The New "Free Speech" on Twitter

[Mr._Clark]

Twitter is not the government so the First Amendment does not apply to its censorship decisions. Having said that, Elon Musk's ideas about what constitues "free speech" on Twitter strike me as rather arbitrary.

Elon Musk Bans Several Journalists From Twitter After Reinstating Literal Nazis [Updated]

Reporters from the Washington Post, New York Times, and others were banned for sharing publicly available information.

gizmodo.com

The ban on various twitter accounts that were posting publicly available flight tracking information also strikes me as being arbitrary.

>>>Twitter on Wednesday banned several accounts which shared publicly available data on the locations of private jets belong to multiple billionaires, including Twitter CEO Elon Musk who said he was taking legal action against the owner of the accounts for causing harm to his family, another sign that the billionaire has become the singular arbiter of rules on the social platform. . . .
In a separate tweet, the Twitter CEO called the real-time sharing of publicly available flight data—whose broadcast is mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration— “doxxing” and a “physical safety violation.”<<<

Twitter Suspends Multiple Accounts Tracking Billionaires’ Private Jets, Bans Sharing Of Publicly Available Flight Data

Twitter’s latest rule change comes after Musk blamed the owner of an account tracking his private jet for an alleged attack on a car carrying his young son in Los Angeles.

www.forbes.com

It's hard to see how sharing publicly available, federally mandated, flight data could be "doxing" under any normal definition of the term.

I'm just saying Musk is a Twit ("Twit in Chief"?), not that there's a First Amendment issue.

 

[highfigh]

Twitter is not the government so the First Amendment does not apply to its censorship decisions. Having said that, Elon Musk's ideas about what constitues "free speech" on Twitter strike me as rather arbitrary.

Elon Musk Bans Several Journalists From Twitter After Reinstating Literal Nazis [Updated]

Reporters from the Washington Post, New York Times, and others were banned for sharing publicly available information.

gizmodo.com

The ban on various twitter accounts that were posting publicly available flight tracking information also strikes me as being arbitrary.

>>>Twitter on Wednesday banned several accounts which shared publicly available data on the locations of private jets belong to multiple billionaires, including Twitter CEO Elon Musk who said he was taking legal action against the owner of the accounts for causing harm to his family, another sign that the billionaire has become the singular arbiter of rules on the social platform. . . .
In a separate tweet, the Twitter CEO called the real-time sharing of publicly available flight data—whose broadcast is mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration— “doxxing” and a “physical safety violation.”<<<

Twitter Suspends Multiple Accounts Tracking Billionaires’ Private Jets, Bans Sharing Of Publicly Available Flight Data

Twitter’s latest rule change comes after Musk blamed the owner of an account tracking his private jet for an alleged attack on a car carrying his young son in Los Angeles.

www.forbes.com

It's hard to see how sharing publicly available, federally mandated, flight data could be "doxing" under any normal definition of the term.

I'm just saying Musk is a Twit ("Twit in Chief"?), not that there's a First Amendment issue.

"Twitter is not the government so the First Amendment does not apply to its censorship decisions." and yet, we see censorship in online forums every day- what does your comment really mean? FB censors, Twitter has had governmental input to guide its censorship and every other forum I have been a member of has censored people and comments.

You really need to look at disclosing a controversial figure's flight plans as if it was you who's on that jet. Would you want people knowing where you were going on a regular basis? I seriously doubt it. You may not give a rat's ass about Twitter, Musk or anyone who uses that platform, but think about the big picture- what if someone destroys the plane and it falls on your house while you/your family is inside? What if it takes out a whole neighborhood or, as so many cry when they don't get their way, WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN in a school? What happens to the people who are employed by all of Musk's companies? It's possible that the whole thing could shut down and leave the estimated 100K employees losing their jobs.

Are flight plans so easy to obtain? I would hope the FAA would ask why someone needs to know.

I don't care about Twitter- never been on it, never will. However, I don't think his whereabouts need to be so easily available, especially with the incredible number of whack jobs who are a sub-atomical particle away from doing something incredibly stupid.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

so-called "free speech absolutist"
@highfigh sorry, but your points are irrelevant unless I missed big-azz sarcasm.
In case it wasn't 100% obvious, let me spell it out for you - safety concerns regarding preventing flight collisions trump possible vague privacy concerns.

 

[highfigh]

so-called "free speech absolutist"
@highfigh sorry, but your points are irrelevant unless I missed big-azz sarcasm.
In case it wasn't 100% obvious, let me spell it out for you - safety concerns regarding preventing flight collisions trump possible vague privacy concerns.

That last part after the hyphen is far from clear. However, and I already wrote that I'm not on Twitter, restoring T-bag's account should come with some amount of control over how far he can go off the rails- I have said, for a long time, that T-bag needs handlers and a muzzle.

