Given my real name — which is available on Twitter — my home address is not difficult to obtain from online, public, governmental real estate records.
Despite the fact that the information is public, it would still be doxxing — not to mention inappropriate, violating, and frightening — if someone decided to dig up that address and post it to a broad audience on Twitter that would have otherwise been unaware of it. This is even more true if that audience is hostile, and my information is being posted in an attempt to harass and/or intimidate.
If you want to expand the definition of the word doxxing then that's fine but you'll have to have that conversation all by yourself.
I'll just use this one:
"Doxing" is a neologism. It originates from a spelling alteration of the abbreviation "docs" (for "documents") and refers to "compiling and releasing a dossier of personal information on someone".Essentially, doxing is revealing and publicizing the records of an individual, which were previously private or difficult to obtain. "
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing
So this isn't doxing, since the information isn't private and it isn't difficult to obtain.
> Doxing or doxxing (originally spelled in 1337 as d0xing) is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet. Historically, the term has been used interchangeably to refer to both the aggregration of this information from public source or record databases and social media websites (like Facebook), as well as the publication of previously private information obtained through criminal or otherwise fraudulent means such as hacking and social engineering.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing
So this is doxxing, and you dishonestly cherry-picked an incomplete definition. In case any confusion remains, here’s the Oxford Languages’ definition:
> search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the internet, typically with malicious intent.
Posting your home address which you've kept out of the public eye is doxing, posting the whereabouts of any aircraft that broadcasts that information to all receivers is not. That's why you can find this information all over the internet, the only place where you currently can't find Musk's jet is on Twitter. And that's before we get into his free-speech arguments which apparently were a bit inconsistent.
Or would you like to accuse the FAA of doxing as well?
I don't see how it's any different from a public figure saying they'll be attending any public event.
I know people wish this weren't the case, but your address isn't exactly private information. Anyone can find it easily for anyone else.
So the bar for doxing is definitely a low one, but in this particular case it isn't met. I can see why Musk is irritated that that account exists, even more so because it didn't go away at the first request by someone as powerful as him, and that makes it personal. See the whole saga with that diver for a typical response. But that doesn't mean that the person manning that account is doing something illegal and that is the bar which Elon Musk himself set not all that long ago, and which is what makes this news.
If he had been a bit smarter about this he would have just said: "I'm irritated by you, this is my site and you're gone". That would be that. But now there are all these logical pretzels why this is illegal and all that other stuff that people - and Musk - do on twitter is not because 'free speech'. The two are incompatible, and he knows it.
And in the case of Musk, secondary issues arise, such as the fact that in the US lawsuits can be commenced for almost any reason, and how Musk's tremendous wealth, power, and social influence allows him to hold others hostage to his whims and malleable ethical positions.
The main criterium for Twitter rules changes appears to be whether or not Elon is personally inconvenienced. Which is fine by me but then he should drop the 'free speech' act and stop pretending that he understands the degree to which the former team managed to eke out the closest workable compromise on uniting free speech whilst still having a legal and functional website. That coin does not seem to have dropped yet.
Principles such as absolute free speech only mean something if you uphold them even if you are personally inconvenienced.
> Every person who, with intent to place another person in reasonable fear for his or her safety, or the safety of the other person’s immediate family, by means of an electronic communication device, and without consent of the other person, and for the purpose of imminently causing that other person unwanted physical contact, injury, or harassment, by a third party, electronically distributes, publishes, e-mails, hyperlinks, or makes available for downloading, personal identifying information, including, but not limited to, a digital image of another person, or an electronic message of a harassing nature about another person, which would be likely to incite or produce that unlawful action, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in a county jail, by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
This is not how law works.
This would cover LibsOfTikTok, but not ElonJet
If they published personal information the person didn't want put in the public eye, that would be a very different story.
> LoTT re-uploads video content
This is not at all what LoTT does. That's what the LoTT TikTok did, but it was banned on TikTok. Current things that LoTT twitter account is posting about are:
- Yoel Roth
- A drag queen event at the white house
- A number of videos and images of drag queens that were not posted by the performer
- Taylor Lorenz
- etc.
