We’ve updated our policy to prohibit sharing someone else’s live location(twitter.com)
twitter.com
We’ve updated our policy to prohibit sharing someone else’s live location
https://twitter.com/twittersafety/status/1603165959669354496
21 comments
> ElonJet account has also been unbanned: https://twitter.com/ElonJet
Banned again
Banned again
But now presumably for violating the new policy, and so not ex post facto.
ZuccJet too: https://twitter.com/zuccjet
Twitter was started as a democratic, real time, and completely free resource. It now no longer is any of those things.
While I do think it's unethical to publicly post anyone's whereabouts online for everyone to see, I think that it is equally just as bad to buy a resource like the one mentioned above and then turn it into your own money making bulletin board... He should have just developed a totally new fork of Twitter under a different name perhaps. Twitter is dead... Has been for a long time now...
At least everyone still has the ability to abandon it and move on to creating more useful places.
While I do think it's unethical to publicly post anyone's whereabouts online for everyone to see, I think that it is equally just as bad to buy a resource like the one mentioned above and then turn it into your own money making bulletin board... He should have just developed a totally new fork of Twitter under a different name perhaps. Twitter is dead... Has been for a long time now...
At least everyone still has the ability to abandon it and move on to creating more useful places.
> turn it into your own money making bulletin board
Huh? Are we in different universes?
Huh? Are we in different universes?
Elon has turned Twitter into his own personal bulletin board... His posts are obviously intended to resonate across the entire platform now, even for people that block him.
Sure. It's not "money making" by any stretch though. It's a very expensive hobby.
> I was not expecting "making up new rules" and banning ex post facto.
That's been standard practice at Twitter for a few years now.
That's been standard practice at Twitter for a few years now.
Good thing ElonJet only shares the location of an object and not a person.
Yeah, I thought about this, but by your logic you are never sharing live location of a person, it's always just hardware, whether it's airtag or smartphone and you could always argue you are sharing location of device, but privacy policies usually don't distinguish between these two.
And Elon's jet being an Agoraphobe, never occupying the same location as any People? ;)
There's probably multiple pilots on a rotation so you can't necessarily know which one is on board at any given moment.
I'm starting to realize when he talked of the "public square," he didn't mention it as a "democratic public square."
The question I'm asking myself now is less about whether this policy would result in a good change, but more about the process to make such policies.
Is it just me who wants more of a voice/representation in how our platforms are governed?
The question I'm asking myself now is less about whether this policy would result in a good change, but more about the process to make such policies.
Is it just me who wants more of a voice/representation in how our platforms are governed?
The only vote you get is whether you continue to have an account or not. It’s not ideal, but it is more than nothing.
For those interested in exercising that vote: https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-dea...
For those interested in exercising that vote: https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-dea...
Slightly more than nothing. Like being in a dictatorship but being allowed to leave all your friends and family behind (and work perhaps) to go to a land that may not have any of those things.
Yes I'm being dramatic yet I think we may keep bumbling through until we figure out some new form of governance for massive online platforms besides the current form of CEO decided (with maybe board of directors oversight, assuming the CEO isn't the chairperson and has captured the board).
Yes I'm being dramatic yet I think we may keep bumbling through until we figure out some new form of governance for massive online platforms besides the current form of CEO decided (with maybe board of directors oversight, assuming the CEO isn't the chairperson and has captured the board).
Good analogy. There are many people who have a harder decision to make due to work/life entanglements into the network that can’t be easily replaced. There are several facebook groups that I need on occasion that keep my account active there.
Thank you. Yes, it's easy for some people to move countries, as they don't have a house or a job or kids or other things that tie them down. Ironically, I think it's one of the main things the US Embassy checks when foreigners are trying to get tourist visas: how much do they have tying them down to their home country so they will be unlikely to overstay their visa?
I think what happens in these situations is that people often start to organize to gain more say in the decision making process, whether that's unionizing in the workplace or political protests and/or revolutions.
