Attorneys for Taylor Swift are threatening legal action against the Florida college student who tracks the private jets of celebrities and public figures, including Swift.
But flight data is available - this guy just labels her N number and filters the data in a creepy way. I get that it’s probably causing her danger to have stalkers waiting at the destination for her - but those stalkers always had access to this flight data.
Well, yes, but I think we can at least acknowledge when public information is used to harass. Home addresses are identifiable via public tax records, but it would obviously be different if someone posted your home address and reported in real time whether or not you’re inside. We all know people actively want to stalk and harass her, and anyone making it easier to do so maybe shouldn’t, even though it’s technically legal. If someone drove around and picked up everyone who has explicitly said they’d like to rape or kill her, and dropped them off at her doorstep with knives and guns, I hope we’d all agree that’s pretty fucked up and shouldn’t be condoned.
It’s a bit like the difference between having a gun stolen out of a safe and having a gun stolen out of an unlocked car that was left parked overnight in a crowded shopping mall. Yeah, the direct culprit might have stolen it one way or another, but there’s also at least some culpability for the person who made it easy for them to steal it, and potentially later inflict harm. I’m not saying Sweeney should be charged with a crime, of course, but doxxing is poor form for a very good reason, and civil suits can be brought for all kinds of harm (direct or indirect) which are caused by actions that are otherwise legal. In the age of worldwide social media, these are boundaries that we can discuss with nuance, rather than dismissing them out of hand because the rules currently allow unfettered abuse.
If it’s not safe for people to use publicly available information then it shouldn’t be publicly available. No one was worried about it when it was used to call Musk out. Or the 1000s of people dealing with stalkers that aren’t famous enough for anyone to give a fuck about. Either protect everyone or don’t. You can’t just single out the rich white girls.
My point is just going after this guy isn’t going to fix the root of the problem. If him being able to do this is an issue then the information he is accessing should be restricted. Just making him stop won’t prevent the next person from doing it to someone else.
I don’t disagree. He’s already had his Swift-specific accounts booted from Facebook, Instagram, and Xitter and started posting instead to his “Celeb Jets” FB and IG accounts, so it’s clear he’s going to play the cat-and-mouse game indefinitely.
But again, I didn’t say a single thing about singling out rich white girls. That was a strawman you made up out of whole cloth.
That was meant more as a general statement to all the people who are up in arms about this but were jerking themselves off when it happened to musk a while back.
The federal government will take publicly available information and if it is bundled up with enough other information it is still considered classified and you can still (if you hold any sort of clearance) be in trouble for sharing that classified bundle.
Which is just to say there is legal precedent agreeing with your point, although AFAIK that responsibility only applies to folks who have already agreed to responsibly handle confidential information.
Yeah I don’t think it’s unreasonable to discuss harm avoidance here. There are likely workarounds she can employ, but it’s sad that people seem to be taking the stance that “fuck her, it’s public” is the end of the conversation. Maybe her lawyers know something we don’t about what kind of harm this is actually causing. It’s easy to cheer for Sweeney when he’s giving the middle finger to a jackass like Elon Musk, but I find it harder to stand in his “I do it because fuck you” corner when he’s weaponizing information against others who aren’t huge assholes.
Speech is protected, but threats are not. Online shit talking is protected, but cyberbullying is widely condemned. As a society we need to figure out where the line is between what’s allowable and what’s highly discouraged. “It’s legal” isn’t a useful cut off for these kinds of discussions, because we’ve recently come up with all kinds of state laws to punish stalkers when their behavior crosses the line from benign to unwelcome to harmful. Stalkers can be held criminally liable for using telephone calls, letters, telegraphs, delivery of packages or engaging in any conduct which interferes or intrudes on another’s privacy or liberty, all of which are completely legal and acceptable behaviors except when they’re employed to threaten or harass.
I always figured the point of tracking her, just like Musk, was commentary on the incredible waste that is the private jet industry. The politics of the person matter far less than the environmental consequences of their actions.