"re-uploading content users had already explicitly uploaded for the purpose of public viewing" is a misrepresentation of the account.
Taylor Lorenz doxxed LoTT (not even debatable here with the article even being edited to remove some of the doxxed links). Speaking about this and the public journalist who did it to you certainly seems appropriate.
As to Boston Children's Hospital, you were lied to. A study from March this year clearly states that 36.7% of their patients were under 18 and as young as 15.
> Over the 3-year study period, a total of 204 gender affirmation surgical cases were identified: 177 chest/top and 27 genital/bottom surgeries (Table 1). Most cases were masculinizing chest reconstructions 177/204 (86.8%) with 65/177 (36.7%) of those patients being less than 18 years of age.
> The Center for Gender Surgery (CfGS) at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) was the first pediatric center in the United States to offer gender-affirming chest surgeries for individuals over 15 years old and genital surgeries for those over 17 years of age. In the four years since its inception, CfGS has completed over 300 gender-affirming surgeries.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000168/pdf/jcm...
Whether or not they are newsworthy or appropriate, information about Roth and Lorenz clearly isn't "video content the users had already explicitly uploaded for the purpose of public viewing". If you want to change your argument, feel free, but don't accuse me of misrepresentation and then lie.
Of course, if you want to make the argument that Roth is notable enough, you can. But I want to see you thread the needle about how doxxing Roth is acceptable, but Musk isn't.
> As to Boston Children's Hospital, you were lied to. A study from March this year clearly states that 36.7% of their patients were under 18 and as young as 15.
No I was not. A hysterectomy is not a chest surgery, and the hospital doesn't provide them to children (https://archive.vn/7R44e). The hospital may provide some services to children, but hysterectomies aren't one of them. Again, do not misrepresent my comments.
I'm a bit confused by this.
I have just checked Libs of Tiktok's Twitter feed and only found two tweets referencing Yoel Roth, one bemoaning the fact that LoTT is receiving threats and that if it were Roth it'd be national news[1], and another[2] from November the 4th flagging a tweet to him and wondering why it is still up.
Where is LoTT doxxing Roth?
As to the stuff circulating about Roth, it was all public to begin with, right? I certainly don't wish any threats to come his way but that's threats and harassment, not doxxing. Maybe I missed something.
[1] https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1602978234345431040
[2] https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1588338910815342592
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1602188311099019265
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1602179892346585090
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1602147621698957312
And more, all recent. You're correct, I guess that I should have said "harass" not doxx, but yeah there's tons of stuff LoTT is doing to stoke harassment at Roth (like imply he's a groomer: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1601778632552484865)
Still, no one should be in fear because of their legal speech - that makes it unfree - whether that's Roth or LoTT or Musk or anyone else, but I don't see that those tweets would be liable for that.
It doesn't exactly take amazing Google fu to find infinite examples of straight women talking about how men holding babies are hot: https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=men+holding+babies+se...
I don't know if the tweet qualifies as harassment, but it's certainly making entirely baseless allegations that could easily lead to this person being targeted by crazy vigilante types.
Roth has a lot of tweets that would provide context that invites raised eyebrows, especially given his PhD dissertation, and his behaviour as head of Trust and Safety, where he suppressed the #groomer hashtag, and given an overall context where people of Roth's political persuasion are hyping up drag queens dancing for children and he's actively suppressing criticism of it. That's so easy to explain.
I also might add that women have a biological urge to give birth and take into account the male's skills as a father. To say that (some or all) gay guys have this may be true but it seems a stretch, and why express it out loud when you're supposed to look like you give a damn about CSAM? At the very least, his tweets are utterly stupid and reckless. If a headteacher tweets "wow, women are hot but women holding babies, extra hot!" wouldn't you pause? How about if he tweets out from his main account "I have a secret dirty twitter account", you wouldn't raise an eyebrow? Please.
As to "that could easily lead to this person being targeted by crazy vigilante types", firstly, that could be said of anything, though we do have another spectrum, running from (to a reasonable person) non-threatening through marking out undesirables to directly threatening. The marking can lead to actual threatening situations, like before a genocide, but they also overlap with valid criticism, and since we're not in a genocide situation I struggle to see how the tweets in question reach that bar. Find something that says "we should kill paedos" from LoTT and you'll have a much stronger case, otherwise you've taken up a position where you're arguing against someone who's against paedophilia, simply because they're a political opponent. That's how this endless cycle continues.
