All: be on whichever side of this saga that you please, but make sure you're following HN's guidelines while posting. There has been a drop in comment quality lately. Not cool.
Here's the short version. Good: thoughtful, curious conversation. Bad: snark, fulmination, and flamewar.
> 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 could be
Let’s try to make a comment that creates less outrage than most…
This is why it would be interesting to post public information about politicians collected from the online spyware that tracks all of us. It would rapidly motivate new laws that at least somewhat improve privacy.
This always happens when rule makers are personally affected by a problem: the problem starts getting attention
I don't know - it doesn't seem consistently applied Donie O’Sullivan published a tweet containing a statement from the LAPD and was banned; and personally I don't see it being upheld once Elon's fixation on this story wanes.
Furthermore, it just seems that Elon is doing what he accused Twitter of doing for so long; enacting arbitrary rules to silence political opponents. It's his site and he's free to ban who he wants but does he see the cognitive dissonance of how he's running the site?
It's also worth noting that revealing real names and workplaces of anonymous accounts is still allowed. The doxxing that is banned is a specific class of doxxing that isn't often considered to be doxxing.
Probably the carve out is because Musk doxxed that short seller guy, 'Montana Skeptic,' and tried to get his employer to fire him.
But he already made a location carve-out too: he himself posted pictures of the alleged stalker guy and a license tag. That would get someone banned under the location rule. Even if it was a day later, the incident itself happened a day later than any elonjet post I believe, so that's within his real-time timeframe.
> This is why it would be interesting to post public information about politicians collected from the online spyware that tracks all of us. It would rapidly motivate new laws that at least somewhat improve privacy.
There's history of this kind of thing spurring political action: what comes immediately to mind is the Video Privacy Protection Act, enacted after a reporter got hold of Robert Bork's video rental records. At the time, Bork was in the middle of a contentious (and ultimately failed) confirmation process to be named to the Supreme Court, and Bork's views on the lack of a constitutional right to privacy gave the writer an idea.
The actual movies were nothing interesting, but general distaste for the move, plus a healthy dose of worry from members of Congress about the contents their own records, led to a law that explicitly penalized video stores that handed out that kind of info about their customers.
I think you're right in general that people are pretty blasé about tracking now, though.
> It seems like a good rule, but in this case the application of the rule seems less impersonal than it could be
I don't think it seems like a good rule. Not only is the information public but I think it is not hard to dream up reasons why it would legitimately be in the public interest to report on the comings and goings of someone's private jet.
There is also a pretty easy solution to this if you want privacy: sell the private jet and use charters. This is why Bernard Arnauld sold his recently.
Public or not, it is a security concern, especially for a celebrity/politicized figure/widely hated person.
I wouldn't want my live location posted on the internet either, and there's a lot fewer people who want to hurt me than Musk (AFAIK, no one wants to hurt me).
There are ways to do that job that don't involve poking the proverbial dragon every waking minute. You can call Elon a hypocrite for banning people who attack him relentlessly, but all humans are hypocrites. Perhaps they should take a break from the "Elon beat", because their reporting appears increasingly personal in nature.
The crowd that got banned seems unusually thick-headed, and they'll probably just attack Elon (and Twitter itself) even harder once they get unbanned. Karl Popper explained it better than I can, but Twitter doesn't have to extend unlimited tolerance to those who seek to destroy Twitter.
I have this crazy idea.. If only there was.. now hear me out
Some type of team at Twitter that could look at more tweets.. the resources to look at ALL of Twitter.., systematically, for these issues of “trust” and “safety”
You could the create a very clear policy, and work to remove any doubt such a policy was consistently enforced!
How does the 24 hour delay location tracking rule agains DOXing benefit somebody who doesn't have a private jet to hop around the world in every day, and always sits at home in the same place, isolating to not get sick, and working hard at home to pay the bills and feed the cats?
Is it just fine and not DOXing to track and publish the location of people who don't move around all the time, after a 24 hour time lag?
Sounds like this 24 hour rule is specifically designed to protect Musk himself, and only incidentally anyone else who happens to own a private plane.
What is everyone up in arms for?
This is a private company, so he can do whatever he wants.
That is what everyone has been saying for years. I mean, it turns out they were wrong and Twitter was actually colluding with government agencies to bypass the first amendment. But censorship and targeted suspensions were defended tooth and nail by internet commenters.
Is this a problem now only because people you like are targeted? Surely people wouldn't be so shortsighted?
> Is this a problem now only because people you like are targeted?
Yes, this is exactly the problem but in the opposite direction you are implying.
Musk believed that Twitter blocking the sharing of an article about ToS breaking behavior was worthy of the “Twitter Files” when the story was bad for his political opponent, but he thinks it is fine when the story is bad for him. It shows that he has no actual principled beliefs. He simply is acting in his own best interest.
Odds are people would be more willing to accept Elon’s rules if Elons’s rules weren’t a constantly moving target of whatever benefits him the most at this exact moment.
In a word, Hypocrisy. Everyone is up in arms for Hypocrisy.
Musk's statement was that free speech would be allowed on Twitter. And yet, here he is chilling free speech. It's not surprising. It's just also really bad. So people are up in arms that they're losing a platform that, while by no means perfect, was better for free speech than it currently is.
> That is what everyone has been saying for years.
You're making a false equivalence between the left and the right on this topic.
The left has said that moderating online communities is legal because of the First Amendment. They're private companies. The right then called for an end to the First Amendment as we've known it by banning private companies from moderating their platforms.
There has been no such call from the left. The left (and this thread) laments what Elon is doing, but no one is saying he's breaking a law or that he should be breaking a law. No one is calling for the government to step in.
Twitter is allowed to be run by jerks who ban people for any reason they want.
The problem is that people like Musk have spent ages arguing that banning fascists is bad because free speech absolutism is an important value. It turns out that free speech absolutism was never actually a value they cared about - the only thing that matters is that their guy is the one choosing the bans. If people like Musk had instead argued that platforming fascists is actually good this whole time then the discussion today would be different, but because they didn't want to publicly support fascists they had to fall back on the free speech absolutism argument, which has shattered into a million pieces.
Is it now genetally agreed upon that Twitter was actually “colluding with government agencies to bypass the first amendment”, or is that still a hotly contested statement?