How far can we go with censorship just because we don't want to pick a scab on some deranged moron who knows how to make bombs or use a gun? Nobody can know who will do what, as an individual or in a group until they do whatever they decided is 'necessary'.

Now that he has lost ~30% of his wealth in the last year, I suspect Musk will make some tweaks to the policies.

I hate that kind of social media- 'influencers'? GMAFB!

 

[Trell]

so-called "free speech absolutist"
@highfigh sorry, but your points are irrelevant unless I missed big-azz sarcasm.
In case it wasn't 100% obvious, let me spell it out for you - safety concerns regarding preventing flight collisions trump possible vague privacy concerns.

Free speech for me but not for thee.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/12/15/twitter-journalists-suspended-musk/

>>>Twitter suspended the accounts of more than half a dozen journalists from CNN, the New York Times, The Washington Post and other outlets Thursday evening, as company owner Elon Musk accused the reporters of posting “basically assassination coordinates” for him and his family.

The Post has seen no evidence that any of the reporters did so.

The suspensions came without warning or initial explanation from Twitter. They took place a day after Twitter changed its policy on sharing “live location information” and suspended an account, @ElonJet, that had been using public flight data to share the location of Musk’s private plane.
Many of the journalists suspended Thursday, including Washington Post technology reporter Drew Harwell, had been covering that rule change, as well as Musk’s claims that he and his family had been endangered by location sharing.

Twitter did not directly respond to questions about the suspensions. But Musk suggested on Twitter, without evidence, that the journalists had revealed private information about his family, known as doxing. “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” he tweeted late Thursday. ...<<<

 

[Mr._Clark]

"Twitter is not the government so the First Amendment does not apply to its censorship decisions." and yet, we see censorship in online forums every day- what does your comment really mean? FB censors, Twitter has had governmental input to guide its censorship and every other forum I have been a member of has censored people and comments.

The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . ."

Twitter is not Congress. Twitter did not "make" a "law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . ."

Thus, the First Amendment does not apply to Twitter, and Twitter is free to censor anyone without violating the First Amendment. As you noted, non-governmental entities censor people on a regular basis. This does not violate the First Amendment, and this is why it happens so frequently.

I was attempting to avoid a drawn out discussion about the First Amendment because it has nothing to do with Twitter's censorship decisions.

Plane tracking data for airplanes around the world is widely available, so people who had been posting it on Twitter will just use a different platform. Here's an example:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1603639186363666432

I've seen posts on twitter warning people in Ukraine that Russian bombers loaded with missiles just took off. Was this person "stalking" the Russian military planes? Will Twitter ban this activity on the basis that the Russian pilots might get shot down as a result of the warning?

People have been posting large volumes of open source information about aircraft, ships, etc. on twitter for years. Here's one example showing the Russian Black Sea Fleet:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1603156015934951424

Musk has not yet banned these types of open source posts on Twitter, but I do wonder where the censorship stops.

I doubt his ban will have much effect because it is all open source material and people can just use different platforms.

 

[Verdinut]

I'm just saying Musk is a Twit ("Twit in Chief"?), not that there's a First Amendment issue.

That explains how he got interested in buying Twitter.

 

[everettT]

Twitter is not the government so the First Amendment does not apply to its censorship decisions. Having said that, Elon Musk's ideas about what constitues "free speech" on Twitter strike me as rather arbitrary.

Elon Musk Bans Several Journalists From Twitter After Reinstating Literal Nazis [Updated]

Reporters from the Washington Post, New York Times, and others were banned for sharing publicly available information.

gizmodo.com

The ban on various twitter accounts that were posting publicly available flight tracking information also strikes me as being arbitrary.

>>>Twitter on Wednesday banned several accounts which shared publicly available data on the locations of private jets belong to multiple billionaires, including Twitter CEO Elon Musk who said he was taking legal action against the owner of the accounts for causing harm to his family, another sign that the billionaire has become the singular arbiter of rules on the social platform. . . .
In a separate tweet, the Twitter CEO called the real-time sharing of publicly available flight data—whose broadcast is mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration— “doxxing” and a “physical safety violation.”<<<

Twitter Suspends Multiple Accounts Tracking Billionaires’ Private Jets, Bans Sharing Of Publicly Available Flight Data

Twitter’s latest rule change comes after Musk blamed the owner of an account tracking his private jet for an alleged attack on a car carrying his young son in Los Angeles.

www.forbes.com

It's hard to see how sharing publicly available, federally mandated, flight data could be "doxing" under any normal definition of the term.

I'm just saying Musk is a Twit ("Twit in Chief"?), not that there's a First Amendment issue.

Just note that Musk's flight information isn't publicly available. He paid for the private status and Sweeney figured the code out. People have been repeating the public information claim but it does not apply to his plane.