> and why express it out loud when you're supposed to look like you give a damn about CSAM?
At least get your timelines straight. He was an academic at the time and not working for twitter.
What a strange way to misinterpret something long winded. Should I have written more for you, or do you think that your preconceived notions would render that effort as moot as it is now?
> At least get your timelines straight. He was an academic at the time and not working for twitter.
a) Were all his pronouncements during this period?
b) He was writing about letting underage children onto Grindr for some nebulous reasons around that time:
> accommodate a wide variety of use cases for platforms like Grindr — including, possibly, their role in safely connecting queer young adults.
I can think of better ways for teenagers to connect than a hookup app. Can't you?
c) American date format is idiotic, I'm not interested enough to decode them all, perhaps you could do it for me as you're so precise with what others have written.
>a) Were all his pronouncements during this period?
I don't know what counts as one of his 'pronouncements', so you will have to check this for yourself.
What’s wrong with Twitter? Tiktok, Instagram, Snapchat... Mastodon?
You know, social networks that aren’t hookup apps for over 18s. Just a thought.
> I don't know what counts as one of his 'pronouncements'
His pronouncements count as his pronouncements. Why are you being so strange about a normal word?
Err, the fact that none of them offer a way to find other queer users in the same area as you. This seems like a fairly basic point. If you're living in a small town, you're not going to be able to easily find other queer people near you on any of those apps.
But why do you think that teens will be magically be safer on Snapchat or other such apps? This really seems to just be based on an excessive fear of 'gay' apps.
>Why are you being so strange about a normal word?
In general he's obviously tweeted both before and after joining twitter. So if a 'pronouncement' is just anything he said on twitter, the answer to your question is obvious.
Because they're not full of men explicitly looking for hookups.
> This really seems to just be based on an excessive fear of 'gay' apps.
Yes, it's not that Roth was making an argument indistinguishable from what a paedophile might write, nor that if he'd said it about heterosexual children and Tinder the same logic would apply, it must be that everyone against him is bigoted!
You already tried that earlier on in the thread and it sounded just as desperately idiotic then given that it required completely missing the example given of the headteacher, or just noticing what is obvious.
Rather than seeing bigotry where it's convenient - or claiming you see it - try reading the arguments put to you and coming up with something that is cogent.
> > Why are you being so strange about a normal word?
> In general he's obviously tweeted both before and after joining twitter. So if a 'pronouncement' is just anything he said on twitter, the answer to your question is obvious.
It's not, but again, if it's inconvenient to answer then don't.
> Err, the fact that none of them offer a way to find other queer users in the same area as you.
Users on all those apps have bios and can share their preferences and location, all the apps have search. You managed to meet people with less apps, less people on the internet, worse search etc. If there's a real need for this, someone can build it. As Roth himself points out, there probably isn't, but then he skips on to letting children into Grindr formally. Is noticing non sequiturs also bigotry? Do let me know.
The irony here is that you seem to basically agree with Roth. That is, you are fine with gay teens meeting each other via apps, but think that these apps should be age appropriate. For some reason you seem to think that Grindr is super scary, even though people do the exact same stuff on it (chat and share photos) that they do on Snapchat, Insta, or any number of other apps used by teens. An age-appropriate version of Grindr, which is what Roth was suggesting, would probably be *safer* than many existing apps. Snapchat, for example, will happily let you send nudes or other explicit imagery that can could quite easily be automatically blocked in the majority of cases.
By the way, if you think that Snapchat isn't full of 'men explicitly looking for hookups', I have news for you...
There are lots of blokes who like porn on Twitter and on Pornhub but to say that they're the same because of that would be an enormous stretch.
> An age-appropriate version of Grindr, which is what Roth was suggesting,
No, Roth suggested that Grindr allow minors and be made age appropriate, without giving any details of how that would work. Those two things, like Twitter and Pornhub, are not the same thing.
