We don't expect that. He absolutely does have the right to do that.
Pointing out his banning of the account simply demonstrates his free-speech absolutist hypocrisy.
it demonstrates that he very well understands that posting things can lead to safety concerns.
he is gleeful when some people or groups have safety concerns from posts.
often he actively mocks them and portrays them as unreasonable if they express safety concerns and ask for some kind of help.
ElonJet just put the information on Twitter. And Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and now Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@elonjet
If Elon is concerned maybe he could just rent a jet as needed instead of keeping one all to himself.
Elon is looking like he got suckered into buying Twitter and now has to play the difficult and mundane role of private equity turnaround so that he can recoup his -- and his investors' -- funds. It's a huge distraction from his more important businesses.
Folks are already asking him to step down as Tesla CEO [2]. Best to kick a dog while he's down.
I think Tesla has been overvalued for some time. It's not the only EV company in the world, and soon every company (and domestic production capacity worth its salt) will be pumping out EV options for consumers. This Twitter deal was the activation energy required to jostle the Tesla stock out of its lofty position.
I hope I'm wrong, and that things at Twitter begin to stabilize. I think that SpaceX is one of the most important companies in the world right now, and it needs a leader who can continue to push the boundaries of what was thought possible.
[1] I'm thinking of putting my money where my mouth is and buying puts, which is something I rarely do.
[2] https://www.autoevolution.com/news/unconfirmed-reports-claim...
Even further? It is at $159 today from well over $300 just a few months ago.
The best time for puts was a while ago, it will be a lot harder to make the same kind of money going forward, better be careful.
Well, c'mon, this has always been the case since the very beginning under both Dorsey and Agrawal. The difference then was that the other half of the world was condemning it.
However, this makes him look bad, given he repeatedly claimed that the Twitter takeover was to make Twitter more pro free speech. Examples:
Two months ago he tweeted (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586059953311137792):
“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.
No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes“
Five weeks ago he tweeted (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456):
“My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk“
And yes, people can change their opinion, but this seems more like Twitter will be in favor of free speech, as long as Elon likes it.
The previous bans were controversial because they marginalized a voice. It was never about the specific people in question. It was basically invalidating the voice of many people since these were highly influential people or politicians.
There's a huge difference. I'm not taking a position on those particular people in any way, just saying that most people don't care about ElonJet in the slightest and why catching him on technicality here doesn't matter (in my humble opinion).
But even so, I find the hypocrisy pretty interesting here. This person bought a company for $44b to improve transparency, specifically said he wasn't going to ban this account to show his commitment to transparency, and then his new company banned the account about a month later. Not only that, but the company didn't ban the related accounts showing the location of others who didn't happen to buy the company out of their commitment to transparency.
Come on, that's interesting no matter what your view on the individual.
It's also not that he only banned the elonjet account. He banned the accounts of people posting the video that showed him being booed in SF, he banned several left leaning journalist accounts after a campaign from alt right groups [1]. It really just shows the hipocrasy, and many people are taking note.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/elon-musk-twitter-andy-n...
Why do people feel the need to respond to valid criticism with "well technically they're ALLOWED to do [thing]?" That's neither here nor there.
That is not true in all jurisdictions and definitely not in Germany. Since twitter offers it’s services to the general public, bans must be non-discriminatory and are open to challenge in court. Twitter can ban anyone who violates their ToS, but not just anyone Elon dislikes.
https://www.e-recht24.de/artikel/marketing-seo/11415-was-koe...
Sure. But since ElonJet is run from the US, in a dispute between a US company and a US user, only US law is really relevant, any foreign court is likely to dismiss the claim as outside of their jurisdiction. As far as US-based users go, he basically does have the right to ban anyone, so long as he doesn't start banning people on the basis of a protected characteristic such as race or sex.
Even if we suppose, counterfactually, that ElonJet was run from Germany – while the German legal system might in that situation be open to hearing the case, I doubt ElonJet would win, when you consider the extensive emphasis which German (and EU law) puts on privacy rights, and the fact that it is willing to go a lot further in limiting free speech in the name of privacy than the US legal system is.
I do not believe such a thing exists in Germany. The claim certainly needs a proper source.
The right to free speech entails the right to censorship. I can freely throw someone out of my house for expressing something I dislike. A publisher can refuse to publish someone's work for any reason. If someone expresses an idea others find distasteful, it is their right to boycott that person and anyone associated with them.
My problem is not with the censorship. It is with the money. Our oligarchs are comparable in power to royalty of old, and they act with no oversight and no accountability. Musk was able to waltz in and start dictating terms to millions of people. One man should not have that kind of power.
I will not claim to know where the lines should be drawn. It is clearly OK for someone to run a newsletter about local Yorkshire Terrier breeders with an iron fist, but it is clearly not OK to run a global monopoly of a social media company in the same way. I don't know what happens in the middle ground.
Now twitter doesn’t really have policies, just Elon’s whims. And those can change at any time and without any external consensus. No one knows what the rules are.
> 7:30 PM · Nov 6, 2022
For example, Valve is a private company that can ban anyone they like from Steam, but we wouldn’t hear this defense if a publisher get banned capriciously and lost their income.
