Hacker Remix

Meta suspends accounts tracking jets

43 points by perihelions 9 months ago | 36 comments

amatecha 9 months ago

IMO, people who own and regularly fly in private jets are definitely worthy of the scrutiny -- not to mention the flight tracking data is public information.

That said, to me it's redundant: social platforms owned by publicly-traded corporations are probably not worth enriching with your free content anyways. Every login, every post, every "favorite"/"like" is literally growing their profits.

aeternum 9 months ago

The tyranny of the majority. Doxing "me" should of course be illegal but for certain groups of "others", it's just fine.

BadHumans 9 months ago

Others make billions selling every detail about your life. At the very least it's hypocritical.

bsder 9 months ago

Rules for thee but not for me.

Zuck sure likes vacuuming up and aggregating everybody else's information but gets cranky when someone starts doing the same to him.

eynsham 9 months ago

Doxxing is when someone aggregates publicly available information, I see.

phil21 9 months ago

Yes, that's pretty much the definition of doxxing. And then publishing it in a public forum for everyone to see.

What did you think it was? Anything else would typically be illegal illegal.

Pretty much anyone's (in the US at least) information is relatively public. This includes addresses, phone numbers, real estate transactions, criminal records, and far more. Most things people think of as private simply are not.

Hence why doxxing is against ToS for most platforms.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 9 months ago

Actually, yes, it is. Not trying to say anything on the topic of doxxing billionaires vs. doxxing a member of the masses but, as a member of said masses, I understand that my social security number, home address, name, and date of birth, to name a few, are publicly available information. Aggregating that information on some forum is literally what people call doxxing.

vdqtp3 9 months ago

I'd argue that doxxing is when that data is linked to lcnPylGDnU4H9OF. It's different when the identity data is compiled but no associated with "identify this person" (whether real world like a video or semi-anonymous virtual identities)

ForHackernews 9 months ago

Don't like it? Fly commercial.

aeternum 9 months ago

Neighbor sets up a camera pointing at your driveway that posts to socials whenever you come and go.

Don't like it? Don't own a house or car.

clipsy 9 months ago

Unfortunately, that's an accurate description of how little privacy the vast majority of us have.

ForHackernews 9 months ago

It's extraordinarily easy to be not-famous. I don't have any sympathy for people who deliberately court wealth and fame and then whine about the minor drawbacks that come along with them.

WalterSobchak 9 months ago

https://archive.is/4G3Uj

ryandrake 9 months ago

> Andy Stone, a spokesman for Meta, which also owns Facebook, said the accounts were disabled for “violating our privacy policy,” that they posed a “risk of physical harm of individuals,” and that the decision followed the recommendation of Meta’s independent Oversight Board.

I love how they just spew vague nonsense, unchallenged. How exactly does knowing that Celebrity X traveled from LA to NYC yesterday "pose a risk of physical harm?" Show the cause and effect, Andy Stone. Paint a believable picture that connects the dots from this information to "harm." But, Andy Stone will never have to actually do that or be specific because journalists just publish corporate PR statements without pushback or probing.

aeternum 9 months ago

>How exactly does knowing that Celebrity X traveled from LA to NYC yesterday "pose a risk of physical harm?"

It's not just "travelled" it's "travelling". You can track the jet in realtime and if on a flight plan (which is most of the time) you can determine their destination ahead of time along with a highly accurate arrival time.

Paparazzi or more nefarious actors can then wait at the private airport terminal. It's also not theoretical as Elon's ex-wife + kids were attacked using this method and Paparazzi uses it regularly.

The best argument against this is that Meta banning it doesn't do much as people can still query FAA data directly.

waffleiron 9 months ago

We should not longer have music festivals with this argumentation (as a random example from millions). People exactly know where and what time famous are at a specific location. Sure it might not be "highly accurate timing" but lets be honest a stalker doesn’t care about a bunch of hours more or less.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1842048755169690103

Oh no Musk revealed where he’s going to be, someone could wait for him there.

It’s quite obvious that this is not about stalking as Elon loves being seen/heard and doesn't shy away from the public.

aeternum 9 months ago

What is it about then? Elon himself has said he's fine with people posting his flights with a delay.

