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The information is public because there wasn't an obvious reason to make it private, and making it private would presumably impose additional costs.
I'm comfortable asserting that the account is posting the flight information of billionaires because the person who made it doesn't like billionaires, and sees this as an easy way to hurt them as badly as he can without getting in too much trouble. Granted, mass-dissemination of specific information about their movements and locations doesn't hurt them very badly; the additional risk added to their lives is likely infinitesimal. But it didn't cost him much of anything to do, and he didn't get in trouble, and it is, after all, the thought that counts. He's doing his part to make it slightly more likely that something very bad happens to a person he doesn't like, and in a way he can't be held accountable for. When this sort of behavior is tolerated, it proliferates. When it proliferates, the odds of something bad actually happening can go up a whole lot.
I'd guess it's probably pretty unlikely that he's doing this specifically about Musk's pro-freedom-of-expression stances, and rather was already doing it simply because he despises billionaires. Still, I'm confident he's not actually on Musk's side on the Free Expression question either. If Musk hopes to preserve the liberal ideal, people like this guy absolutely are his enemy, and must be fought.
Does that paint a clearer chain of logic for you?
[EDIT] - Nope, Sweeney appears to be a Musk fan and a plane nerd, and the above culture war narrative is baseless.
No. This guy tracked lots more wealthy people that Elon, and no one of them complained that putting publicly available info on Twitter makes them feel unsafe. Including Russian oligarchs, who possess fraction of Elon's net worth while having several magnitudes more of serious enemies.
So, it is not "poor Elon so afraid, please stop", it is more like "how dare you lowly peasants look at mighty lord!"
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Isn't "he's a nerd who likes flight data" just as plausible? It's hard to tell, as pushshift's twitter data is private because twitter doesn't let one publicly index twitter, so I can't search his now-suspended tweets, but his website looks a lot more like 'plane nerd' than 'anticapitalist'
It's not the way I would bet, or just have bet, but if there's no evidence of him being generally anti-billionaire and lots of evidence of him being a plane nerd, a prompt mea culpa is the appropriate response. Certainly I've presented no evidence of him actually being anti-billionaire, and that website looks pretty plane-nerdy, so that's good enough to shift my opinion.
https://instagram.com/p/CSGXpRLrT90/ Looks like he's just a SpaceX fan, sad case of friendly fire. (Also he has a truth.social account, and I'm pretty sure a communist can't enter that website without being struck by lightning or mysteriously bursting into flame).
If Musk was smart he'd offer the guy a job.
Good find. Edited the above.
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I think billionaires who push green products should have their energy intensive consumption highlighted. A significant portion of Elon's wealth comes from our collective taxes and higher prices on basic cars subsidizing expensive cars for big spenders to save the planet. Him burning some fraction of that energy savings galavanting alone in a jet should be publicized along with all the other rich doing the same.
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