> If you’re correct that Snapchat etc. can be used to search for nearby queer people in the same way as Grindr,
Again, not the same. You can find what you want via search but apps like Grindr and Tinder are optimised for meeting people nearby for hookups and dating.
> that only goes to undermine your argument that teens will somehow be safer on one than the other
What is the likelihood of finding an adult gay man looking for a hookup on Twitter vs Grindr? If you're on Grindr, can others find you too, and is that easier than on Twitter?
Sure, he didn’t give any details of how it would work, but it’s not that hard to imagine what kind of changes you’d make (e.g. automatic blocking of explicit images, stricter moderation of language on profiles…). This was just one paragraph of a thesis, so I’m not sure what your point is re the lack of details.
> apps like Grindr and Tinder are optimised for meeting people nearby for hookups and dating.
Yes! That was exactly my point. Gay teens want to date just like straight teens do, but it’s less easy for them to find suitable people on regular social networks.
>You can find what you want via search [on Snap]
What makes you so sure? I assume you don’t spend your free time searching for gay teenagers in your neighborhood on Snapchat, so what is your basis for this assertion?
> What is the likelihood of finding an adult gay man looking for a hookup on Twitter vs Grindr?
I don’t know about twitter, but it’s certainly pretty high on Snapchat or Insta. A restricted version of Grindr could potentially impose much stricter limits on under 18s interacting with adults than any of the major social networks do.
A thesis isn't somewhere anyone worries about needing to cut words to fit a limit, quite the opposite, and yet he leaves us hanging with something that sounds questionable. Much like his tweets, that one about getting a crying infant mixed up with the sound of porn comes to mind. Defending that is not a hill I'd like to die on.
> > You can find what you want via search [on Snap]
> What makes you so sure?
Roth says so:
> While gay youth-oriented chat rooms and social networking services were available in the early 2000s, these services have largely fallen by the wayside, in favor of general-purpose platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat.
There's a reason why the majority of young gays are using those instead, just as the rest of us use general networks too.
> > What is the likelihood of finding an adult gay man looking for a hookup on Twitter vs Grindr?
> I don’t know about twitter, but it’s certainly pretty high on Snapchat or Insta.
It seems the search works okay then. What is the relative chance you'll find a teenager vs an adult when searching for a teenager? (On a service that is for general users vs one stocked with over 18s)
> A restricted version of Grindr
Just why? If I knew some straight kids that were finding it hard to date, my advice to them would not be "hey, perhaps you should try adult hookup apps", or upon finding out that children like to sneak into adult spaces "you know what, we should just make it safer for them". No, they should stay out of adult spaces and adults that argue for their introduction should be questioned as to what on Earth they are thinking.
"You know that place where guys and gals go to meet?"
"Like clubs?"
"Yeah. You know that sometimes there's underage girls there"
"Of course. Got to be careful."
"You know what we should do to keep them safe, let them in!"
Try saying that amongst any group of blokes I know and you'll get called a paedo immediately. Maybe jokingly, maybe not, but no one's writing a thesis about it and expecting to get away with it. Except for academics, apparently.
The thesis wasn’t about creating dating apps for queer teenagers, so that’s why he doesn’t say much on the subject. Remember that this paragraph was picked out by people desperately trolling for anything that could be used to smear him. You seem to suggest at several points that this thesis is entirely about young queer people (“no-one’s writing a thesis about it”), but you’ve been misled on that point.
The rest of your post is frankly too much of a mess of mischaracterization to respond to. (To take only the most egregious example, I think you must recognize that Roth does not say that Snapchat is good for finding other queer people in one’s local area in the section you quote.) You’re becoming so oddly insistent on Snapchat’s utility as a location-aware queer hookup/dating app that you’re even undermining your own implied conspiracy theory. Why would Roth even care about luring young gay guys onto Grindr if he can find legions of them in his neighborhood on Snap? Snap already allows under 18s.
In my analogy, Roth is arguing that we allow children into adult nightclubs because they sneak in, not that we have separate clubs for them.
And it's I, not Roth, who already argued for "youth clubs". To quote myself “If there's a real need for this, someone can build it.” He makes no such pronouncement.
