This is complete idiocy. Celebrities and billionaires don't get special speech rights. There are very good reasons all aircraft are tracked publicly. If Elmo's plane ever goes down or gets hijacked he might appreciate why. According to Twitter's new "policy" any person who takes a picture of someone in front of the Eiffel tower or any recognizable place can be accused of doxxing and banned.
I think calling someone an idiot is against HN policy...but, what do I know, I am obviously an idiot.
That said. OK, well, let's publish everyone's travel plans. Name, flight, seat, from/to, etc. Make the system 100% open to for anyone to see who is travelling, where and when.
You know, so folks profiting from breaking into homes while people are travelling can be more efficient in their scheduling.
In our neighborhood we've had a few cases of homes being burglarized when people travelled out of town and posted about it on Facebook. Lots of people are not aware that they might be posting to the entire universe. Those wonderful pictures of your vacation in Hawaii let smart crooks know you are not home in Los Angeles.
I am 100% certain everyone would be against their personal, family and business travel itineraries being posted in a publicly accessible website or database in real time. Understandably so. Why, then, is it to that this is OK for those who might be obvious targets of violence and other potentially negative outcomes?
One argument I saw in this thread is about not creating special rules for a small group of people. Fine with that. Let's publish everyone's travel plans then. Or, on the other hand, have the common sense to understand that personal safety is important to everyone and move to make posting such information illegal and protect everyone, no matter their station in life.
I get it that on HN there exist a subgroup of people who are millionaire/billionaire haters. Good for you! Enjoy the hatred. That group aside, once common sense enters the room, it is generally clear that privacy is good for everyone, regardless of who they might be.
As much as I dislike politicians, this should also extend to them. Yes, of course, their travel details should be released and made available for all to review. However, this can be done well after the fact.
Surely you can see that there's a difference between a billionaire who can hire private security and the common person? A billionaire's house cannot be broken into because that house is in a gated community with private security. Even at the airport, a chartered car with a personal driver and security is likely coming to meet Elon.
This is the definition of concern trolling on Elon's part, and you're carrying water for his bad faith arguments in favor of restricting the republishing of information that is free and open to the public by design. I don't think you even really understand the implications of what you're saying.
I hope you are joking. The husband of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, the third person in line for the presidency of the United States, was brutally attacked in his own home with a hammer. A billionaire cannot possibly buy better security and resources than the US Secret Service and local police combined.
I don't understand hatred based on financial standing.
However, I do not think this is the real motivation in Musk's case. I can see people hating on Musk these days because he is uncovering just how deep and wide one political party has reached in the United States in order to control the media and messaging. Something that Putin and totalitarian regimes have done for ages in other nations has been achieved in the US by brainwashing people at universities and then asking them to restrict or reshape the message in favor of that ideology.
Anyone who does not think this is revolting and should not exist in the US should take a moment to imagine a scenario where the same level of indoctrination and control would be had by the other party. This would be just as revolting and just as undesirable. Universities should not be centers of indoctrination. Political parties should not have any control on what the public can and cannot hear. That's a formula for progress, not one where one or the other party can exercise ideological control.
> I don't think you even really understand the implications of what you're saying.
I don't think you have taken a single minute to explain what you think the implications might be.
Interestingly enough, I am arguing in favor of privacy/security for all. You seem to be saying that someone with money does not deserve it. Why?
The Pelosi case is under a lot of public scrutiny precisely because it is nonsensical that the husband of the speaker of the house could have someone just waltz into their home and attack him. Unfortunately the narratives around the attack have been censored or tamped down and we may never know what happened.
But there is still an order of magnitude difference between Pelosi and the wealth of someone who can afford to own and fly their own superjet. That you don’t believe better security can be had does not mean it does not exist, it does.
I think you’re revealing your ideological biases. The Twitter files did not just contain information about censorship by the democrats. The Trump White House was also heavily implicated. That is not the partisan issue that you want it to be. Instead, perhaps the liberal ire towards Elon could come from the fact that he is catering towards the right?