What I'm wondering is what will we do, those of us who have invested so much time and energy into building our digital homes and businesses in these digital nations? Just leave? Stay and organize? Organize how?
I don't personally like the idea of organizing as a user union or something, as I find unions to often be an antagonistic response to company management. I hope that we would start to see ourselves more like digital citizens of these digital nations and organize to try to have more representation in the decision-making processes of these platforms that may govern much more of our social interaction than our analog governments do.
I think what happens in these situations is that people often start to organize to gain more say in the decision making process, whether that's unionizing in the workplace or political protests and/or revolutions.
What I'm wondering is what will we do, those of us who have invested so much time and energy into building our digital homes and businesses in these digital nations? Just leave? Stay and organize? Organize how?
I don't personally like the idea of organizing as a user union or something, as I find unions to often be an antagonistic response to company management. I hope that we would start to see ourselves more like digital citizens of these digital nations and organize to try to have more representation in the decision-making processes of these platforms that may govern much more of our social interaction than our analog governments do.
our platforms
Unless you're Elon Musk, Twitter is not your platform. Twitter is not a public square. It's some guy's personal media platform and he lets others use it at his pleasure.
Unless you're Elon Musk, Twitter is not your platform. Twitter is not a public square. It's some guy's personal media platform and he lets others use it at his pleasure.
Yes, I wish it would go in the other direction and we'd have more ownership of such platforms as users/creators/informal workers, at least in the decision making process, if not in the profit sharing as well. In a way, I'd argue us users of many social media platforms are both consumer and producer.
But I agree, it is his platform now. Ugh.
But I agree, it is his platform now. Ugh.
Spin up your own Mastodon instance and you'll have your own part of a social network that you have control over.
I'm not so excited to have a federation of digital towns trying to interact with each other. I believe in the benefit of having overarching communities with shared rules and rule-making processes.
The analog equivalent I imagine would be to have no countries and only towns where each town has control over its laws and when towns interact, they try to create treaties. I, on the other hand, would prefer we even had much stronger coordination above the nation-state level.
But perhaps I'm not grasping the rule-making process of Mastodon, just feels very independent and not sure how it handles inter-instance conflict.
The analog equivalent I imagine would be to have no countries and only towns where each town has control over its laws and when towns interact, they try to create treaties. I, on the other hand, would prefer we even had much stronger coordination above the nation-state level.
But perhaps I'm not grasping the rule-making process of Mastodon, just feels very independent and not sure how it handles inter-instance conflict.
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Conservatives getting banned for trivial crap while death threats and child porn stay up and you're only just noticing this now?
I noticed how the process before seem to be decided by a CEO and board, and now it seems to be decided purely by a CEO, therefore having less oversight and more control in the hands of one person. Previously, they had set up a Trust and Safety Council, which the new CEO recently disbanded.
So for me, it's not about the specific decisions being made (what to ban and what to keep) but rather the process of how to make those decisions and I see that process becoming more and more in the hands of one person.
So for me, it's not about the specific decisions being made (what to ban and what to keep) but rather the process of how to make those decisions and I see that process becoming more and more in the hands of one person.
I noticed some popular flight tracking websites flightradar24 and flightaware have disabled sharing location information per owner request. I did find one site that still shares flight data and flight history.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a835af&lat=32.124&lon=-...
Reason was explained in other topic. FlightRadar and few other services use information provided by US FAA thus they must follow FAA rules regarding disabling information sharing.
ADS-B Exchange use information gathered by private individuals and there is no law that require to hide something.
ADS-B Exchange use information gathered by private individuals and there is no law that require to hide something.
Flightradar and other sites have a vast network of receivers. Almost everyone that feeds ADS-B Exchange probably feeds to FR24 as well, and FR24 have even more receivers.
They also use radar data in North America, I guess that's the FAA provided data. If they wanted to they could probably do without it since they have so many receivers enabling them pretty good MLAT, but they probably prefer to not provoke FAA.