(My understanding was that the Twitter files did on the end not contain such evidence, but information overload … I may have lost some consensus)
By some internet commenters. Personally I found Twitters bans distasteful. Even if they could do it.
I also find Musk's bans distasteful. Even if he can do it.
Oh, and he's revealed himself to obviously be full of shit. As is anyone cheering him on in the name of free speech. But I guess principles only last until they get in the way of petty tribalism.
It's no more sophisticated than that. I used to think it was. But look at conversations about Musk following the twitter purchase, compared to conversations about Musk regarding Tesla. I've come to see that it's just people and their personal relationship to their toys.
I don't give two cares about Tesla and have like 5 Tweets in 14 years. Conversations about either never really made sense to me when looking from the perspective of someone emotionally uninvested and just watching things come and go in the world. But look at tech as toy and it all makes sense.
> What is everyone up in arms for? This is a private company, so he can do whatever he wants.
Not exactly. At least here in Germany, there is established jurisprudence that Twitter and Facebook are public "town halls" for discussion and as such have to maintain some sort of freedom of speech, with the borders being set by German laws. That means that for example Holocaust denial, which is perfectly fine under US law, has to be regionally blocked for Germany, while some instances of what Twitter/FB consider to be "hate speech" under their rules still has to be made available.
The general judicial consensus in Germany is that while platforms do have a requirement to moderate discourse (e.g. to remove libel and outright Nazi content), they also aren't allowed to moderate too strictly.
The problem is that Musk is suggesting that anyone posting anything regarding ADS-B data, sites, applications, and so forth are violating the rule which isn't the case. These are legal and open radio topics, we're not talking about posting his bank records, we're talking about posting where a plane was last seen in the air which isn't the same as posting his private address.
It's not a good rule. It was implemented for the sole reason of preventing people from saying where Elon Musk's private jet is, even though that is publicly available information by law.
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 old.
It almost look like the clown ran into the ops room and yelled. "Ban everyone mentioning @elonjet, EVERYONE" and someone just ran SQL query with LIKE %@elonjet% AND user != musky_boy ...
> The "rules" are whatever he makes up on the spot
But two years ago, the rules were whatever Vijaya Gadde made up on the spot. Why is this suddenly a cause for outrage? Twitter has always been like this.
Elon, quite literally, immediately asked for the Internet to doxx someone right after making this rule change. He posted a picture of a car/license/person and demanded everyone find this person. Strangely, the 'incident' was never important enough to actually contact law enforcement over...
But the principle won't be applied equally. No property of the universe will swoop in and force Musk to take action when trans people are threatened. It is an error to assume that systems that protect the rich and powerful will be used to protect the poor and oppressed.
I agree. Principles are the only way out of this. People need to feel faith that an evenhanded application of impartial standards will protect both them and their ideological foes alike. Whatever privacy standards are established need to protect everyone the same.
It's easy to point out Musk's hypocrisy and shifting standards. Conservatives did the same when it was more liberal people who ran Twitter. We need to appeal to something higher than "everything is great when people who agree with me are in charge."
It's interesting that many are debating the value of this 'rule', when this action is blatant abuse of his powers to silence his critics. He has now a lengthy and growing history of this type of behavior, so it was 100% foreseeable. He could just come out and say that its his twitter and he can do what he wants, but no, because he also wants to be seen as a 'defender of free speech'. He acts like a-hole, but then expects unquestioning adoration.
> He acts like a-hole, but then expects unquestioning adoration.
Very typical narcissistic personality disorder symptoms. Narcissists are made not born, by other narcissists, thru treatment that is dehumanizing and inhumane from a very young age. We should give him our compassion and empathy, but not allow him any power. Power in the hands of a narcissist is dangerous, as the orange man showed us.
Not going to take a position on the latest Twitter drama; just want to point something out:
>Narcissists are made not born
I have a background in abnormal psychology and this is false. Narcissists are either born or the behavioural disorder forms in very early childhood. I'm on mobile right now but will find a source and come back to edit this reply.
Again, not taking sides or even care much about the Twitter thing. Just wanted to point that misconception out.
> Causes
It's not known what causes narcissistic personality disorder. The cause is likely complex. Narcissistic personality disorder may be linked to:
> Environment — parent-child relationships with either too much adoration or too much criticism that don't match the child's actual experiences and achievements.
> Genetics — inherited characteristics, such as certain personality traits.
> Neurobiology — the connection between the brain and behavior and thinking.
There could be a relationship between neglectful parenting and narcissistic personality disorder, but I definitely agree with the other person who replied to you — at the very least, it’s disingenuous and misleading to present the cause concretely and unambiguously as “bad parenting”. We really know so little about most mental health conditions.
Welcome to the new Twitter, just like the old Twitter.
At least now everyone understands the value of a neutral free speech town square and can see that "it's a company, they can do what they want" was always a disingenuous argument. It was never principled, it was always predicated on bias alignment. It's the same with those who are happy about these journalists being banned. Blatant bias and hypocrisy on both sides.
> At least now everyone understands the value of a neutral free speech town square
Nope. People still very much don't want that.
> and can see that "it's a company, they can do what they want" was always a disingenuous argument.
There's no conflict between saying that and also saying that chanting 'free speech' over and over while banning people for what they say about you just makes you a liar.
Most of HN completely miss the intent of conventional doxxing rules and widely accepted privacy laws in most countries.
- Public figures, like politicians, top businessmen, and so on don't get the same amount of privacy and protection as regular Joe. You can follow them and track them. If you have power and influence, you don't enjoy the same privacy protections as others. That's a really good principle to have.
- Elon Musk himself is know for punching down that violates this principle. His M.O is to point his crazy followers against regular Joes and then playing innocent. "It was not me".
It's funny how this debate has shifted. Now that Elon owns twitter, it's Elon haters bringing up the law whereas before they were talking about how twitter can do what they want as a private company.
For my money, there's absolutely nothing wrong with twitter disallowing "person trackers". Legality aside, whether it's Elon Musk or Nancy Pelosi, the subtext of these trackers is creepy and threatening and banning them from some platform is fine.