As far as public safety goes, it’s ultimately moot. If you choose to own your own plane and fly it using public infrastructure paid for with US tax dollars, you have no expectation of that data being private. Reporting that data is protected by the first amendment, which of course doesn’t apply to posts on Twitter, a private company. Someone who wants privacy should choose to travel via other means, it’s really that simple. Flying via your own private jet is not a constitutionally protected right, it’s a privilege that is subject to the terms and regulations of the United States of America and it’s regulatory bodies. And arguing that we should change the rules for the ultra rich is an absolutely tyrannical prospect, lord knows we do it enough already.
> That you don’t believe better security can be had does not mean it does not exist, it does.
Did you read about Musk's kid being stalked by someone who ended-up threatening him and jumping on the car?
How do you feel about that? It's OK because the guy is rich? C'mon.
> I think you’re revealing your ideological biases.
Happy to spell it out: I am a Classical Liberal. I detest what both Democrats and Republicans (the parties, not the drones who follow them blindly) have become. I also understand that the extreme left and right have cause more destruction around the world and across time than one could probably list.
Today, in the US, we are in the grips of the extreme left. And that's a problem. They tyranny, today, in the US, is coming from the left.
Our universities have become extreme left indoctrination centers. Our media is brutally dominated by the left. Our social media and internet companies, same (I forget the number, something like 96% to 98% of those employed by places like Twitter, FB and Google donated to the Democratic party?). Etc.
The narrative and the "news" people are exposed to is overwhelmingly controlled by leftist ideology. I have spoken to people who only watch networks like CNN. As an example, they have no clue whatsoever what is going on at our southern border, none at all.
This is a formula for disaster. And, yes, I would be saying exactly the same thing if the dominance belonged to the right. Neither one is good for a society. History has proven this time and time again.
I mean, the left claims to be for women's rights and the protectors of, well, just about everyone. And yet, we are having a human trafficking crisis at the southern border and EVERYONE on the left is ignoring all of it. In two years, nearly five million people have poured in. Millions of pills of the most dangerous drugs have been smuggled into the country. And human trafficking has grown by leaps and bounds. All we get from the administration is "the border is secure". Really?
This, BTW, is also a historical fact. The way the left works is to claim to solve the problems of all those who (they convince) are oppressed and make enemies of everyone else. If you study the history of pretty much every country in Latin America you will discover patterns that, today, might be familiar to all Americans. One of the problems in the US is that people are not educated well enough to know much about history. That's why this population is so easy to fool.
Look at the minimum wage mess. They promised $15 per hour would solve the problems of millions. This is how they bought these votes. And then gasoline goes from $2 per gallon to $5, $6, $7 per gallon; food prices go up 30% to 100% (our dog food alone doubled in cost). And more. Now $15 per hour is more like $5 per hour. And, on top of that, we let in five million people who will more than likely take minimum wage jobs away from the very people who were promised this new minimum wage would help them.
How much more of this nonsense is it going to take for people who support these politicians to understand they are being played for fools?
What is being uncovered at Twitter is important because the vast majority of Americans have been led to believe none of this was happening. The vast majority of Americans have been the subject of carefully engineered ideologically-driven shaping of the messages. Having the FBI interact at the level they have with Twitter staff (and likely FB and others) IS NOT GOOD FOR SOCIETY.
I always say the same thing: Imagine a scenario where the ideological right had this level of control over universities, social and traditional media. If you think that would be horrible, first, I agree, second, you should be incensed about the fact that the ideological left is in that position today. The fact that riots have broken out at universities when speakers with contrasting viewpoints are invited should have everyone take pause. Again, imagine if the roles were inverted before you opine.
> which of course doesn’t apply to posts on Twitter, a private company
Oh, please, what these people have done is criminal. If not criminal, immoral. If not immoral, unethical. If none of those, it is horrible and detrimental to any society. You don't build progress, harmony and tolerance this way. You build hatred, resentment and destroy a society from the inside-out.