 

[j_garcia]

I predict a steep and fiery decline in Twitter over the next year.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I predict a steep and fiery decline in Twitter over the next year.

I predict either Twitter will go bankrupt or will be sold for a song.

 

[TLS Guy]

I have never used Twitter. I think John Cleese best describes Twitter users, when he calls them "Twittering Twots!"

 

[John Parks]

Hilarious indeed...

 

[Trell]

I predict either Twitter will go bankrupt or will be sold for a song.

Advertisers are leaving Twitter since Musk takeover, and that probably hurts, as this article from November 25th shows:

Twitter has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Elon Musk took over, report says

Half of Twitter's top 100 advertisers appear to no longer be advertising on the website. A new report states that these 50 advertisers have spent almost $2 billion on Twitter ads since 2020.

www.npr.org

>>>Half of Twitter's top 100 advertisers appear to no longer be advertising on the website. A report from Media Matters for America states that these 50 advertisers have spent almost $2 billion on Twitter ads since 2020 and more than $750 million just in 2022.

Seven additional advertisers have slowed their advertising to almost nothing, according to the report, which was published on Tuesday. These companies have paid Twitter more than $255 million since 2020. ...<<<

 

[Mr._Clark]

Just note that Musk's flight information isn't publicly available. He paid for the private status and Sweeney figured the code out. People have been repeating the public information claim but it does not apply to his plane.

To my mind it is "publicly available" if anyone can find it in a few minutes online.

ADS-B Exchange - track aircraft live

ADS-B Exchange - track aircraft live - aircraft flight history

globe.adsbexchange.com

I found this in about 2 minutes by doing a couple google searches.

Musk is yelling at clouds.

 

[Danzilla31]

I predict either Twitter will go bankrupt or will be sold for a song.

And society would probably noticeably improve within months. Tik tok can go too in fact if the majority of social media drivel were to go under then I predict massive world peace in less then a year. Those sites rot the brain

 

[Danzilla31]

This thread is already simply amusing.

Everyone without a bias knows exactly why they were putting personal info out they're. It wasn't because it was free or people had a right to access it. Motive and context matters

If someone didn't like me and put my personal info out to the public such as where I live where and when I travel where my family stays I know exactly how I'd be feeling about that.

The saying f around and find out comes to mind these so called journalists fd around and they found out

Stop deflecting.

 

[highfigh]

The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . ."

Twitter is not Congress. Twitter did not "make" a "law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . ."

Thus, the First Amendment does not apply to Twitter, and Twitter is free to censor anyone without violating the First Amendment. As you noted, non-governmental entities censor people on a regular basis. This does not violate the First Amendment, and this is why it happens so frequently.

I was attempting to avoid a drawn out discussion about the First Amendment because it has nothing to do with Twitter's censorship decisions.

Plane tracking data for airplanes around the world is widely available, so people who had been posting it on Twitter will just use a different platform. Here's an example:

I really question the value of social media in its current forms- the old bulletin boards were closed to the masses, but it was only a matter of time before they had users who didn't play well with others. Now that people have a wide audience, they're dangerous and some comments need to be removed. Completely open media is dangerous, as we have seen- if it all falls apart, I won't be sad, at all.

However, when a government agency censors speech on social media for political reasons if/when facts can back up the posts, it's dangerous.

 

[Danzilla31]

Also in real-time watching that former safety advisor for Twitter get shredded in Congress was simply hilarious.

Responsible decider of what is safe information my ass. Anytime anyone with a strong bias left or right decides what is appropriate information I have an issue with it. It's why censorship of any information is just B.S.

Let the people decide. Put the info out.
The average person who just wants this government to do its friggin job is not the problem. Trying to decide what Info you get to feed them so you can try to influence how they make up they're mind? No matter what side of the aisle you sit politically. That is a major problem

 

[Danzilla31]

To my mind it is "publicly available" if anyone can find it in a few minutes online.

ADS-B Exchange - track aircraft live

ADS-B Exchange - track aircraft live - aircraft flight history

globe.adsbexchange.com

I found this in about 2 minutes by doing a couple google searches.

Musk is yelling at clouds.

Yes exactly YOU found it. You weren't a journalist with a circulation of subscribers posting it and doing that work of finding it for them.

And by chance just what pray tell would be the motive for telling a bunch of they're subscribers this exact information? Oh I just want to wake up and sip a cup of Joe and know exactly where Musk is going to be today? How nice all info is free. That's what we did it for.

 

[Danzilla31]

The situation that has escalated for Tim Pool that you tube content provider on why this type of behavior should never be allowed by journalists or individuals comes to mind for me.

And for the record Im against doxxing and all these other types of behaviors against individuals whether they sit on the left or the right.

This type of behavior should never be allowed period