I've known Musk was crazy ever since he baselessly called Vern Unsworth (the diver who rescued the children trapped in a cave in Thailand) a "pedophile".
But there was a reason he invented this new rule, and I think it's unwise and unfair to dismiss a stalker attack as "being tagged on the playground".
Blocking those who want to give the general public up to-the-minute location information on him and his family is "silencing his critics?"
Nothing could be further from the truth.
You have no fundamental right to track Elon Musk, just like I would have no fundamental right to track the whereabouts of you and your family. Disagree? When do you let us attach a tracking device to your conveyance?
Few, if any, would be comfortable having their family movements tracked by the public.
Also, journalist is a bit of a stretch. Journalism died a long time ago. Corporate script-readers at best, and state-run media parrots at worst. Either would be a better description than "journalist."
I remember when that "journalist" from WashPost published the home address of a woman she didn't like. Everyone was all for that...
Now it seems the shoe is on the other foot and the hypocrites don't like it.
> You have no fundamental right to track Elon Musk, just like I would have no fundamental right to track the whereabouts of you and your family. Disagree? When do you let us attach a tracking device to your conveyance?
Nobody's tracking Musk, they're tracking his plane. Further, "they" aren't tracking it, the gov is, and publishing it, as public information.
Everyone lets the same tracker be attached to their conveyance ... WHEN THEY OWN A JET.
Let me fix your reasoning. Pro government journalists suspended after trying to intimidate a powerful critic by doxxing his location. FBI likely involved.
> It's interesting that many are debating the value of this 'rule', when this action is blatant abuse of his powers to silence his critics.
I think it’s you that’s missing the point here. It’s only abuse of power if the rule against doxxing is invalid. So it does come down to the rule and whether or not doxxing is acceptable. If we decide that doxxing is acceptable and posting anybody’s real-time location data is acceptable (without their consent), then he is abusing powers. If that is your conclusion, then you don’t have the right to complain should it happen to you. If you believe the opposite, that doxxing is unacceptable, then the rule should apply equally to everybody. Critics and journalists do not get a free pass to break the rules.
> If we decide that doxxing is acceptable and posting anybody’s real-time location data is acceptable (without their consent), then he is abusing powers. If that is your conclusion, then you don’t have the right to complain should it happen to you.
This really does not follow. We already have plenty of exceptions for what is appropriate when reporting on public versus private figures in other aspects of life. As Musk himself has demonstrated, "absolutism" of any sort is a difficult view to hold when one's feet are put to the fire, and nuance is actually important.
Even if you think that reporting on Elon's plane (or in the case here, the "reporting on the reporting" on Elon's plane) should be forbidden, I would suggest that this development is still difficult to defend. This is a reversal in policy that Elon made because it was about him personally.
Are you sure Elon will continue to agree with you on who/what to censor in the future?
Nobody is posting his whereabouts; someone wrote a bot which grabs public API data which was pulled from ADS-B (which you can receive with a 20 EUR DVB-T receiver) which includes his private jet. His private jet may or may not contain him, and his whereabouts after he left his plane are not included. F.e. if he used a public transport, nobody would post his whereabouts automatically on Twitter.
Someone posted yesterday that the beginning of Musk's Twitter buy happened shortly after elonjet refused his $5000 offer to buy the account. The rational part of me says he surely couldn't have spent $45 billion dollars to shut the account down, but it's kinda feeling more and more true as the story continues.
It's like this is the 21st century version of the San Francisco story where Yung refused to sell their house to the robber baron Cocker, leading Cocker to build an expensive three story tall fence around the house forcing Yung to move.
> The rational part of me says he surely couldn't have spent $45 billion dollars to shut the account down, but it's kinda feeling more and more true as the story continues.
He could have banned the account on day 1, but he tweeted in defense of it. I don’t buy the theory that he had to wait to save face, he seems perfectly content to change his mind and make new rules on the spot without worrying about the backlash.
It seems more likely that he had idealistic reasons for buying the site and is becoming less idealistic as time goes on. Every worldview is flawed, you just don’t know it until you try to implement it. I think he’s moving past any initial altruistic aspirations and is now treating Twitter more like a tool that can be customized to achieve certain goals. I’m sure he thinks the goals are good for everyone, including himself, but from the outside it’s not mirroring the “public square”, “absolute free speech” mantras pre-acquisition.
> I’m sure he thinks the goals are good for everyone, including himself
This is exactly why democracy is so important. Humans are fallible. Power eventually corrupts everyone. Power should be distributed. I am not happy about de facto town squares being owned by powerful people. For this exact reason. Democrats were very happy with the status quo when their opponents were being censored. "It's a private business." I wonder if they will remain so idealistic.
Could have offered the guy $5 million with a non-disclosure cemented. Musk would have tens of billions more right now, especially with the now crashing Tesla stock. Penny wise and pound foolish.
> Someone posted yesterday that the beginning of Musk's Twitter buy happened shortly after elonjet refused his $5000 offer to buy the account. The rational part of me says he surely couldn't have spent $45 billion dollars to shut the account down, but it's kinda feeling more and more true as the story continues.
Difficult not to see this as anything other petulance. It's Musk's site and he's free to do whatever he wants with it, but this seems squarely against "any legal speech will be allowed"
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 having no credible plan for being financially solvent after scaring off all the advertisers, so I'm guessing he's not doing cold, rational threat assessments of anything. Maybe that interaction of fear and irrationality does start overlapping with petulance too, I don't know.
I think people should take into account that something deep inside Elon knows he's in deep shit, and is probably contributing to him taking rash actions and generally lashing out. He was never a wise man, but I still suspect we're seeing him at a low ebb of rationality. Again, no sort of defense: this is a problem entirely of his own making.
It seems more likely the story about his kid is just another lie to try win the moment. The LAPD statement is careful not to state that no crime has been reported or under investigation, but to leave that interpretation open. They are “aware of the tweet.”
He cares so much about his children that one have gone a long way to have nothing to do with him [1]. His personal life is a mess, really a mess [2]. Like many billioners entrepreneurs I think he is just an absent father who only cares about him self.
Remember Elon joking about pronouns earlier? It's hard for me to read that as anything other than spiting his transgender daughter. Between that and his "can't win em all " statement, I don't think Elon cares all that much for his kids.