They have mentioned that they don't want governments to encrypt ADS-B or regulate it in other ways, so by self regulating they hope to be left alone.
"Information about a small number of flights may be limited or blocked based on requests from owners or operators via third-party services, such as the FAA LADD. Some high profile aircraft, such as Air Force One are not displayed. Most other aircraft subject to restriction are shown as anonymized by aircraft type."
https://www.flightradar24.com/how-it-works
They also use radar data in North America, I guess that's the FAA provided data. If they wanted to they could probably do without it since they have so many receivers enabling them pretty good MLAT, but they probably prefer to not provoke FAA.
They have mentioned that they don't want governments to encrypt ADS-B or regulate it in other ways, so by self regulating they hope to be left alone.
"Information about a small number of flights may be limited or blocked based on requests from owners or operators via third-party services, such as the FAA LADD. Some high profile aircraft, such as Air Force One are not displayed. Most other aircraft subject to restriction are shown as anonymized by aircraft type."
https://www.flightradar24.com/how-it-works
That link you mentioned stated that certain planes (including business jets) do not have ADS-B or are not visible on FlightRadar24. Thought that was interesting.
This is going full Streisand.
Full Oligarch, is more like it. Musk never concerned himself about people's privacy until it was his own privacy.
I'm convinced this is all about him doing a favor for all the corrupt rulers and fellow oligarchs, silencing one of the last few platforms where people with millions/billions can't shut down a story they don't like. Twitter, for all its faults, is the one place where people with little financial resources have a shot at getting restitution or justice as long as their tweet gets some attention and signal-boosted.
In the space of 30 minutes a clip of video of something unjust happening to someone who would otherwise not even get a mention in the local paper, can become a national news story and wildly exceed the local power structure's ability to suppress the story.
Corporations, dictators, oligarchs, and powerful politicians really, really don't like that.
I'm convinced this is all about him doing a favor for all the corrupt rulers and fellow oligarchs, silencing one of the last few platforms where people with millions/billions can't shut down a story they don't like. Twitter, for all its faults, is the one place where people with little financial resources have a shot at getting restitution or justice as long as their tweet gets some attention and signal-boosted.
In the space of 30 minutes a clip of video of something unjust happening to someone who would otherwise not even get a mention in the local paper, can become a national news story and wildly exceed the local power structure's ability to suppress the story.
Corporations, dictators, oligarchs, and powerful politicians really, really don't like that.
Live sports coverage is going to be fun
Seems like coverage of a public sporting event is still allowed.
> Content that shares location information related to a public engagement or event, such as a concert or political event, is also permitted.
> Content that shares location information related to a public engagement or event, such as a concert or political event, is also permitted.
I have a theory about Twitter's often odd actions since Musk took over, although I fear HN won't like it because it may tend to paint Musk in a reasonable light:
I think that we are seeing the symptoms of a team (Twitter) who is not yet used to Musk's management style, whereby he says something like, "we should do X", and he means, "we should investigate and take reasonable actions which have the same effect as (the too-bold action) X". The team interprets the first statement too literally and actually does X, which isn't really what Musk intended. I developed this theory in the roll-out of Twitter Blue, because it matches what happened very closely: Musk publicly said "hey we're going to start charging for verification and it's no longer a mark of validated identity". The team jumped and made something overnight, but this was rolled back because it's not what Musk meant for them to do. Rather, what he meant for them to do was sit down, plan what to do, and then execute it - quickly, but not immediately. And that's what happened in the end, i.e. in the past few days.
This effect is exacerbated by the remaining employees at Twitter including those who are most eager to suck up to the new boss, frankly, leading to them jumping and doing what he said (over-literally).
Anyways, the same theory would explain the elonjet thing. Elon says, "hey posting people's real-time location is generally seen as a bad thing, like that elonjet guy, we should look into a policy against that." Overeager underling takes this as a commandment to ban elonjet. More reasonable people who are beginning to catch on to the management style go and actually develop the policy; once it's developed, it makes sense to just Ctrl-Z the actions of the overeager group.