I don’t disagree, but if obsessed incels are using this to assist in stalking and harassing her and it poses an immediate risk to her safety, then it obviously takes on a more immediate meaning than whether or not people can use it to shame her for being environmentally reckless.
If someone drove around and picked up everyone who has explicitly said they’d like to rape or kill her, and dropped them off at her doorstep with knives and guns, I hope we’d all agree that’s pretty fucked up and shouldn’t be condoned.
We have legal ramifications for that already. That’s being an accomplice in the commission of attempted murder. And the rest of your comment is mostly the exact same thing, we have laws for when we cross a particular line.
The thing is the publishing flight information on a social media site isn’t technically crossing a line. Now I’ll tell everyone here the same thing I said with Musk’s whole thing. As citizens, we have to lobby for any of those lines to be redrawn. That’s the same thing here. Should we place that line elsewhere? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s for us to dictate.
But as it stands, we can extrapolate all kinds of bad things that could come to pass and a lot of those are very illegal. But at the moment, what the person is doing is distinctly not illegal. Should it be? Maybe. But it is currently not. Can it lead to bad things? Yes. That’s kind of with anything in terms of public information.
The balance that is traditionally struck, is a balance between the public’s need to know and an individual’s right to privacy. There’s not hard and fast rules on where we put the line on that and finding the right spot today for that line, doesn’t mean that it’s the right spot for it tomorrow. Society changes and sometimes our laws must change with it. Sometimes it shouldn’t change. But that’s for us the Citizens to direct.
In the age of worldwide social media
And I’m just going to say this is with a LOT of things. At the moment our laws woefully handle social media because it’s just so new and law takes so long to catch up. But that’s what I was getting at with Elon Tracker back in the day. Musk can go to the Government to ask for laws to be updated, not get petty and ban folks off his social media site. Now Musk has every right to ban who he deems fit to be banned. It is absolutely his ship to wreck here. But it was pretty petty when Musk could have channeled a lot of that energy into getting new laws enacted and we could have avoided this whole thing with Swift. And Swift seems to be mulling litigation rather than actually reforming laws, which means this will inevitably happen again and again and again.
The solution is to get our laws up to speed with our society. And thus far from Musk and Swift there’s been every indication that people with the means to actually get a face-to-face with members of select committees in the House and Senate, are opting to take the whole thing personally than an opportunity to do good for the Nation at large. That’s my issue with the Rich on this. All of these folks thus far have taken these things personally, and rightly so because crazy people hunting you down can absolutely trigger that self preservation instinct, but there’s also a chance for them to look past how this affects just them. But we have yet to see any move in that direction without it being like Musk in the first bits of it before he banned Elon Tracker, calling for the FAA to just be completely done away with. That’s clearly not a solution that the public at large should be okay with. So for Musk, there’s likely a middle ground he could reach between where we are and a complete dismantling of Government regulations.
And for the public discourse on this, that’s my issue because it seems that public discussion on the matters related to this, start veering off into maximums and ignoring any kind of slight changes in current regulatory power. It starts becoming discussions of “oh my god so and so could be killed and here’s a what if indicating the path one COULD take to cause harm.” And yeah, those are interesting to say the least thought experiments, but they are not addressing the issue of widely disseminating that information. Something that could be resolved with new rules indicating that FAA transponder information and matchup databases operate under a limited distribution model. So one can reproduce the data for personal consumption, but cannot reproduce the data wide consumption. Much like the same way the NFL (because we’re talking Swift here so apt entity to pull in) says you can have a Super Bowl party but you cannot have a projector for your entire neighborhood. There’s a middle somewhere and I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers, but just running the extremes doesn’t talk about that middle. That’s my issue with the Public on this.
We have legal ramifications for that already. That’s being an accomplice in the commission of attempted murder.
