Twitter suspends accounts of several journalists, blocks Mastodon following Elon Musk...

[midian182]

What just happened? If there's one thing you can say about Twitter since Elon Musk took over, it's that the platform is rarely out of the news cycle. The latest from Twitter Today involves more of Musk seemingly ignoring his promise of embracing free speech by suspending the accounts of several journalists and banning links to rival social network Mastodon.

The eventful last few days started with Musk banning @ElonJet, one of the accounts belonging to student Jack Sweeney who tracks the private jets of the rich and famous to hold them accountable for their environmental impact. That particular account followed Musk's jet, and it was banned despite Musk previously promising not to touch it.

The Twitter owner later tweeted: "Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info."

Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

Musk then tweeted a video showing someone he claimed was following his son; the person believed it was the billionaire. "Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family," he tweeted.

Anyone recognize this person or car? pic.twitter.com/2U0Eyx7iwl

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022

Twitter suspended the accounts of several high-profile journalists who report on Musk, including Ryan Mac of The New York Times, CNN's Donie O'Sullivan, The Washington Post's Drew Harwell, The Intercept's Micha Lee, Mashable's Matt Binder, Aaron Rupar, and Tony Webster.

In a Twitter Spaces live audio chat that the banned journalists were able to join, Musk said they were booted for tweeting links to ElonJet accounts set up on other platforms, including Facebook and Mastodon.

Here is Elon's full appearance in @katienotopoulos' spaces with banned journalists tonight pic.twitter.com/1xPFtrVjf6

— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) December 16, 2022

Next in Musk's firing line was Mastodon itself. The company's Twitter account was suspended after it tweeted a link to the ElonJet page on Mastodon. Twitter has also stopped users from posting any links to the site—trying to do so will bring up a message that reads: "We can't complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful."

Musk's next move was to tweet a poll asking when he should unsuspend accounts that "doxed my exact location in real-time." From the options of 'Now,' 'Tomorrow,' '7 days from now,' or 'Longer,' the most popular answer was 'Now' with 43% of the votes. Musk then said there were too many options, so he redid the poll with just 'Now' and 'In 7 Days' as the choices. Once again, 'Now' is leading by almost 60%.

Unsuspend accounts who doxxed my exact location in real-time

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

In non-Twitter related Musk news, the world's second-richest person sold another $3.58 billion worth of Tesla shares this week.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/96996-twitter-suspends-accounts-several-journalists-blocks-mastodon-following.html

 

[VitalyT]

Looks like he is doing everything he can to make sure that Twitter goes out of business, to which I personally have no objections, it would be best for everyone, really.

 

[Eldritch]

Musk : Look at me. Look at me. Look at meeeeeee....

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I don't see what everyone's fascination is with Twitter.

If you don't like Twitter then don't use it. It's that simple. Do not support it by any means. Do not post on it, do not sub to it and do not visit it.

You can all take a lesson from the Simpsons: Just Don't Look

 

[dangh]

If you don't like Twitter then don't use it. It's that simple. Do not support it by any means. Do not post on it, do not sub to it and do not visit it.

This make sense in case of a private person doing his stuff. And I think you kinda misunderstood Simpsons as well.
Hitler killing jews? Just dont look
China killing Uyghurs? just dont look
Meteor on crash course to earth? dont look up
you see - problem 'solved'! /s

Sorry, closing eyes and not reacting is letting other do what they want to do, and what they want to do is to make you a commodity.

 

[winjer]

Although I don't agree with what Musk is doing with Twitter, the fact remains that this is a private company. As such, he can do whatever he wants.

 

[Dimitriid]

Worst part is that Musk was never doxxed by the journalists he banned: his private jet's flight itinerary is by law, public domain information and if he values his privacy he needs to just stop using a private jet or just flying everywhere.

And even morally, this is nowhere near the reality of "Free speech absolutism" He just wants special treatment and like near 100% of American Libertarians and Conservatives to him, 'Free Speech' just means 'I want to be entitled to verbally abuse people but have nobody verbally abuse me' which is exactly what he has been behaving like for months: just a sad little man that blames 'the woke mob' for all of his personal issues with family and previous significant others.

 

[Tom Yum]

Although I don't agree with what Musk is doing with Twitter, the fact remains that this is a private company. As such, he can do whatever he wants.

Don't disagree, but we can marvel at Mr Free Speech Absolutist's hypocrisy. Remember when he said that the laws of a country would be the only limit on speech he would have on Twitter? Nothing these journalists (or Sweeney) have posted is illegal, yet they are banned anyway.

Free speech for Elon only applies to what he can say, not anyone else. No wonder he loves doing business in China so much.

 

[winjer]

Don't disagree, but we can marvel at Mr Free Speech Absolutist's hypocrisy. Remember when he said that the laws of a country would be the only limit on speech he would have on Twitter? Nothing these journalists (or Sweeney) have posted is illegal, yet they are banned anyway.

Free speech for Elon only applies to what he can say, not anyone else. No wonder he loves doing business in China so much.

I agree he is an hypocrite.
Still, Twitter is his to ruin.

 

[AlaskaGuy]

This make sense in case of a private person doing his stuff. And I think you kinda misunderstood Simpsons as well.
Hitler killing jews? Just dont look
China killing Uyghurs? just dont look
Meteor on crash course to earth? dont look up
you see - problem 'solved'! /s

Sorry, closing eyes and not reacting is letting other do what they want to do, and what they want to do is to make you a commodity.