There's only 3 choices for where to put young people:
1. general apps
2. adult-only apps
3. youth-only apps
He made the case for 2, I'm anti-2 and suggest 1 or 3. Very simple, try to keep up.
> The thesis wasn’t about creating dating apps for queer teenagers, so that’s why he doesn’t say much on the subject.
I don't care. He writes just enough to be questionable and not enough to be defensible.
> You seem to suggest at several points that this thesis is entirely about young queer people (“no-one’s writing a thesis about it”), but you’ve been misled on that point.
As I wrote above, I have a copy of the thesis, I haven't been misled, you've just continued to display a wilful inability to read my comments.
> The rest of your post is frankly too much of a mess of mischaracterization to respond to.
And yet you do. This will be fun and ironic.
> You’re becoming so oddly insistent on Snapchat’s utility as as a location-aware queer hookup/dating app
That's weird because I've barely mentioned Snapchat. I've mentioned it once myself, and as a general app, not as "as a location-aware queer hookup/dating app". You have have mentioned it 10 times. Hence, every other time I've mentioned it has been quoting you.
Do you actually read the responses you get?
> you’re even undermining your own implied conspiracy theory
We're talking about Roth, a single person, there cannot be a conspiracy. I can see now why you reacted so strangely to the use of "pronouncement". Please, pick up a dictionary and use it.
> Why would Roth even care about luring young gay guys onto Grindr if he can find legions of them in his neighborhood on Snap?
I can think of several reasons why someone sexually interested in under 18s would want that:
- convenience
- self selection by the target demographic
- plausible deniability
- grooming
More difficult on a general app. In addition, when he was in charge of moderating a general app, he suppressed use of the word groomer. So many strange coincidences.
But that would be to miss the point as badly as you are wont to do. The point is, it seems perfectly reasonable to question his pronouncements and behaviour.
Great, so you can see its utility for queer teenagers then (who as a general rule are likely to be sexually interested in people around their own age).
I can also see the sexual utility for underage girls and boys if they let underage girls and boys into nightclubs but I wouldn't advocate that as nightclubs are adult spaces. Same goes for Grindr and Tinder et al.
Is what you're proposing a common position amongst gay men?
>Is what you're proposing a common position amongst gay men?
What is it that you take me to be proposing? Also, whatever it is, how would I know if it's a common position among gay men?
Or is it that you're just dogwhistling "Are all gay men pedos?" – in which case, the answer is no.
"While gay youth-oriented chat rooms and social networking services were available in the early 2000s, these services have largely fallen by the wayside, in favor of general-purpose platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat. Perhaps this is truly representative of an increasingly absent demand among young adults for networked spaces to engage with peers about their sexuality; but it’s worth considering how, if at all, the current generation of popular sites of gay networked sociability might fit into an overall queer social landscape that increasingly includes individuals under the age of 18. Even with the service’s extensive content management, Grindr may well be too lewd or too hook-up-oriented to be a safe and age-appropriate resource for teenagers; but the fact that people under 18 are on these services already indicates that we can’t readily dismiss these platforms out of hand as loci for queer youth culture. Rather than merely trying to absolve themselves of legal responsibility or, worse, trying to drive out teenagers entirely, service providers should instead focus on crafting safety strategies that can accommodate a wide variety of use cases for platforms like Grindr — including, possibly, their role in safely connecting queer young adults."[1]
[1] https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=377...
There’s a reason gays use Grindr, because they have a sexual preference and want to meet others with that sexual preference for sex. If they wanted to just chat they could go on Twitter and, you know, chat with anyone - gay or not - because it’s general purpose. Is it difficult to find gay people on Twitter?
If some bloke starts writing that we should let young girls on Tinder because they already use it and, god forbid they could just use Twitter for a chat, it’s too general purpose, they need a hookup app for interaction, feel free to label him a paedo too because that’s what it sounds like.
Sweeney isn't on the same level at all. He's tracking jets. Airports are full of security. The last time Internet posts led to an attack on an airplane was never, unless we're counting al-Qaeda's private message infrastructure.
Was this the case with the stalker? From what I can tell the airplane landed the day before, and I haven't seen any evidence that the incident occurred near the airport.
really didn't expect my initial comment to lead to a shitstorm...