Well yes, but only if the person attempts murder. If no attempt is made, there’s no crime for which the other is serving as an accomplice.
Should we place that line elsewhere? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s for us to dictate.
100% agree with this and the other two paragraphs. That’s why I’m asking these questions and trying to have a more in depth conversation than the rest of the people in this thread. I don’t know where the line is, but I’m not comfortable completely washing our hands of this until violence actually erupts. The threat alone should be enough for us to discuss the problem. Just as the threat of violence from Trump’s words is enough for us to discuss the problem, and we need not wait for his followers to break a law to condemn his rhetoric. Same kind of deal here. I don’t have to wait until someone tries to kill Taylor Swift to say that there might be a problem with streaming her location in real time.
But it was pretty petty when Musk could have channeled a lot of that energy into getting new laws enacted and we could have avoided this whole thing with Swift. And Swift seems to be mulling litigation rather than actually reforming laws, which means this will inevitably happen again and again and again.
Actually hadn’t thought of this. On second thought, I do think there’s a more constructive way to do this, and I wish high profile figures would do more to participate constructively in the political process so we don’t keep having to fight this based on personality type and affiliation.
Something that could be resolved with new rules indicating that FAA transponder information and matchup databases operate under a limited distribution model. So one can reproduce the data for personal consumption, but cannot reproduce the data wide consumption. Much like the same way the NFL (because we’re talking Swift here so apt entity to pull in) says you can have a Super Bowl party but you cannot have a projector for your entire neighborhood. There’s a middle somewhere and I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers, but just running the extremes doesn’t talk about that middle. That’s my issue with the Public on this.
I hear that loud and clear, and can’t say I disagree with any of it. Thanks for engaging respectfully and helping me understand a different perspective.
I agree, I think you’re being down voted by the people who cheered on the Elon musk tracking kid. Sure it might be legal but I think everyone can all agree they wouldn’t want this done to themselves.
99.999 percent of us here would never have this problem because we will never be close to owning a private jet, even if we wanted to for some reason. I also think most of us here agree that owning a private jet is selfish, and since its kind of a problem brought on by her own selfishness, it’s kind of hard to feel bad for her.
People who don’t have private jets get doxxed and harassed all the time because this story or that went viral. If you made a boneheaded comment to someone on the street that was recorded and uploaded, and the internet mob came for your blood, and someone made it their own personal mission to track your every move 24 hours a day, some of us would come to your defense and suggest that they might should stop for your safety. The rest of the mob would take the, “fuck you, it’s public” line you’re taking, and you’d probably have a hard time convincing them to give a shit.
Well, yes, but I think we can at least acknowledge when public information is used to harass. Home addresses are identifiable via public tax records, but it would obviously be different if someone posted your home address and reported in real time whether or not you’re inside. We all know people actively want to stalk and harass her, and anyone making it easier to do so maybe shouldn’t, even though it’s technically legal. If someone drove around and picked up everyone who has explicitly said they’d like to rape or kill her, and dropped them off at her doorstep with knives and guns, I hope we’d all agree that’s pretty fucked up and shouldn’t be condoned.
It’s a bit like the difference between having a gun stolen out of a safe and having a gun stolen out of an unlocked car that was left parked overnight in a crowded shopping mall. Yeah, the direct culprit might have stolen it one way or another, but there’s also at least some culpability for the person who made it easy for them to steal it, and potentially later inflict harm. I’m not saying Sweeney should be charged with a crime, of course, but doxxing is poor form for a very good reason, and civil suits can be brought for all kinds of harm (direct or indirect) which are caused by actions that are otherwise legal. In the age of worldwide social media, these are boundaries that we can discuss with nuance, rather than dismissing them out of hand because the rules currently allow unfettered abuse.
If it’s not safe for people to use publicly available information then it shouldn’t be publicly available. No one was worried about it when it was used to call Musk out. Or the 1000s of people dealing with stalkers that aren’t famous enough for anyone to give a fuck about. Either protect everyone or don’t. You can’t just single out the rich white girls.
