ChiGoose

Some context if anyone is interested:

The government flagging things for review is fine, and even probably good. Is there evidence that the government coerced Twitter into making a decision against its own policy?

I find it interesting because his purchase of Twitter was both newsworthy and an obviously terrible financial decision from the jump. He promises to be pro-free speech but then just starts banning accounts critical of him. He makes up policy rules on the fly and then punishes those who aren’t immediately compliant, even if the policy is vague or confusing. People applauding him went from this being about free speech, to it being about treating everyone fairly, to it being about showing lefties how they were treated by the previous ownership of Twitter. All in all, my personal experience on Twitter hasn’t changed much. My wife mentioned she’s seeing more right wing accounts on her timeline than she did before but whatever. I just find the whole thing interesting and a bit bizarre. I don’t have a personal vendetta against Musk. I think Teslas are great. SpaceX is cool. I just don’t think he’s some infallible genius at everything and I believe his overpaying for Twitter and actions since becoming the owner support that idea.

Would love to know how many of these were purchased in Riyadh versus the US. Weird that the people screaming about inflation will spend $99 on a JPEG.

I was very skeptical of JB Pritzker originally because super wealthy businessmen don’t have the best track record. But he seemed focused on surrounding himself with the smartest and most talented people he could get and actually listening to them. When he was sworn in as Governor of Illinois, our credit rating was one level above junk status and there were rumors the ratings agencies were mulling putting us through that threshold. Our bill backlog was over $16 billion and the debt service was absolutely out of control because of the high rates that come with such poor credit. Since JB took over, we’ve received the first credit upgrade for the state in 20 years, and then got five more subsequent upgrades. Additionally, the bill backlog has shrunk dramatically (was down to just $3.5 billion at one point), reducing debt servicing costs. I also really like our comptroller, Susana Mendoza, who has been a big part of reducing the backlog and getting our fiscal house back in order. Her ill-fated mayoral run aside (I did some phone banking for her), she’s been an excellent comptroller. Illinois still has a long way to go to fully recover from decades of mismanagement, but it seems like we’re finally headed in the right direction. As a side note, during the recent election there was a joke twitter account proclaiming JB as the heir to Genghis Khan who would unite the Great Lakes under a khanate. It was mostly just silly but it was fun and not only did JB reference it in his acceptance speech, but he personally called the guy behind the account to thank him, saying that the humor was very much enjoyed by him and the campaign staff.

The jet info is public info. There’s nothing private about it. It’s widely available to anyone who wants it regardless of whether or not it’s on twitter. It’s not secret. It’s not assassination coordinates or any BS like that. Stop pretending it’s private info because it simply isn’t in any sense of the word. I literally just opened my flight tracker app and saw a private plane flying by (VTHMA out of Van Nuys. A Bombadier Global Express). No Twitter necessary. If I wanted to track someone’s private jet, I can do it without Twitter. Tech journalist explains the issue better than I can: Elon Tries (Badly) To Defend The Banning Of Journalists As Twitter Starts Blocking Links & Mentions Of Mastodon “First, he just ***** changed the terms of service to shut down the jet tracker, and made them so broad and vague that tons of tweets would violate the rule — including anyone using Twitter’s built-in location indicator to tweet a photo of someone else. Second, the location of his plane is public information. It’s not “assassination coordinates.” If Musk is worried about getting assassinated, hiding this account isn’t going to help, because the assassin will just go straight to the ADS-B source and get the data anyway. Third, I get that Musk claims his child was in a car that was attacked the other night, but there remain some open questions about that story. For example, the location where it occurred, as deduced by BellingCat, was not close to any airport. Given that, it’s not at all clear how this is connected to the jet tracking service. Furthermore, the LAPD put out a statement on this: LAPD’s Threat Management Unit (TMU) is aware of the situation and tweet by Elon Musk and is in contact with his representatives and security team. No crime reports have been filed yet. Which, you know, seems notable. Because if a stalker actually went after him, you’d think that rather than just posting about it on social media, he might contact the police? But, most importantly, none of the journalists in question actually posted “real time” assassination coordinates for Musk. They had posted about this whole story having to do with content moderation decisions made by Musk. Hell, one of the journalists, Donie Sullivan, got banned for tweeting that LAPD statement. So, yeah, it’s not about “equal treatment” for journalists. It’s about coming up with bull#### arbitrary rules that just so happen to ban the journalists who have been calling out all the dumb ***** Elon has been doing. Which, you know, was the kinda thing Elon insisted was the big problem under the last regime, and insisted he was brought in to solve.“

