majestic equality, forbid rich and poor alike from having their private jets tracked.
+1
I think Peter Thiel invited ‘ol Elon over for drinks one day, roofied him, then did a brain swap.When was the last time anyone saw Kevin Nunes?
Musk has always been a self-absorbed nutbar and a charlatan. None of this should surprise anyone.
Please god, people, just stop using Twitter. Musk has shown himself to be a malicious actor. Why enable him by playing in his sandbox?
Like +10.
You didn't really believe all that free speech absolutist bullshit, did you? It is free speech for people who make death threats against public figures, but Musk demonstrated long ago that he is the most delicate of snowflakes. You can even make jokes about him without getting suspended.
Also, how do I get tickets to the Carnegie Hall event?
Being a "free speech absolutist" seems like a good deal. You cancel anyone you don't like...
Sometimes, you can save a thousand words by being direct.
ELON MUSK IS A HYPOCRITE
shocked!!!
And apparently the personal account of the guy doing the elonjets account was suspended too....
Right wingers are always hypocrites. But their right wing fans love them all the more for it. It heightens the brazenness of the lib-owning in their eyes. Personally, I think at this point Musk doesn't care about the profitability of Twitter very much (at least in the short/medium term) and/or feels making it into a full-throated Fox News-like platform for MAGA (perhaps after a debt-shedding reorg?) is the way to go.
He's basically trolling.
His trolling has collateral damage.
I await the Q4 end of year Tesla financials. If progressives start abandoning Tesla / Tesla Solar, he's in deep shit. Conservatives certainly don't prioritize solar and BEVs.
Totally agree with this. Between mainstream car companies rolling out affordable EVs (GM, Kia and others) and Musk’s descent into darkness, Tesla will be really hurting. Look for the Tesla Board to force him out.
Yep, got my KIA EV6. Didn't want a Tesla at all - partly because I don't want to support Elon, but also I just find their cars bland and boring looking.
That would be fun to watch, but I'm not sure if it's even possible. He bought the company and took it private. He's the owner. He can fire anyone, but I don't think anyone can fire him.
I don’t have a twitter account. The obsession with these trivia is hilarious… and also a bit tedious. I always thought our media elite were, well, smart and elite. It turns out they are all stuck in 7th grade and this actually explains a lot about American culture, media, and politics.
Kevin left off the best part:
"Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family."
That is so....Trumpian.
Threatening legal action against someone who broke no laws and was sharing information that was already publicly available.
Now he's gone and banned a bunch of journalist accounts because these are reporters who cover him and I guess they've been saying bad things about him.
He's spoiled brat. That's all he is. None of this has anything to do with "free speech". It's all about control. Fine. Pray for the day Twitter goes into receivership when EM goes bankrupt and maybe sane people will run the shop once again. Until then...