I think that we are seeing the symptoms of a team (Twitter) who is not yet used to Musk's management style, whereby he says something like, "we should do X", and he means, "we should investigate and take reasonable actions which have the same effect as (the too-bold action) X". The team interprets the first statement too literally and actually does X, which isn't really what Musk intended. I developed this theory in the roll-out of Twitter Blue, because it matches what happened very closely: Musk publicly said "hey we're going to start charging for verification and it's no longer a mark of validated identity". The team jumped and made something overnight, but this was rolled back because it's not what Musk meant for them to do. Rather, what he meant for them to do was sit down, plan what to do, and then execute it - quickly, but not immediately. And that's what happened in the end, i.e. in the past few days.
This effect is exacerbated by the remaining employees at Twitter including those who are most eager to suck up to the new boss, frankly, leading to them jumping and doing what he said (over-literally).
Anyways, the same theory would explain the elonjet thing. Elon says, "hey posting people's real-time location is generally seen as a bad thing, like that elonjet guy, we should look into a policy against that." Overeager underling takes this as a commandment to ban elonjet. More reasonable people who are beginning to catch on to the management style go and actually develop the policy; once it's developed, it makes sense to just Ctrl-Z the actions of the overeager group.
I think the team is afraid to stand up to Musk, and this makes things worse... but I think you're crafting an explanation where Musk isn't in the loop and pressing for things to happen immediately. This isn't consistent with Musk's public comments and tweets during the Blue rollout. E.g. he talks of having personally killed the gray checkmark, and that "Blue check will be the great leveler."
He even says at the time:
> Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1590384919829962752
> More reasonable people who are beginning to catch on to the management style go and actually develop the policy; once it's developed, it makes sense to just Ctrl-Z the actions of the overeager group.
and now elonjet is back to being banned, so this doesn't really make sense.
He even says at the time:
> Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1590384919829962752
> More reasonable people who are beginning to catch on to the management style go and actually develop the policy; once it's developed, it makes sense to just Ctrl-Z the actions of the overeager group.
and now elonjet is back to being banned, so this doesn't really make sense.
Any management style that results in your direct reports doing things wrong isn't their fault. It's the manager who didn't communicate clearly, didn't correctly incentivize, didn't set the right example, didn't create pathways to desired outcomes, etc.
On what do you base this claim? What is one example in the last 3 years where you think Musk's intention was to "investigate and take reasonable actions"?
Did Elon decide to investigate and take reasonable action when signing an agreement to buy Twitter? Did he do so when trying to weasel his way out of the deal?
Did he investigate and take reasonable action when making bids about hyperloop and tunnels that were stupidly low to block public transit efforts but then never came to fruition?
Did Elon decide to investigate and take reasonable action when signing an agreement to buy Twitter? Did he do so when trying to weasel his way out of the deal?
Did he investigate and take reasonable action when making bids about hyperloop and tunnels that were stupidly low to block public transit efforts but then never came to fruition?
As reported by insiders from other Musk companies, the issue is actually that Musk means everything he says, concerns himself with minutiae, and constantly demands insane and counterproductive things. These other companies have built up a layer of managers who are dedicated to lying to Musk and coaching their teams on lying to Musk while allowing actual useful things to get done instead of the things Musk would prefer. Twitter's current situation is what happens when a company lacks this protective inner layer.
That might be a factor (and I've entertained this idea myself!) but Elon is also shown to be impulsive and tyrannical enough in his public words (and leaked communications) that I don't think this explanation is actually needed.
"Elon is just bad at communicating" is a reasonable take. But it's still his fault.