The other person claimed that doxxing wasn't illegal, and therefore implied that it was OK.
Which is why I asked them if they are OK with being doxxed themselves.
If they disagree, and say that they do not support doxxing, then yes I completely agree.
But they would have to take back their previous statement to make that claim.
All they got to do is say that they oppose doxxing.
I think that is a perfectly reasonable and allowed question to ask them, given that the thread is about doxxing.
Btw, do you personally oppose doxxing and/or information that someone has posted publicly, jacquesm?
Because you, jacquesm, have not made your stance clear on that topic.
We've had to ask you this more than once:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29629700 (Dec 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21499309 (Nov 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19342820 (March 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14610460 (June 2017)
I don't want to ban you, but if this keeps up, we'll end up having to. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Twitter may be a private entity but the lawsuit is clearly meant to stifle the distribution of public information. Now that he owns one of the largest social media platforms used to distribute stuff like CALFire emergency announcements, that jet information is not only already public but arguably that information is now in the public interest
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_pu...
Unfortunately this means enterprising billionaires might be able to forum shop the SLAPP lawsuit to states where it’s less likely to bite them later.
IANAL and genuinely curious, how much further can Musk shop around? To the state Sweeney’s corp is in (if he has one)? Does some random court in Kansas or whatever have the jurisdiction to slap a meaningful injunction against someone who’s never stepped in the state? I doubt Musk would be able to actually recover any funds that way but again IANAL and I’m curious. Can he make this federal?
Musk is literally trying to sue a twenty year old college student. Might as well try bleeding a rock. Is Musk so out of touch that he really thinks that he can get anything but a pyrrhic victory?
Again, I’m asking about the jurisdiction which decides whether Sweeney will have anti-slapp to defend him. If so, Musk’s case can get dismissed with prejudice at the first hearing and the courts in some states will even fine him for wasting everyone’s time.
Getting sued by Musk will hopefully be a less giant pain in the ass than without an anti-SLAPP statue. But it still could be quite painful. And just the threat of the lawsuit is pain on its own and may have a chilling effect on both the target and others.
Yeah, ouch. I had thought the legal process could be terminated sooner but the defendant in the first case study Hill v. Heslep et al still had over $100k in legal fees (which they were awarded after winning the anti-SLAPP motion), though that seems to have had a complicated second prong due to California’s new revenge porn laws.
I hope Sweeney opens up a legal defense fund and Streisands Musk to victory.
It would be a worthy cause, a very high profile case, and (depending on the jurisdiction) a not-insignificant chance of recovering fees. I'd be willing to bet Sweeney won't have to front the cash for his defense. But, again, if he does, it's a pot I'd throw some money into.
That’s pretty monstrous.
If there is a kidnapping or murder down the line, your money will have helped enable it.
Donating to a doxxer with the knowledge that their work has already played a role in leading a stalker to the target’s young child is monstrous. Full stop.
To my knowledge most cars don’t have tail numbers, and don’t register their flight plan with the FAA, so I don’t really understand the connection you’re drawing.
* The discussion is in a thread about SLAPP, with the point of contention being that Elon is suing to intimidate rather than for damages
* Elon has, in the past, implicitly and explicitly demonstrated approval of such activities
* It is unclear whether the information led to the attack
That, plus that fact that the money is not going to run the account directly, but pay for legal fees in the court case.
There's a lot of discussion here on all these topics. Ignoring them completely and jumping immediately to a conclusion that lets you call someone a horrible person is not reasonable or responding in good faith. You can make your point and disagree without lowering the quality of discussion.
If any of {"the information is public/protected under the First Amendment", "Elon is suing to harass this person", "Elon is just straight up lying about the incident", "the attack has nothing to do with the account", "this is something Elon actually said he supports in the past"} are true the point being made changes dramatically. I don't think any of them have been settled at all. I'm sure 'AlchemistCamp has opinions on them as do I but in situations like these it's generally appropriate to make comments taking this uncertainty into account. Like, it could even be a curious comment, "it seems like this person's account is actively harming Elon's family, why would you possibly want to send money to fund it?", but as it stands right now it just jumps immediately into making the conversation worse.