I didn’t. Who are you arguing against?
My point is just going after this guy isn’t going to fix the root of the problem. If him being able to do this is an issue then the information he is accessing should be restricted. Just making him stop won’t prevent the next person from doing it to someone else.
I don’t disagree. He’s already had his Swift-specific accounts booted from Facebook, Instagram, and Xitter and started posting instead to his “Celeb Jets” FB and IG accounts, so it’s clear he’s going to play the cat-and-mouse game indefinitely.
But again, I didn’t say a single thing about singling out rich white girls. That was a strawman you made up out of whole cloth.
That was meant more as a general statement to all the people who are up in arms about this but were jerking themselves off when it happened to musk a while back.
The federal government will take publicly available information and if it is bundled up with enough other information it is still considered classified and you can still (if you hold any sort of clearance) be in trouble for sharing that classified bundle.
Which is just to say there is legal precedent agreeing with your point, although AFAIK that responsibility only applies to folks who have already agreed to responsibly handle confidential information.
Yeah I don’t think it’s unreasonable to discuss harm avoidance here. There are likely workarounds she can employ, but it’s sad that people seem to be taking the stance that “fuck her, it’s public” is the end of the conversation. Maybe her lawyers know something we don’t about what kind of harm this is actually causing. It’s easy to cheer for Sweeney when he’s giving the middle finger to a jackass like Elon Musk, but I find it harder to stand in his “I do it because fuck you” corner when he’s weaponizing information against others who aren’t huge assholes.
Speech is protected, but threats are not. Online shit talking is protected, but cyberbullying is widely condemned. As a society we need to figure out where the line is between what’s allowable and what’s highly discouraged. “It’s legal” isn’t a useful cut off for these kinds of discussions, because we’ve recently come up with all kinds of state laws to punish stalkers when their behavior crosses the line from benign to unwelcome to harmful. Stalkers can be held criminally liable for using telephone calls, letters, telegraphs, delivery of packages or engaging in any conduct which interferes or intrudes on another’s privacy or liberty, all of which are completely legal and acceptable behaviors except when they’re employed to threaten or harass.
I always figured the point of tracking her, just like Musk, was commentary on the incredible waste that is the private jet industry. The politics of the person matter far less than the environmental consequences of their actions.
I don’t disagree, but if obsessed incels are using this to assist in stalking and harassing her and it poses an immediate risk to her safety, then it obviously takes on a more immediate meaning than whether or not people can use it to shame her for being environmentally reckless.
Obsessed incels have been and will be stalking no matter if there’s flight data or not. This isn’t about that.
They will, and it is. That doesn’t mean we should willingly and gleefully make it easier for them to inflict harm.
We have legal ramifications for that already. That’s being an accomplice in the commission of attempted murder. And the rest of your comment is mostly the exact same thing, we have laws for when we cross a particular line.
The thing is the publishing flight information on a social media site isn’t technically crossing a line. Now I’ll tell everyone here the same thing I said with Musk’s whole thing. As citizens, we have to lobby for any of those lines to be redrawn. That’s the same thing here. Should we place that line elsewhere? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s for us to dictate.
But as it stands, we can extrapolate all kinds of bad things that could come to pass and a lot of those are very illegal. But at the moment, what the person is doing is distinctly not illegal. Should it be? Maybe. But it is currently not. Can it lead to bad things? Yes. That’s kind of with anything in terms of public information.
The balance that is traditionally struck, is a balance between the public’s need to know and an individual’s right to privacy. There’s not hard and fast rules on where we put the line on that and finding the right spot today for that line, doesn’t mean that it’s the right spot for it tomorrow. Society changes and sometimes our laws must change with it. Sometimes it shouldn’t change. But that’s for us the Citizens to direct.