>>I have a theory about Twitter's often odd actions since Musk took over, although I fear HN won't like it because it may tend to paint Musk in a reasonable light:
Reminds me of the "The Bear is Sticky with Honey" situation
Reminds me of the "The Bear is Sticky with Honey" situation
when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
musk isnt some gratioud thoughtful genius surrounded by incompetence. he’s a malicious, selfish, narcissist.
and if you dont see that, well, nothing can be done about it. just look at his tweets and “enlightened centrism”. and that time he called a guy a pædo.
musk isnt some gratioud thoughtful genius surrounded by incompetence. he’s a malicious, selfish, narcissist.
and if you dont see that, well, nothing can be done about it. just look at his tweets and “enlightened centrism”. and that time he called a guy a pædo.
Which time? He's done it multiple times now.
Elon can call Peter, and ask the Palantir people for the best snarky comment, policy, exposé, or forensic internal communication that Elon wants.
Some of what happened since the twitter takeover looks like bumbling incompetence.
Some of it is obviously assisted by very powerful people. Maybe it's just Elon's internal security and forensics team. Maybe not.
Some of what happened since the twitter takeover looks like bumbling incompetence.
Some of it is obviously assisted by very powerful people. Maybe it's just Elon's internal security and forensics team. Maybe not.
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> ded. I developed this theory in the roll-out of Twitter Blue
My theory around this is that this was a test to see which developers are willing to do what he says on a short timeline and are able to have the required impact across the stack.
My theory around this is that this was a test to see which developers are willing to do what he says on a short timeline and are able to have the required impact across the stack.
This theory presumes "really what Musk intended" is normally a meaningful concept.
As I say about my current and some previous employers' management, "the word 'why' doesn't apply here".
As I say about my current and some previous employers' management, "the word 'why' doesn't apply here".
The imaginary Elon Musk you invented still doesn't sound reasonable, he sounds like an absolute nightmare to work for
> Content that shares location information related to a public engagement or event, such as a concert or political event, is also permitted. https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1603165967453868032
Does that include group selfies from the invite-only afterparty because it's "related" to a public event, or no because it's invite-only?
What about sharing location information related to a virtual public event? Or location information of an individual who's only virtually attending an in-person public event?
And more practically, what about live-documenting crimes, police brutality, war crimes...?
Does that include group selfies from the invite-only afterparty because it's "related" to a public event, or no because it's invite-only?
What about sharing location information related to a virtual public event? Or location information of an individual who's only virtually attending an in-person public event?
And more practically, what about live-documenting crimes, police brutality, war crimes...?
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On one hand, Elon Musk can create rules that only apply to just him.
On the other ElonJet can also just post on Mastodon.
On the other ElonJet can also just post on Mastodon.
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"Well, unless it is a previous employee on the Trust & Safety team or they use pronouns, in which case we will give you their home address..."
Free speech, except for the speech Elon doesn't like
Absolutely fascinating how many people will contort themselves defending anything Musk does.
If you disagree you are just an emotional twit on the hate bandwagon.
What do they get from it?
If you disagree you are just an emotional twit on the hate bandwagon.
What do they get from it?
> Absolutely fascinating how many people will contort themselves defending anything Musk does.
I don't see any.
I don't see any.
So you get something from hating him?
How do guys like Bezos, Gates, Kerry, Trump family, Schwab, Soros and other billionaires get around without twitter accounts tracking their planes?
He could have just switched to NetJets and put his plane into a jet share rotation until people got bored of watching the account. I get why he would use a plane, but surely someone told him the old wisdom about things that fly or float?
He could have just switched to NetJets and put his plane into a jet share rotation until people got bored of watching the account. I get why he would use a plane, but surely someone told him the old wisdom about things that fly or float?
they don’t. same person has a bezos and gates jet tracker. they are just less followed.
So, no pictures
Elon Musk is an irritating fellow.
fleddr(5)
Sounds reasonable. Maybe this will help quell activist stalkers.
It is best to suppress activists. China has done a great job in HK. Elon should look to how they have been doing it.
When I said last thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33988883) I was awaiting to see what moderation rationale Elon would use I was not expecting "making up new rules" and banning ex post facto.
But unbanning the account without an apology is somehow weirder.