On the flip side, I feel the problems in my comment, which I freely accept (…though not as bad faith), do not actually significantly alter its meaning. Nor do I think it ignores surrounding context like the comment I replied to did. My point was "I think your comment is bad because you jumped to a conclusion which let you dunk on this person's actions" and I wrote "I think your comment is bad because you jumped to a conclusion which let you dunk on this person" and I feel that this is something a reasonable person could end up doing, even if it's obviously not correct. Perhaps I'm missing what led you to focus on that part in particular, rather than the rest of the comment, where I feel the meat of it lies?
1) Contrary to your initial claims, I made an ethical criticism of a a behavior not a person (and even explicitly clarified this in a sibling comment)
2) The discussion about SLAPP was an off-topic tangent to the primary conversation of the account suspension and the security risks the anti-doxxing rule addressed
Bringing the discussion from the tangent thread to the primary topic is an improvement, not a worsening of the discussion.
3) Your implication that I “cruised over the entire” context of the thread of more than 1000 others comments to make snap posting is false on two counts. There were fewer than 1000 comments at the time and I actually had read over a hundred and already commented elsewhere first.
4) My position isn’t even close to extreme. Funding someone who is regularly de-anonymizing and broadcasting people’s real-time location coordinates against their wishes, despite being fully aware that doing so presents a security risk is morally reprehensible to many, many people—an important bit of context you yourself seem to have worked hard “to ignore”, in your own terminology.
You’ve made repeated made long-winded, meandering complaints about my critical 3-sentence comment, but at the least you’ll have to grant my comment didn’t make untrue assumptions about the other poster’s process of reading the thread, their frame of mind, their good faith in approaching the discussion, their reasoning process or their opinions.
I criticized only the specific course of action the commenter said they were planning.
Actually, if you came into the comment thread where a dozen people were already discussing this possibility, and just left a reply to one of the comments of something along the lines of "oh I guess Google thinks social is too hard, they want to focus on Android now"…that's kind of weird, right? This thread was operating under the assumption that Elon was basically lying, and trying to intimidate the ElonJet guy. The person who was going to fund him was clearly doing it because he thought he was giving money to the little guy standing up to the SLAPP abuser. When I said you waltzed in it's that you just came with "I believe every single word from Elon's side of the story and this happens to mean that you are funding a terrible thing". That was not the assumption that this thread was operating under. You can disagree with that assumption but you didn't go "guys why do you even think this is a SLAPP lawsuit?", you went "why are you funding a doxxer who might murder children". How is this an improvement to the discussion?
Objection, Your Honor, assumes facts not in evidence.
This knowledge doesn't exist. It's asserted without evidence.
I disagree with all of your factual assumptions, so I then disagree with your moral conclusion.
You can call me monstrous if you want. I frankly don’t care about your opinion of me at all. I’m happy to discuss my moral framework with you if you want, but we’re so far apart on the factual basis that I don’t think it’d be worth the time.
Tracking the movements of wealthy targets in real time has zero value in terms of political freedoms. It’s primarily of use to kidnappers and other criminals. There’s no getting around the fact that it’s a security risk.
I mentioned factual disagreement, and those still exist. Without conceding any of those, this is our moral and philosophical disagreement. I don’t think the power of the state should bar all speech that you personally decide has 0 political value.
I think the first amendment rightly tolerates speech, even speech that many people strongly disagree with. I think the government should be extremely hesitant about telling people they can’t speak because their words have “zero political value”.
And I would vigorously oppose a party who is attempting to use the government to punish someone for speaking.
Look, if Elon Musk brings an action that alleges very clear defamation, or if he shows that Sweeney was actively inciting harassment I’d consider otherwise. But if the legal action is only for the actions publicly alleged (posting flight information), that’s simply protected speech by the first amendment. A lawsuit to suppress clearly protected speech is legal thuggery, and I would vigorously oppose that lawsuit.
In much the same way I’ve donated to the ACLU who has stood up for the rights of people I despise to speak.
I get where you’re coming from, though. Replace “Elon’s location data” with “Elon is horrible” or “we should tax billionaires at 99%” and I’d also support the right to broadcast it far and wide.