But I certainly agree that he's going through a crapton of stress right now, and that can't be helping. I hope he finds a feeling of safety, but I also hope that his daughter also finds the peace she needs...
> 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 doesn't mean people aren't out to get him. If I had the kinds of friends or enemies that he has, and particularly if I had been busy converting the first into the second, I'd be worried too.
This is indistinguishable from
psychotherapy nonsense, palm-reading, soothsaying, entrail evaluation. There is zero factual basis for this “assessment,” and if you believe there is and buy into this, then you are only fooling yourself.
I defended Elon many times on HN but this is straight up incompetence. Even if they violated some silly location sharing rule they invented yesterday, there's no good excuse.
The saddest thing is this only adds fuel to the pro-censorship crowd.
Which is exactly the position that Musk is supposedly fighting against -- it's almost like he has no actual principles and is at best no different than the people he's replacing
Did you watch the same video I did? It's easy to see this as something other than petulance. It's not complicated. Elon is scared for his family. That's a very human thing. In his place I'd do everything I could to protect them. The elonjet account was a security risk to a public figure in the same way that publishing the home address of Supreme Court Justices is a legitimate security risk -- and in the same way that it led to an attempted assassination of Judge Kavanaugh.
That seems pretty narrowly scoped to protecting witnesses, jurors, informants, public servants, and their immediate family members. The personal information it covers is also limited to SSN, home address, phone numbers, and personal email.
Starting to think there might be some national security issues with one guy being the nominal linchpin of the US space program, satellite internet, and global public messaging infrastructure.
But aren't the coordinates of his plane public anyways? And wouldn't shutting down ElonJet account be enough, why all these journalists' accounts as well?
Yeah, it was public ADS-B data. A lot of the suspended journalists never even posted his location, they just posted about the situation or the supposed stalker incident.
If Musk dropped off the face of the Earth tomorrow it wouldn't meaningfully affect operations at SpaceX. If anything it would probably increase productivity there.
Honestly this is scary. Someone with a lot of power and sway over speech and other things getting paranoid that people are after him, and lashing out at any perceived threat is scary.
It would be scary if he didn't have half the power he currently holds.
> Starting to think there might be some national security issues with one guy being the nominal linchpin of the US space program, satellite internet, and global public messaging infrastructure.
Which is why there are rumors and calls floating around that the US government should seize control over Starlink and SpaceX, e.g. [1], for national security issues.
The entire debate perfectly shows why neither complete government control over such programs nor complete private control is good - Boeing/ULA were milking the government for cash and acted as pork distributers for decades while showing not much progress, and Starlink's actions in Ukraine show the dangers that independent actors can wield over US foreign policy.
Now that the location of the supposed "attack by stalker" has been geolocated by someone affiliated to Bellingcat[1] and obviously that (if ever happened) had nothing to do with services or bots that share aviation public data; can we move past the, arguably naively made, smokescreen and ask what this supposed to disorient us from?
I mean, the hypocrisy of using a jet plane instead of driving for 40 minutes in your "environmental green" car is a thing[2], but shouldn't be enough to randomly ban journalists.
Musk joined a Twitter Spaces discussion about the bans and was mocked after he left [1]. Notably, suspended accounts were on stage with Elon during the discussion [2].
The space was ended abruptly 30 minutes later and it appears it was killed on Twitter’s side given that the usual metadata does not match what a closed Space has. This Space was being recorded and the replay is not available [3].
Musk now claims that they are fixing a “legacy bug” [4] and this is why Spaces has been disabled. In my opinion, Musk is behaving like a petulant child and his group of cheerleaders look more ridiculous and without backbone each day.
I think calling anyone defending Musk at any level a “cheerleader” isn’t a helpful framing of the debate.
It’s important not to make any issue an “I align with X so you’re against me” conflict.
Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact.
Musk is also behaving erratically, inconsistently, and seemingly also unethically over Twitter. And has done so in the past, eg in the dispute with the diver or against short sellers.
One aspect of Elon’s actions does not cancel the other out. We should celebrate the good and debate the bad.
I feel like this melodrama is driven by Musk’s detractors ready to pounce and dismiss, say, the development of reusable rockets, by Musk being petulant. That is not an argument that makes any sense.
And the same goes for any fans who think Musk’s incredible achievements give him permission to ban and censor those who annoy him.
> I think calling anyone defending Musk at any level a “cheerleader” isn’t a helpful framing of the debate.
What would be? When I see replies on Twitter that say things like “why are you arguing with literally the smartest person in the world?” in reference to someone challenging or critiquing Musk and other such hyperbolic comments coming out of nowhere, what do you call this other than cheerleading?
> Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact.
That is more than disputable. What great things has he done?
Musk has acted like a child and bully his entire career. People like me have called this out to downvotes, criticism, and almost ostracization and finally others are becoming aware of it. The sort of outpouring of hate of Musk is coming from this because people are more than weary of putting up with cult of personality and unbridled and misplaced worship of Musk.
> One aspect of Elon’s actions does not cancel the other out. We should celebrate the good and debate the bad.
However, I find it incredibly telling that every time Musk is criticized about his behavior over Twitter, some people cannot but bring up Tesla and SpaceX. Why is that? Do we have to put a disclaimer with every potentially good thing someone has done every time we criticize someone?
Will you mention all the bad about Elon in a post about SpaceX achivements? I guess not, from your post. So no need to mention the merits of the companies he owns in a post about his absurd behavior.
Though in my opinion you assign way too much credit to a CEO of three companies that apparently spends most of his time on social media and being offended.
> Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact.
> We should celebrate the good and debate the bad.
This is the kind of statements that are not a helpful framing of the debate.
Musk alone hasn't "has achieved great, incredible things", I can try and dispute this.
Why celebrate the good while debating the bad. Instead we should question the good and verify the bad. It should the expected behavior towards anyone in a position of power. Musk being in one of the highest positions of power in the world does not make him more vulnerable...
>I think calling anyone defending Musk at any level a “cheerleader” isn’t a helpful framing of the debate.
I generally agree with you POV (people are complicated). I don't think the parent was calling people people cheerleaders merely for defending him on any level.
