The account @elonjet tweeted the movements of Elon Musk's private jet, as published online by governments the world over along with all other airplane traffic. It was today suspended, reinstated, and banned again as Twitter struggled to rationalize its sudden censorship of what Musk himself had specifically described as "free speech." This evening, Musk finally explained his rationale for reneging on his promise:
Firstly, this makes no sense. If the stalker was acting on what @elonjet tweeted as evidence of Musk's own location, wouldn't he have thought Musk was in Texas? How does tweeting government-published information about Musk's private jet tell you where his personal car is? Why would a stalker use a twitter bot instead of the live feed posted at various flight-tracking websites? How can you expect to successfully sue someone for tweeting public records? It's so obviously bonkers that it's hard to believe what's being written here, even given Musk's propensity to post trollish nonsense.
Second, with the ad-hoc policy updates issued today to justify @elonjet's suspension, Twitter now formally excludes forms of legal free speech never banned before Musk bought it.
(To call it out for hypocrisy, though, is to accept a right-wing framing of free speech which is insincerely held and only posed as a device to flood the site with antisemitism, racism, sexism and homophobia. Instead of doing that, then, just accept that they are liars and dupes beyond negotiation or compromise)
