Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin warned of Elon Musk’s latest actions on Twitter. Vitalik said the billionaire is implementing a strategy he mentions “central planning of excessive correspondence.”
Elon Musk, who is now CEO of Twitter, has banned several Twitter accounts on charges of invasion of his privacy. He also created new policies on Twitter that allow banning accounts that share active locations. Vitalik Buterin called Musk’s actions pure authoritarianism.
It all started when Musk banned the @ElonJets account, which tracks his private jet, as well as the @CelebJets account, which tracks the private jets of various celebrities. These tracking bots take publicly available information and republish it, which is legal in the US.
Elon Musk bans accounts
Musk considers the accounts a threat to his privacy and security and went a step further by blocking the personal account of Jack Sweeney, the creator of said bot.
The billionaire quickly introduced a new Twitter policy that prohibits this “any tweet or account that shares someone’s live location”with the only exception “an emergency to support humanitarian efforts or in connection with public engagement events”.
Buterin claimed that Musk is trying to adjust Twitter’s policies to advance his opinion on any topic.
“When an action is prohibitively expensive, it leads to authoritarianism.” – said Vitalik.
“To act swiftly and decisively in response to catalysts” when the action in question is to ban things is the path to authoritarianism.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 16, 2022
According to Vitalik, Elon Musk was too quick and decisive in banning accounts as punishment, acting like a dictator.
In his remarks, the creator of Ethereum said the Twitter CEO was also wrong to ban links to Mastodon, a social media site that Musk had suspended for sharing links to the @Elonjet bot.
Community responds
After community backlash, Musk created a poll on Twitter asking public opinion about the banned accounts. About 3.1 million users, representing 59% of respondents, voted for the bans to be lifted.
Vitalik suggested that Musk should come up with a good policy that is not based on prejudice and does not prohibit rival contacts. He added that the Twitter board must give users at least a month before applying an update policy.
However, he clarified that he does not support the activities of the banned bots. Buterin concluded that he only had problems with the high speed of the trial.
“A good policy must first be decided behind a veil of ignorance and then applied.”
He also suggested that Twitter give users a month’s notice before new content moderation rules go into effect.
“Banning things should be done slowly and with a lot of speed bumps, despite the greater harm of this kind of approach”
While Buterin is clearly opposed to sudden and quick bans from Twitter, he’s not necessarily in favor of accounts tracking celebrity location.
“The concern is that the decision-making style on these bans is too close to the style of action of the previous Twitter administration, which people rightly rioted against.”
Source: Live Coins
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