But to add to your comment. I never understand why people are surprised that a person driven, opinionated and cutthroat enough to be a successful business person is a bit of an arsehole in person. It kind of goes with the territory.
People at Tesla and SpaceX have achieved great things, not Musk.
All he's demonstrating is that CEO pay and comp should never have got as high as it has and taxes on rich people needs to go way higher, they are just going to waste it any way.
There are people on all sides openly lying to make a point and when those lies are pointed out you are either insulted or blocked. It's really a strange world.
> Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact.
But I dispute that.
> the development of reusable rockets
Reusable rockets existed for almost exactly 25 years before the first SpaceX flight.
-----
A sense of perspective is always valuable in avoiding hyperbole.
Pasteur's invention of vaccination was a great thing. Walking on the Moon was an incredible thing.
Musk is some industrialist with a bunch of _promising_ projects, many of which are in trouble right about now.
Buying a car company and convincing rich people to buy shoddy electric cars, in part by lying about their capabilities, does not make you a Darwin or an Einstein. It doesn't even make you a Jimmy Carter (an underrated President in my opinion).
Once all the dust has settled, I expect Musk's story to be a cautionary tale and not an inspiration.
The buyers of Tesla are, by and large, rich liberals who care about the climate. Musk proceeds to position himself as a QAnon hack. Owning a Tesla was a source of pride and is now a mark of shame and mockery.
The only people who actually do care about Twitter are journalists. Musk proceeds to ban some prominent ones from Twitter, for utterly frivolous reasons, which makes them realize that 1/ they're not immune to this and 2/ one of their main work tool is brittle, and will make them actively search for another, if they weren't already.
This behavior is strange. Either Musk is engaging in self-harm, for some reason, or he's testing how much he can get away with.
> Owning a Tesla was a source of pride and is now a mark of shame and mockery.
This is so true. Why sabotage your main user base? Owning Tesla is similar to staying in trump tower. I am really waiting for tesla sales numbers in liberal states like California and NY.
> This behavior is strange. Either Musk is engaging in self-harm, for some reason, or he's testing how much he can get away with.
There are other options as well for why he wants to take apart Twitter:
- revenge Peter Thiel-style against "librul" ideas that "made" his daughter trans (or his ex-wife Grimes date Chelsea Manning). Twitter is the biggest forum there is for left-wing and progressive people, and it was/is in financial duress, which made it a perfect target.
- the Saudis, who are the main financial backers of the deal (and even the dozens of billions they paid are petty cash!), want him to destroy Twitter, which has been an incredibly useful tool to organize protest and spread information about government violence
- Musk, like other SV billionaires, thinks they are the best that God has sent to Earth and what they do and want is best for everyone. Unfortunately, as a result he doesn't realize that large markets like Europe see it precisely the other way around.
- Musk, again like other SV billionaires, sees technology as the one and all solution hammer against society's problems. Hate speech? Have algorithms "moderate" the platform, instead of booting out abusers and putting those who cross legal lines behind bars. Fossil fuels? Invest in electric cars (and sooner or later, nuclear fusion vaporware, mark my words), instead of investing in renewable energies and public transport. And again, he doesn't realize that wide parts of the planet do not follow their idea(l)s.
Not one person I know with a Tesla has a strong passion or care for climate change or would meet the American definition for "liberal". I've also never heard any express pride or shame based on the CEOs actions.
One of the hypothesis Matt Levine posits in Money Stuff today [1] is that Tesla is branded as liberal tech, and Elon is engaging in Q-foolery to bring in more right leaning people: "the only car free from the woke mind virus". I don't know how much I believe this theory, but definitely interesting.
> The buyers of Tesla are, by and large, rich liberals who care about the climate.
Or at least, want to pretend that they care, considering Tesla makes most of its money selling carbon credits to other companies so that they can pollute more. Buying a Tesla doesn't cause less emissions.
Let’s be honest he was mocked after pointing out journalists would no longer have special privileges on the platform and if they dox people they will be banned.
Still convinced all this is really about is anger at the destruction of the class system that existed on Twitter.
Readit News
Here's the short version. Good: thoughtful, curious conversation. Bad: snark, fulmination, and flamewar.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> 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 could be
Let’s try to make a comment that creates less outrage than most…
This is why it would be interesting to post public information about politicians collected from the online spyware that tracks all of us. It would rapidly motivate new laws that at least somewhat improve privacy.
This always happens when rule makers are personally affected by a problem: the problem starts getting attention
I don't know - it doesn't seem consistently applied Donie O’Sullivan published a tweet containing a statement from the LAPD and was banned; and personally I don't see it being upheld once Elon's fixation on this story wanes.
Furthermore, it just seems that Elon is doing what he accused Twitter of doing for so long; enacting arbitrary rules to silence political opponents. It's his site and he's free to ban who he wants but does he see the cognitive dissonance of how he's running the site?
Well, what Twitter was doing
But he already made a location carve-out too: he himself posted pictures of the alleged stalker guy and a license tag. That would get someone banned under the location rule. Even if it was a day later, the incident itself happened a day later than any elonjet post I believe, so that's within his real-time timeframe.
I don't think so. The New York Times demonstrated this three years ago, nobody really cared: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat...
The actual movies were nothing interesting, but general distaste for the move, plus a healthy dose of worry from members of Congress about the contents their own records, led to a law that explicitly penalized video stores that handed out that kind of info about their customers.
I think you're right in general that people are pretty blasé about tracking now, though.
I don't think it seems like a good rule. Not only is the information public but I think it is not hard to dream up reasons why it would legitimately be in the public interest to report on the comings and goings of someone's private jet.
I wouldn't want my live location posted on the internet either, and there's a lot fewer people who want to hurt me than Musk (AFAIK, no one wants to hurt me).
The crowd that got banned seems unusually thick-headed, and they'll probably just attack Elon (and Twitter itself) even harder once they get unbanned. Karl Popper explained it better than I can, but Twitter doesn't have to extend unlimited tolerance to those who seek to destroy Twitter.
Your comment erroneously claims the reason was "for doing their jobs".
I'd recommend reading dang's comment since you have a lot of inflammatory comments in this thread.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010908
Some type of team at Twitter that could look at more tweets.. the resources to look at ALL of Twitter.., systematically, for these issues of “trust” and “safety”
You could the create a very clear policy, and work to remove any doubt such a policy was consistently enforced!
