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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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And? The ban was done according to the rule against sharing people's location data, so what more do you want? It's a private company, after all. I hope all the vile antifa doxxing accounts targeting kids get banned and prosecuted too. What else can I say but "purge them, they have no right to free speech on someone else's platform"?

Can you point to an instance of you being upset about a non-leftist account being banned? Why do you care about this one?

And? The ban was done according to the rule against sharing people's location data, so what more do you want? It's a private company, after all.

I'm not sure there's anything I "want" as such. I'm just amused by Elon's quick 180 on his own free speech commitments.

Can you point to an instance of you being upset about a non-leftist account being banned? Why do you care about this one?

I'm not sure I could point to an instance of my being outraged at a leftist account being banned, tbh. I care about this one because of its plain demonstration of Elon's lie about being committed to freedom of speech on Twitter.

Then I guess my answer to your question is "pretty well actually," because he actually seems to be learning that free speech absolutism can't be extended to groups that want to abolish free speech and destroy him. "So much for the tolerant right" is as lame an argument as when conservatives tried to use it to universal jeering and gloating.

I expected he'd eventually learn once he was in the driver's seat, but maybe he'll actually pick it up fast enough to avoid any stupid mistakes like providing the attackers a platform.

I am very interested in hearing how an automated account posting publically available flight plan information "want[s] to abolish free speech."

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.

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

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.