So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX

"Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O'Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America and independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann and Tony Webster had all been suspended as of Thursday evening." So all reputable journalists. They've since reopened the accounts however the point stands, they were targeted by Musk. In terms of the flight information, that's publicly available information and it is by default censorship to close such an account. So you've been given multiple examples of Musk
engaging in censorship.

I'd be interested to know the context for that list, or if it's to do with the flight information thing, then seriously? Flight information is public, but not who is on board at the time. I'm sure you wouldn't want it posted here or anywhere else that eightieschewbaccy has just departed Dublin airport bound for Alicante and his house will be unoccupied for the next two weeks. I follow some of those accounts. Aaron Rupar in particular does a great job of exposing Trump's petty ridiculousness better than the mainstream media.

Also parody accounts have been a thing for years on Twitter. They were never required to label themselves as parody cause they were obviously parodies.That system broke when they effectively destroyed the verified accounts approach. Accounts
switching their names to Musk was highlighting that very issue.

I agree with you on the verified accounts thing. That was a cack handed attempt at raising revenue which may have caused the problem you describe. But …. meh … it's not going to make me leave X. He changed the rules on Parody accounts and people are living with it.

You keep trying to sell the platform but it's coming across as a home for racists etc. Meanwhile plenty of prominent users have jumped ship since the takeover. I rarely even have people sending me Twitter links at this stage TBH. It was the norm daily pre takeover.

I'm not selling anything. I'm just arguing the opposite to most others on the thread. Speaking of which I took a peek at Meta's Threads and i can't find anyone on it that I follow on X. Or if they are on it, they haven't posted in a couple of years. Threads apparently has overtaken X on some metrics but I suspect they are mostly ordinary Joe Soaps cross posting from Instagram. If you want to see what the movers and shakers are doing, X is still the place. And yeah, it is a home for racists. There are racists in Ireland too, but I'm not abandoning Ireland either. I can avoid them easily enough.

Sniff as haughtily as you want, but your straightforward dismissal of anything left-wing will blind you to anything even remotely resembling the balance which you say you are interested in.

What I was "sniffing" at (haughtily or otherwise), was the poster's inability to make a point without a personal attack.

And I certainly didn't dismiss anything (ie everything) left-wing. I was recounting how the people on that podcast were poking fun at how far left extremists have taken themselves out of the conversation by decamping to sites like Bluesky and how that is a good thing because it leaves a more moderate cohort to advocate for left wing issues. I'm sure not everyone on Bluesky is an extremist though.

It's a term it's not meant to be biblical. I think you've taken it far too literal.

It's public information. What's your point ?

I can check that right now on any plane at anytime of the day.

You seem quite defensive of Elons decisions. Why ?

You'll probably ignore this like you ignore most of the stuff that points to a fairly opaque thought process.

I think it's more interesting that some of you think it's generally okay to publish people's private data like their location (specifically the data that links the owner to the ID of the plane whose location is public data). Or is it only in the case of people you don't like?

There can be exceptions to principles like that, which is why I asked what public interest was served by publishing Musk's plane id. Nobody answered.

Well it's suggested that his posts are promoted above other peoples. That could be true. As an experiment, I just muted him to see if that works. If that doesn't I'll block him and see what happens.

The "not interested in this" thing has always worked for me, most recently yesterday to get rid of these stupid "fafo" fight video clips.

Some of you might be interested in this piece in the Guardian by Jonathan Liew (who's been criticised himself for what he wrote recently). I don't have any issue with what he writes as a matter of his own opinion, until he says near the end that the small number of "progressives" left on X should be "shamed" and "stigmatised" into leaving. That is truly pathetic imo and will only lead to more polarisation and division.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/28/still-on-x-ask-yourself-why-platform-twitter-malign-actors-misinformation

Sorry guys. You are (wilfully) missing the point. It's what links the publicly available information to the identity of the owner of the plane. It's no different to a registration number of a car. If you have a photo of someone's plate in a public place that is public data, like a plane's transponder data. What you can't do is identify the owner to then place them at that location - no more than you would be allowed to publish the passenger manifest of a plane flying over your house. Like I said, there may be exceptions . If Musk claimed he didn't attend an Evil Tech Bro summit in Switzerland, but a journalist sees his plane at the local airport, they could reasonably claim public interest.

Are any of the journalists who only reported on the ban, still banned? If they are, then can I say I don't defend that? Is that okay? But, I don't believe for a second that a single user of X feels intimidated into not saying something that Musk finds offensive on the X platform. Click that link I posted yesterday to search for "Elon Musk". There is any amount of stuff that excoriates him and his views (even his appearance). So, it's a real stretch to regard those actions as censorship especially when some of you want to deny people the right to discuss hot topics like immigration, trans rights etc by declaring them to be hate speech outside the Overton window.

Free speech is the freedom to say things that other people find hateful. Different platforms have different rules around it and X happens to be the most liberal. If you don't like it, then just stay off it.

"Free speech is the freedom to say things that other people find hateful."

No it's not.