And I’m just going to say this is with a LOT of things. At the moment our laws woefully handle social media because it’s just so new and law takes so long to catch up. But that’s what I was getting at with Elon Tracker back in the day. Musk can go to the Government to ask for laws to be updated, not get petty and ban folks off his social media site. Now Musk has every right to ban who he deems fit to be banned. It is absolutely his ship to wreck here. But it was pretty petty when Musk could have channeled a lot of that energy into getting new laws enacted and we could have avoided this whole thing with Swift. And Swift seems to be mulling litigation rather than actually reforming laws, which means this will inevitably happen again and again and again.
The solution is to get our laws up to speed with our society. And thus far from Musk and Swift there’s been every indication that people with the means to actually get a face-to-face with members of select committees in the House and Senate, are opting to take the whole thing personally than an opportunity to do good for the Nation at large. That’s my issue with the Rich on this. All of these folks thus far have taken these things personally, and rightly so because crazy people hunting you down can absolutely trigger that self preservation instinct, but there’s also a chance for them to look past how this affects just them. But we have yet to see any move in that direction without it being like Musk in the first bits of it before he banned Elon Tracker, calling for the FAA to just be completely done away with. That’s clearly not a solution that the public at large should be okay with. So for Musk, there’s likely a middle ground he could reach between where we are and a complete dismantling of Government regulations.
And for the public discourse on this, that’s my issue because it seems that public discussion on the matters related to this, start veering off into maximums and ignoring any kind of slight changes in current regulatory power. It starts becoming discussions of “oh my god so and so could be killed and here’s a what if indicating the path one COULD take to cause harm.” And yeah, those are interesting to say the least thought experiments, but they are not addressing the issue of widely disseminating that information. Something that could be resolved with new rules indicating that FAA transponder information and matchup databases operate under a limited distribution model. So one can reproduce the data for personal consumption, but cannot reproduce the data wide consumption. Much like the same way the NFL (because we’re talking Swift here so apt entity to pull in) says you can have a Super Bowl party but you cannot have a projector for your entire neighborhood. There’s a middle somewhere and I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers, but just running the extremes doesn’t talk about that middle. That’s my issue with the Public on this.
Well yes, but only if the person attempts murder. If no attempt is made, there’s no crime for which the other is serving as an accomplice.
100% agree with this and the other two paragraphs. That’s why I’m asking these questions and trying to have a more in depth conversation than the rest of the people in this thread. I don’t know where the line is, but I’m not comfortable completely washing our hands of this until violence actually erupts. The threat alone should be enough for us to discuss the problem. Just as the threat of violence from Trump’s words is enough for us to discuss the problem, and we need not wait for his followers to break a law to condemn his rhetoric. Same kind of deal here. I don’t have to wait until someone tries to kill Taylor Swift to say that there might be a problem with streaming her location in real time.
Actually hadn’t thought of this. On second thought, I do think there’s a more constructive way to do this, and I wish high profile figures would do more to participate constructively in the political process so we don’t keep having to fight this based on personality type and affiliation.
I hear that loud and clear, and can’t say I disagree with any of it. Thanks for engaging respectfully and helping me understand a different perspective.
I agree, I think you’re being down voted by the people who cheered on the Elon musk tracking kid. Sure it might be legal but I think everyone can all agree they wouldn’t want this done to themselves.
99.999 percent of us here would never have this problem because we will never be close to owning a private jet, even if we wanted to for some reason. I also think most of us here agree that owning a private jet is selfish, and since its kind of a problem brought on by her own selfishness, it’s kind of hard to feel bad for her.
People who don’t have private jets get doxxed and harassed all the time because this story or that went viral. If you made a boneheaded comment to someone on the street that was recorded and uploaded, and the internet mob came for your blood, and someone made it their own personal mission to track your every move 24 hours a day, some of us would come to your defense and suggest that they might should stop for your safety. The rest of the mob would take the, “fuck you, it’s public” line you’re taking, and you’d probably have a hard time convincing them to give a shit.