I know crazy idea..
Or did they report about the banning of someone who reported his location?
Is it just fine and not DOXing to track and publish the location of people who don't move around all the time, after a 24 hour time lag?
Sounds like this 24 hour rule is specifically designed to protect Musk himself, and only incidentally anyone else who happens to own a private plane.
It's bad faith through and through.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603235998263123969
That is what everyone has been saying for years. I mean, it turns out they were wrong and Twitter was actually colluding with government agencies to bypass the first amendment. But censorship and targeted suspensions were defended tooth and nail by internet commenters.
Is this a problem now only because people you like are targeted? Surely people wouldn't be so shortsighted?
Yes, this is exactly the problem but in the opposite direction you are implying.
Musk believed that Twitter blocking the sharing of an article about ToS breaking behavior was worthy of the “Twitter Files” when the story was bad for his political opponent, but he thinks it is fine when the story is bad for him. It shows that he has no actual principled beliefs. He simply is acting in his own best interest.
Odds are people would be more willing to accept Elon’s rules if Elons’s rules weren’t a constantly moving target of whatever benefits him the most at this exact moment.
Musk's statement was that free speech would be allowed on Twitter. And yet, here he is chilling free speech. It's not surprising. It's just also really bad. So people are up in arms that they're losing a platform that, while by no means perfect, was better for free speech than it currently is.
You're making a false equivalence between the left and the right on this topic.
The left has said that moderating online communities is legal because of the First Amendment. They're private companies. The right then called for an end to the First Amendment as we've known it by banning private companies from moderating their platforms.
There has been no such call from the left. The left (and this thread) laments what Elon is doing, but no one is saying he's breaking a law or that he should be breaking a law. No one is calling for the government to step in.
The problem is that people like Musk have spent ages arguing that banning fascists is bad because free speech absolutism is an important value. It turns out that free speech absolutism was never actually a value they cared about - the only thing that matters is that their guy is the one choosing the bans. If people like Musk had instead argued that platforming fascists is actually good this whole time then the discussion today would be different, but because they didn't want to publicly support fascists they had to fall back on the free speech absolutism argument, which has shattered into a million pieces.
They're just sick and tired of the billionaire hypocrite.
(My understanding was that the Twitter files did on the end not contain such evidence, but information overload … I may have lost some consensus)
I also find Musk's bans distasteful. Even if he can do it.
Oh, and he's revealed himself to obviously be full of shit. As is anyone cheering him on in the name of free speech. But I guess principles only last until they get in the way of petty tribalism.
You are presenting these two things as if they were mutually exclusive. They are not.
Elon is harshing the vibes of Twitter addicts.
It's no more sophisticated than that. I used to think it was. But look at conversations about Musk following the twitter purchase, compared to conversations about Musk regarding Tesla. I've come to see that it's just people and their personal relationship to their toys.
I don't give two cares about Tesla and have like 5 Tweets in 14 years. Conversations about either never really made sense to me when looking from the perspective of someone emotionally uninvested and just watching things come and go in the world. But look at tech as toy and it all makes sense.
Not exactly. At least here in Germany, there is established jurisprudence that Twitter and Facebook are public "town halls" for discussion and as such have to maintain some sort of freedom of speech, with the borders being set by German laws. That means that for example Holocaust denial, which is perfectly fine under US law, has to be regionally blocked for Germany, while some instances of what Twitter/FB consider to be "hate speech" under their rules still has to be made available.
The general judicial consensus in Germany is that while platforms do have a requirement to moderate discourse (e.g. to remove libel and outright Nazi content), they also aren't allowed to moderate too strictly.
One wonders why someone let him do that in the first place if that’s his state of mind. He’s clearly not surrounded himself with competent people.
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 old.
But two years ago, the rules were whatever Vijaya Gadde made up on the spot. Why is this suddenly a cause for outrage? Twitter has always been like this.
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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.
He paid for that privilege.
Do you have evidence of that? He claims they were reporting the location.
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https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603609466301059073
> Telsa stock tanking all because he can't STFU and acts like a spoiled 12 year old.
Uh, the whole stock market is down. Amazon is down almost as much as Tesla. 48% vs 50%.
We've established now that Elon really doesn't like it when people dox him, and all his right-leaning supporters are defending that.
Well, that's a precedent now for when minorities and vulnerable people who aren't billionaires are doxxed by right wing hate groups (e.g. Kiwifarms).
And radical free speech just got abruptly limited when it got personal.
The important point should be that the principle should be applied equally, particularly since groups like Kiwifarms are much worse than ElonJet.
These only consistent rule on Twitter now is “don’t tweet shit that offends Elon”.
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It's easy to point out Musk's hypocrisy and shifting standards. Conservatives did the same when it was more liberal people who ran Twitter. We need to appeal to something higher than "everything is great when people who agree with me are in charge."
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Very typical narcissistic personality disorder symptoms. Narcissists are made not born, by other narcissists, thru treatment that is dehumanizing and inhumane from a very young age. We should give him our compassion and empathy, but not allow him any power. Power in the hands of a narcissist is dangerous, as the orange man showed us.
>Narcissists are made not born
I have a background in abnormal psychology and this is false. Narcissists are either born or the behavioural disorder forms in very early childhood. I'm on mobile right now but will find a source and come back to edit this reply.
Again, not taking sides or even care much about the Twitter thing. Just wanted to point that misconception out.
> Causes It's not known what causes narcissistic personality disorder. The cause is likely complex. Narcissistic personality disorder may be linked to:
> Environment — parent-child relationships with either too much adoration or too much criticism that don't match the child's actual experiences and achievements. > Genetics — inherited characteristics, such as certain personality traits. > Neurobiology — the connection between the brain and behavior and thinking.
There could be a relationship between neglectful parenting and narcissistic personality disorder, but I definitely agree with the other person who replied to you — at the very least, it’s disingenuous and misleading to present the cause concretely and unambiguously as “bad parenting”. We really know so little about most mental health conditions.
Agree, but I mean, how do you do that?