Musk unbanned all those Right Wing accounts and then started banning anyone who covers him critically without explanation (there’s no evidence that I’ve found that all of those journalists were tweeting live location data). He can do that. It’s his right as the owner of the platform. But it’s exactly the same thing everyone here was complaining about Twitter doing before he bought it. Now it’s all fun and games and totally fine. He can apply the rules equally, but doesn’t seem to want to. He could actually go full free-speech but he doesn’t seem to want to. And that’s his right. I’m just not going to pretend he is doing something he clearly isn’t interested in.

This seems correct... for now. There aren't any options out there currently that could stand in for Twitter. Mastodon is a mess, Post is promising but severely under resourced. At the moment, Twitter is mostly working fine with a skeleton staff. But if Twitter starts to look more like 4Chan or it suffers major and frequent outages, there's going to be a market for a new Twitter and someone will create it.

And now the transition from "FREE SPEECH" to payback is complete. Glad we are all in agreement in dismissing that this was ever about free speech. Carry on.

It's not even that. There are multiple apps to track planes and there are plane tracker accounts on other social media sites. Removing them from Twitter does absolutely nothing to prevent someone from stalking celebrities. But he did it anyway.

Well, he certainly knows his audience: gullible marks: Trump NFT Collection Sells Out, Price Surges “Donald Trump’s non-fungible token (NFT) digital trading card collection sold out early Friday, the day after its initial release. According to data from OpenSea, at time of writing, the collection’s trading volume is 900 ETH, or about $1.08 million. Its floor price is about 0.19 ETH, or about $230 – more than double the original price of $99. Some tokens are selling for much higher prices. The one-of-ones, the rarest of the NFTs which comprise 2.4% of the 45,000 unit collection (roughly 1,000), are selling for as much as 6 ETH at the time of writing. One of these rare trading cards of the 45th President standing in front of the Statue of Liberty, holding a torch is currently listed at 20 ETH, or about $24,000.”

I see we have transitioned from “FREE SPEECH” to “OWN THE LIBS!” How very predictable

Poor little snowflake needs to be in a safe space or else he’s gonna have a tantrum.

So much for free speech…

Are you saying that basically every journalist who covers Musk doxxed him at the same time and were therefore banned?

Oh no! Someone was publicly expressing constitutionally protected free speech! Ban them for the sake of freedom!

Looking forward to the Twitter Files on Musk banning his critics. I’m sure it will be quickly forthcoming and transparent.

Wheeee! More free speech! Ban any links to a potential competitor! (Mastodon sucks, by the way. The best thing Elon could do is send people there to see how much it sucks).

I do enjoy that “owning the cons” isn’t a thing because liberals don’t spend all of their time fuming about conservatives. In fact, unlike the current iteration of the GOP, liberals generally support policies that would help the conservatives. But in any case, I hope they all enjoy worshipping free speech apartheid emerald mine guy here.

Absolutely. He is 100% within his right to ban anyone who points out that he got hair plugs or that Tesla is tanking or that he’s a spoiled child who doesn’t understand what he’s doing. He’s not violating any laws or causing any actionable harm by being a big baby with a soiled diaper throwing a tantrum. But it doesn’t mean we can’t all just point and laugh at him.

Twitter suspends journalists who have been covering Elon Musk and the company I’m sure the Muskateers will find a way to defend this but it really looks like a pouty spoiled child taking revenge against people he doesn’t like.

Free speech! Free speech! All hail Elon, champion of free speech!

He claims not to know. Other accounts similar to his (covering Musk or right wing media) have also been banned with seemingly no explanation. This isn’t at all surprising. Buying Twitter was never about free speech.

Ah, that makes sense. Just banning anyone on the Elon beat. Very hardcore. Very free speech.

Huh. I thought we were finally getting free speech on Twitter…