True to his word, there are active accounts on X doing just that: https://x.com/elonjetnextday

waffleiron 9 months ago

Not sure, but as you can see from the pinned post of the account you linked, Elon even livestreams himself driving.

Could it be related to not wanting to give too up to date information that could be business related? I am just guessing, but maybe there is a fear that his flights could be used to derive information about Tesla/X/SpaceX incidents etc?

aeternum 9 months ago

Maybe but I believe it is about safety, Elon himself chooses to live in the spotlight but his family doesn't. The real-time jet tracking puts his family at risk not just him.

mthoms 9 months ago

>It's also not theoretical as Elon's ex-wife + kids were attacked using this method and Paparazzi uses it regularly.

There's no evidence that this incident involved the jet tracking. It occurred in the neighbourhood where his ex-wife lives.

https://archive.is/RWW4T

(Washington Post)

7e 9 months ago

https://www.businessinsider.com/grimes-tracked-elon-musk-pri... is a hilarious related story.

It's trivial for the ultra rich to avoid this tracking: just use jet shares.

cadamsau 9 months ago

Seems they could move the tracking to their own website, no?

GuB-42 9 months ago

They are already in several places https://grndcntrl.net/links/

9 months ago

greatgib 9 months ago

Now private companies are deciding of their own extrajudicial laws.

SllX 9 months ago

Not extrajudicial laws. Terms of Service. Private companies can’t pass laws and Facebook is not an unrestricted hosting provider. Never has been.

You can disagree with Facebook’s choice without disputing their ability to do something, in this case ban a bunch of jet tracking accounts.

zeroonetwothree 9 months ago

This is nonsensical, private companies (like individuals) can choose who they allow to use their products, just like they always have.

globular-toast 9 months ago

You should say services, not products. People who make products can't generally choose who gets to use them.

But, in any case, private companies should never be both allowed to do what they like and allowed to be monopolies. Since we don't break up monopolies any more, that means they can't be allowed to do what they like.

fsflover 9 months ago

They shouldn't be able to if they're monopolies.

123yawaworht456 9 months ago

now?

between 2016 and twitter's acquisition, during the massive campaign to crush political dissent on all social media, the common and oft-repeated wisdom was something among the lines of "corporations are free to do whatever they want with their platforms"

bigfatkitten 9 months ago

But they allow CSAM to more or less go unchecked on Facebook. What interesting priorities they have.

Sohcahtoa82 9 months ago

How do you even come up with a conclusion like that?

bigfatkitten 9 months ago

That would be a good question for Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Stanford Internet Observatory, the Wall Street Journal and numerous other organisations who have written at length about the problem.

https://archive.is/ter4Y https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/07/meta-inst...

Their findings mirror my own experience. I've got a throwaway account that has no friends, and follows no groups.

In the absence of anything else to go on as to my preferences, the "algorithm" fills my feed mainly with flat earth theories, anti transgender content and child sexual exploitation.

When I report the latter, around 90% of the time I receive a response that says:

We didn't remove this post

To keep our review process as fair as possible, we use the same set of Community Standards to review all reports.

We've taken a look and found that this content doesn't go against our Community Standards.

We understand that this might be upsetting and so we recommend exploring the options available to control what you see.

You can also request a review within 180 days if you disagree with the decision to not take this down.

loeg 9 months ago

Your references do not support your claim that Facebook allows CSAM unchecked. It is certainly true that it struggles to address 100% of it. But not for lack of trying.

bigfatkitten 9 months ago

They actively refuse to take action on material brought to their attention via the trust and safety channels ostensibly provided for that very purpose. That isn't "trying", that is doing less than the bare minimum.

> When a Journal research account flagged many such groups via user reports, the company often declared them to be acceptable. “We’ve taken a look and found that the group doesn’t go against our Community Standards,” Facebook replied to a report about a large Facebook group named “Incest.” Only after the Journal brought specific groups to the attention of Meta’s communications staff did the company remove them.

WSJ had contacts in Meta's communication team that they could use to sidestep the process, but what is a normal user meant to do? Print copies and mail them to Zuckerberg at his house?

loeg 9 months ago

They absolutely do not.

bediger4000 9 months ago

Class solidarity with other billionaires and similarly rich folk explains it easily.

twisterius 9 months ago

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