Comparing twitter bans to the holocaust.

 

[NumberSix]

Manchild

 

[Eldritch]

I agree he is an hypocrite.
Still, Twitter is his to ruin.

True but as more and more things fall into private hands shall we not be allowed to complaint? Now gradually even utilities are shifting to private providers, entire shopping experience is controlled by few, entire ISP market is at whim of few, so shall we not complaint? I think we should.

 

[m3tavision]

SO many people here have Musk Derangement syndrome... and are starting to think rules don't apply to them, because they hate someone.

It doesn't matter who these people are, they were trolling too hard to test the new TOS and cross the line..! I know that reality and words are things lefties and fragile types fear, but Elon is just giving these people their own medicine and fragiles are loosing their mind.

Little kids can no longer run around the yard, hyper-signaling to each other how kewl they are, because Elon lifted the fence and now everyone can speak. And these so-called journalist don't know how to react to real people, with real voices and use to the Dorsey echo-chamber.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

This make sense in case of a private person doing his stuff. And I think you kinda misunderstood Simpsons as well.
Hitler killing jews? Just dont look
China killing Uyghurs? just dont look
Meteor on crash course to earth? dont look up
you see - problem 'solved'! /s

Sorry, closing eyes and not reacting is letting other do what they want to do, and what they want to do is to make you a commodity.

Hahahaha! Wow. You took that way out of proportion just to fit your narrative.

Love how you compared genocide to avoiding social media to make it sound like your thought process is sound. Good job!

It's social media. Get off of it. Don't feed the troll (Elon, in this case and Twitter).

 

[m3tavision]

Worst part is that Musk was never doxxed by the journalists he banned: his private jet's flight itinerary is by law, public domain information and if he values his privacy he needs to just stop using a private jet or just flying everywhere.

And even morally, this is nowhere near the reality of "Free speech absolutism" He just wants special treatment and like near 100% of American Libertarians and Conservatives to him, 'Free Speech' just means 'I want to be entitled to verbally abuse people but have nobody verbally abuse me' which is exactly what he has been behaving like for months: just a sad little man that blames 'the woke mob' for all of his personal issues with family and previous significant others.

You are conflating two things... a LAW and a Policy.

It is NOT illegal to watch/follow someone have radio and over the walkie-talkies (in real time) tell others where that said person is... but on Twitter, having someone broadcast those position is... against those rules. IF someone woke up and wanted to know where Elon's jet is, they can go and look themselves (public info), but you can not broadcast that position (in real time) on Twitter.

Not hard to understand and quite clear. This shows these people thought they could play a woke-joke on him and use him, and instead they got owned by TOS. Now they angry because they got caught.

 

[Vanderlinde]

The mans family is at risk. Have you ever heard of abductions in exchange for ransom money?

 

[winjer]

True but as more and more things fall into private hands shall we not be allowed to complaint? Now gradually even utilities are shifting to private providers, entire shopping experience is controlled by few, entire ISP market is at whim of few, so shall we not complaint? I think we should.

That's why there must be regulation of utilities providers, as these are essential for living.
But no private company has to be a vessel for political discourse. Twitter as a private company can choose which side of the political aisle to promote. Be it the left prior to Musk, or the right, after Musk.

 

[Dimitriid]

The mans family is at risk. Have you ever heard of abductions in exchange for ransom money?

Have you heard of Free Speech Absolutism? Is this principle where anything that can be said in accordance to the law, which we established nobody is violating since this flight plans are public domain information.

If only there was a person that spent 44 Billion dollars and claimed he wanted to bring in free speech absolutism and made this very point.

 

[m4a4]

Is this actually against TOS (reporting real-time locations of other twitter users)? Because if it is, it just sounds like Twitter has been slow to apply it lol

 

[Enaks]

Here you go:

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

 

[GreyOmega]

Is this actually against TOS (reporting real-time locations of other twitter users)? Because if it is, it just sounds like Twitter has been slow to apply it lol

They made it a part of the TOS after the fact to justify why they banned the Elon Jet tracking account. They essentially started banning people nearly immediately after making this change to their TOS, so it's not like people would have even had time to make changes to abide by the new TOS or even be aware this was now in the TOS.

 

[RudyBob]

How do it feel? HA !!

 

[bviktor]

Is this the freedom of speech yet, the one you you touted so much, Elon?

 

[umbala]

Although I don't agree with what Musk is doing with Twitter, the fact remains that this is a private company. As such, he can do whatever he wants.

Sure, he can do whatever he wants. But he's doing these things AFTER he's complained about the Twitter board doing the same thing and AFTER promising he wouldn't be doing it himself. Didn't he promise to save humanity by bringing free speech back to Twitter? Apparently free speech means he bans anyone he doesn't like.

The mans family is at risk. Have you ever heard of abductions in exchange for ransom money?

My heart bleeds for poor South African billionaires who can't afford to pay for their family's protection, but can afford to throw away $44 billion on something stupid. Oh wait... by the way, no one has posted personal information about Musk, NO ONE. What was posted is publicly available flight data that is required by law to be disclosed.

 

[winjer]

Sure, he can do whatever he wants. But he's doing these things AFTER he's complained about the Twitter board doing the same thing and AFTER promising he wouldn't be doing it himself. Didn't he promise to save humanity by bringing free speech back to Twitter? Apparently free speech means he bans anyone he doesn't like.

Like I already said, he is an hypocrite. But it's his company.