As we await the Federal Reserve decision on interest rates today which more than likely will see interest rates rise by 50 bps, the most interesting story comes from an account suspension on Twitter.
On November 6, Elon had said he wouldn’t ban this account despite it tracking the movements of his private plane around the world using a bot app the account owner wrote himself. Said Elon at the time:
My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk
So what to make of the about face? There are accounts that track Bezos and Gates and Cuban and Chamath. Vicki Hollub was tracked to Omaha and as a result, investors were aware of the Buffet meeting before it was made public. Clearly, this is safety issue. It’s a doxing issue. But it’s also public information available to anyone as clever as the kid who wrote the app.
Personally, I agree with the suspension of the account but that simultaneously, all accounts that track individuals planes should be suspended as well. But then what? As we have seen in the #TwitterFiles, individuals who start with one objective in mind (….maybe the Hunter Biden story is hacked) end up at another (I know Trump didn’t violate our terms of service but can’t we ban him for something?!?). Which brings up the question of the decade, Section 230 repealing, my banning from LinkedIn and the role of social media and journalism in the future: is suspending accounts limiting free speech? What are the limits? Who decides? And where does the slippery slope stop? I want to know what you think!
In the meantime, here’s the best read I’ve seen on the sum total of the TwitterFiles thus far. It’s going to be an interesting 2023.
Twitter changed the policy for all tracking accounts in that data must be delayed by 24 hours. This is a good policy. Well done.