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At least now everyone understands the value of a neutral free speech town square and can see that "it's a company, they can do what they want" was always a disingenuous argument. It was never principled, it was always predicated on bias alignment. It's the same with those who are happy about these journalists being banned. Blatant bias and hypocrisy on both sides.
Nope. People still very much don't want that.
> and can see that "it's a company, they can do what they want" was always a disingenuous argument.
There's no conflict between saying that and also saying that chanting 'free speech' over and over while banning people for what they say about you just makes you a liar.
Previously you could tweet "kill all white men" and nothing would happen. Not so much with the same statement targeting a different group.
He owns it; he gets to decide the rules, and everyone else gets to decide whether we want to use a platform with those rules
It's not going to work out well for musk financially when nobody wants to use it anymore, but that's his problem. Our problem is finding alternatives
- Public figures, like politicians, top businessmen, and so on don't get the same amount of privacy and protection as regular Joe. You can follow them and track them. If you have power and influence, you don't enjoy the same privacy protections as others. That's a really good principle to have.
- Elon Musk himself is know for punching down that violates this principle. His M.O is to point his crazy followers against regular Joes and then playing innocent. "It was not me".
For my money, there's absolutely nothing wrong with twitter disallowing "person trackers". Legality aside, whether it's Elon Musk or Nancy Pelosi, the subtext of these trackers is creepy and threatening and banning them from some platform is fine.
But there was a reason he invented this new rule, and I think it's unwise and unfair to dismiss a stalker attack as "being tagged on the playground".
Nothing could be further from the truth.
You have no fundamental right to track Elon Musk, just like I would have no fundamental right to track the whereabouts of you and your family. Disagree? When do you let us attach a tracking device to your conveyance?
Few, if any, would be comfortable having their family movements tracked by the public.
Also, journalist is a bit of a stretch. Journalism died a long time ago. Corporate script-readers at best, and state-run media parrots at worst. Either would be a better description than "journalist."
I remember when that "journalist" from WashPost published the home address of a woman she didn't like. Everyone was all for that...
Now it seems the shoe is on the other foot and the hypocrites don't like it.
>up to-the-minute location information on him and his family
Nice exaggeration- you make it sound as if people are posting his real-time location at every moment from his phone or something.
All the plane info tells you is where he is in the sky, and then basically what city he landed into.
Nobody's tracking Musk, they're tracking his plane. Further, "they" aren't tracking it, the gov is, and publishing it, as public information.
Everyone lets the same tracker be attached to their conveyance ... WHEN THEY OWN A JET.
I think it’s you that’s missing the point here. It’s only abuse of power if the rule against doxxing is invalid. So it does come down to the rule and whether or not doxxing is acceptable. If we decide that doxxing is acceptable and posting anybody’s real-time location data is acceptable (without their consent), then he is abusing powers. If that is your conclusion, then you don’t have the right to complain should it happen to you. If you believe the opposite, that doxxing is unacceptable, then the rule should apply equally to everybody. Critics and journalists do not get a free pass to break the rules.
This really does not follow. We already have plenty of exceptions for what is appropriate when reporting on public versus private figures in other aspects of life. As Musk himself has demonstrated, "absolutism" of any sort is a difficult view to hold when one's feet are put to the fire, and nuance is actually important.
Even if you think that reporting on Elon's plane (or in the case here, the "reporting on the reporting" on Elon's plane) should be forbidden, I would suggest that this development is still difficult to defend. This is a reversal in policy that Elon made because it was about him personally.
Are you sure Elon will continue to agree with you on who/what to censor in the future?
It's like this is the 21st century version of the San Francisco story where Yung refused to sell their house to the robber baron Cocker, leading Cocker to build an expensive three story tall fence around the house forcing Yung to move.
He could have banned the account on day 1, but he tweeted in defense of it. I don’t buy the theory that he had to wait to save face, he seems perfectly content to change his mind and make new rules on the spot without worrying about the backlash.
It seems more likely that he had idealistic reasons for buying the site and is becoming less idealistic as time goes on. Every worldview is flawed, you just don’t know it until you try to implement it. I think he’s moving past any initial altruistic aspirations and is now treating Twitter more like a tool that can be customized to achieve certain goals. I’m sure he thinks the goals are good for everyone, including himself, but from the outside it’s not mirroring the “public square”, “absolute free speech” mantras pre-acquisition.
This is exactly why democracy is so important. Humans are fallible. Power eventually corrupts everyone. Power should be distributed. I am not happy about de facto town squares being owned by powerful people. For this exact reason. Democrats were very happy with the status quo when their opponents were being censored. "It's a private business." I wonder if they will remain so idealistic.
Elon jet is alive and well over there.
https://mastodon.social/@elonjet
It currently had 41k followers, and 2.5k likes on the post about it being banned on Twitter.
Comparatively, Elon's most recently Twitter post ("Twitter right now is <four fire emoticons>") has 186k likes.
It seems very unlikely the "great exodus" is happening or likely to happen due to this, at least to Mastodon.
This is hn, not 4Chan
I think people should take into account that something deep inside Elon knows he's in deep shit, and is probably contributing to him taking rash actions and generally lashing out. He was never a wise man, but I still suspect we're seeing him at a low ebb of rationality. Again, no sort of defense: this is a problem entirely of his own making.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elon-musks-daughter-gra...
[2] https://people.com/parents/everything-to-know-about-elon-mus...
But I certainly agree that he's going through a crapton of stress right now, and that can't be helping. I hope he finds a feeling of safety, but I also hope that his daughter also finds the peace she needs...
A family man isn’t a brand he’s been going for up until now.
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 doesn't mean people aren't out to get him. If I had the kinds of friends or enemies that he has, and particularly if I had been busy converting the first into the second, I'd be worried too.
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The saddest thing is this only adds fuel to the pro-censorship crowd.
"A warm welcome to all the newest converts to the great American cause of free speech!" @pmarca
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There are many shades of gray, of course.
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https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603587970832793600
Starting to think there might be some national security issues with one guy being the nominal linchpin of the US space program, satellite internet, and global public messaging infrastructure.
Wasn’t about his plane anyway someone in a mask made a threat on a car his child was being driven in thinking it was Elon.
It would be scary if he didn't have half the power he currently holds.