As is absolutely you right! And, were this more private data (like the location of his car being published), I’d be much closer to agreeing with you position.
I think the SCOTUS position on “reasonable expectation of privacy” is not great for taking into account the way our panopticon is able to process so much data that used to be public, but hard to gather at scale.
I’d be pretty willing to be convinced that we should have a serious discussion on the merits and drawbacks of significantly expanding privacy rights, to make some of that illegal.
That being said, the movements of airplanes are inherently public information right now, and already public “at scale”, so I just don’t see a world where I’d agree that aircraft movements should be a part of that framework.
> the belief that the US 1st amendment actually does protect it.
This is a less subjective claim, and is just not accurate. The first amendment absolutely allows someone to publish that information. It’s published publicly by the government! The first amendment absolutely unambiguously protects that information currently.
Musk needs to go after the stalker. He deserves a good SLAPP'ing. Fuck billionaires trying to buy their way to immunity to the consequences of their own daft behavior.
Let me be more specific:
What does your comment mean, with regards to the context it is in? What specific things make what you are contending true?
"Courts struck down anti-SLAPP laws in Washington and Minnesota, and Washington enacted an updated law
Courts in Washington and Minnesota struck down their states’ anti-SLAPP laws, finding them unconstitutional under their respective state constitutions. As discussed above, however, Washington enacted an updated anti-SLAPP law in 2021 that addressed the concerns of the state supreme court.
In 2016, a Minnesota appellate court similarly found that state’s anti-SLAPP law unconstitutional, finding that the law “deprive[s] the non-moving party of the right to a jury trial by requiring a court to make pretrial factual findings to determine whether the moving party is immune from liability.” Mobile Diagnostic Imaging v. Hooten, 889 N.W.2d 27, 35 (Minn. Ct. App. 2016). The following year, the Minnesota Supreme Court agreed, finding that state’s anti-SLAPP law unconstitutional as applied to claims alleging torts because it requires a district court to make pretrial factual finding in violation of the plaintiff’s right to a trial by jury under the Minnesota constitution. Leiendecker v. Asian Women United of Minn., 895 N.W.2d 623, 637–38 (Minn. 2017). These decisions raise concerns that courts in other states that recognize a plaintiff’s right to a trial by jury may follow suit."
From that, I don't know that it's reasonable to conclude that "they likely can't protect Sweeney at all", but IANAL.
The only bad faith argument here is claiming publishing publicly available information is somehow endangerment.
What where the causes? How can we prevent this from happening again? What do other high profile perons do to prevent this from happening?
Elon loves to shove himself front and center into the public eye and to stoke a fanbase. Large groups of people inevitably contain some crazy ones. Obsessive para-social relations often lead to unhinged fans stalking or harassing the targets of their obsession. This is so common it has a term coined by Eminem: "Stan".
> How can we prevent this from happening again?
Celebrities are often stalked not just by fans but by reporters. Princess Di was arguably put in a situation by photographers which led to a car crash and her death. It appears the solutions are either:
(1) Don't be famous, or be the type of famous person that has a low profile (there are a lot of them)
(2) If you are a billionaire then you can afford a security detail -- get one
(3) Support real mental health efforts and legislation which funds support for people with mental health issues, instead of sticking them in prison or making them live on the street
The only defense against stalkers is to avoid being stalked or to physically prevent them from stalking you. What is your solution?
Elon's case isn't exactly average even among the ultra-rich.
Not defending the ban, but the context is a bit more complex than posting something off of a public site onto twitter.
To me it doesn't just feel like extortion, it straight up is extortion.
https://www.protocol.com/elon-musk-flight-tracker#toggle-gdp...
Edit: looked this up apparently Elon offered him 5k which he rejected and asked 50k instead. So I guess neither have the moral high ground.
So Elonjet taking the information publicly available, sharing it, and people "harassing" Elon is similar enough.
Again, before Elon bought twitter the narative was that twitter as a private platform could ban anyone they wanted for no reason at all, so if that logic was reasonable then it should be reasonable now.
The sad part is I’m sure Elon can bury this guy in fees even if the lawsuit is ultimately ruled as entirely without merit.