Which is why there are rumors and calls floating around that the US government should seize control over Starlink and SpaceX, e.g. [1], for national security issues.
The entire debate perfectly shows why neither complete government control over such programs nor complete private control is good - Boeing/ULA were milking the government for cash and acted as pork distributers for decades while showing not much progress, and Starlink's actions in Ukraine show the dangers that independent actors can wield over US foreign policy.
[1] https://fee.org/articles/former-bush-speechwriter-says-feds-...
I mean, the hypocrisy of using a jet plane instead of driving for 40 minutes in your "environmental green" car is a thing[2], but shouldn't be enough to randomly ban journalists.
[1]https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1603454821700452365 [2]https://nypost.com/2022/08/22/elon-musk-planes-9-minute-35-m...
The space was ended abruptly 30 minutes later and it appears it was killed on Twitter’s side given that the usual metadata does not match what a closed Space has. This Space was being recorded and the replay is not available [3].
Musk now claims that they are fixing a “legacy bug” [4] and this is why Spaces has been disabled. In my opinion, Musk is behaving like a petulant child and his group of cheerleaders look more ridiculous and without backbone each day.
[1] https://twitter.com/forevereversley/status/16036127708929187...
[2] https://twitter.com/katienotopoulos/status/16036045712884695...
[3] https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1603622824177848326
[4] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603649264290123778
It’s important not to make any issue an “I align with X so you’re against me” conflict.
Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact.
Musk is also behaving erratically, inconsistently, and seemingly also unethically over Twitter. And has done so in the past, eg in the dispute with the diver or against short sellers.
One aspect of Elon’s actions does not cancel the other out. We should celebrate the good and debate the bad.
I feel like this melodrama is driven by Musk’s detractors ready to pounce and dismiss, say, the development of reusable rockets, by Musk being petulant. That is not an argument that makes any sense.
And the same goes for any fans who think Musk’s incredible achievements give him permission to ban and censor those who annoy him.
What would be? When I see replies on Twitter that say things like “why are you arguing with literally the smartest person in the world?” in reference to someone challenging or critiquing Musk and other such hyperbolic comments coming out of nowhere, what do you call this other than cheerleading?
> Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact.
That is more than disputable. What great things has he done?
Musk has acted like a child and bully his entire career. People like me have called this out to downvotes, criticism, and almost ostracization and finally others are becoming aware of it. The sort of outpouring of hate of Musk is coming from this because people are more than weary of putting up with cult of personality and unbridled and misplaced worship of Musk.
However, I find it incredibly telling that every time Musk is criticized about his behavior over Twitter, some people cannot but bring up Tesla and SpaceX. Why is that? Do we have to put a disclaimer with every potentially good thing someone has done every time we criticize someone?
Though in my opinion you assign way too much credit to a CEO of three companies that apparently spends most of his time on social media and being offended.
Please
This is the kind of statements that are not a helpful framing of the debate. Musk alone hasn't "has achieved great, incredible things", I can try and dispute this. Why celebrate the good while debating the bad. Instead we should question the good and verify the bad. It should the expected behavior towards anyone in a position of power. Musk being in one of the highest positions of power in the world does not make him more vulnerable...
I generally agree with you POV (people are complicated). I don't think the parent was calling people people cheerleaders merely for defending him on any level.
But to add to your comment. I never understand why people are surprised that a person driven, opinionated and cutthroat enough to be a successful business person is a bit of an arsehole in person. It kind of goes with the territory.
All he's demonstrating is that CEO pay and comp should never have got as high as it has and taxes on rich people needs to go way higher, they are just going to waste it any way.
But I dispute that.
> the development of reusable rockets
Reusable rockets existed for almost exactly 25 years before the first SpaceX flight.
-----
A sense of perspective is always valuable in avoiding hyperbole.
Pasteur's invention of vaccination was a great thing. Walking on the Moon was an incredible thing.
Musk is some industrialist with a bunch of _promising_ projects, many of which are in trouble right about now.
Buying a car company and convincing rich people to buy shoddy electric cars, in part by lying about their capabilities, does not make you a Darwin or an Einstein. It doesn't even make you a Jimmy Carter (an underrated President in my opinion).
Once all the dust has settled, I expect Musk's story to be a cautionary tale and not an inspiration.
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https://wandering.shop/@soheb/109522542818200411
The only people who actually do care about Twitter are journalists. Musk proceeds to ban some prominent ones from Twitter, for utterly frivolous reasons, which makes them realize that 1/ they're not immune to this and 2/ one of their main work tool is brittle, and will make them actively search for another, if they weren't already.
This behavior is strange. Either Musk is engaging in self-harm, for some reason, or he's testing how much he can get away with.
This is so true. Why sabotage your main user base? Owning Tesla is similar to staying in trump tower. I am really waiting for tesla sales numbers in liberal states like California and NY.
There are other options as well for why he wants to take apart Twitter:
- revenge Peter Thiel-style against "librul" ideas that "made" his daughter trans (or his ex-wife Grimes date Chelsea Manning). Twitter is the biggest forum there is for left-wing and progressive people, and it was/is in financial duress, which made it a perfect target.
- the Saudis, who are the main financial backers of the deal (and even the dozens of billions they paid are petty cash!), want him to destroy Twitter, which has been an incredibly useful tool to organize protest and spread information about government violence
- Musk, like other SV billionaires, thinks they are the best that God has sent to Earth and what they do and want is best for everyone. Unfortunately, as a result he doesn't realize that large markets like Europe see it precisely the other way around.
- Musk, again like other SV billionaires, sees technology as the one and all solution hammer against society's problems. Hate speech? Have algorithms "moderate" the platform, instead of booting out abusers and putting those who cross legal lines behind bars. Fossil fuels? Invest in electric cars (and sooner or later, nuclear fusion vaporware, mark my words), instead of investing in renewable energies and public transport. And again, he doesn't realize that wide parts of the planet do not follow their idea(l)s.
I wonder if you're in a bubble here?
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-12-15/the-se...
Or at least, want to pretend that they care, considering Tesla makes most of its money selling carbon credits to other companies so that they can pollute more. Buying a Tesla doesn't cause less emissions.
Still convinced all this is really about is anger at the destruction of the class system that existed on Twitter.