here are some hyper-polluting individuals:
- the Rolling Stones’ Boeing 767 (5,046 tonnes of CO2)
- Lawrence Stroll (1,512 flights)
- Thirty-nine jets linked to 30 Russian oligarchs – (30,701 tonnes of CO2)
relevant quote:
But I will say this, a movement can’t get along without a devil, and across the whole political spectrum there is a misogynistic tendency to choose a female devil, whether it’s Anita Bryant, Hillary Clinton, Marie Antoinette, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or J.K. Rowling [or Taylor Swift]. And there’s always gonna be people who seize on any opportunity to be misogynistic. So I would advise trans people and our allies [or environmentalists] to keep in mind, that J.K. Rowling [Taylor Swift] is not the final boss of transphobia [anti-environmentalism]. She’s not our devil. The devil is the Republican Party, the Conservative Party.
—Natalie Wynn (emphasis and bracket text mine)
edit: if you can’t respond to this without using the c*nt expletive it is not helping your case lmao. mods are we okay with this? in any case, please don’t feed the trolls.
edit 2/FAQ: “but why did she threaten legal action against that college kid though?” still shitty, but refer to this comment for a good explanation of the context behind that decision.
She only threatened legal action since those memes started before when her flight movements got the attention of the right in an attempt to make her less credible of a voice speaking out against trump. And knowing how batshit insane trump cultists can be and how she’s basically the single most hated person of his base I’m not surprised that she feared for her security. Those records were public for years but the legal action only happened after someone created that meme and even fox news suddenly cared about plane emissions…
sources/timeline for the above:
- mid 2022, the media begins scrutinizing Swift for her flying patterns
- in response, Swift’s jet drops from 19 to just over 2 flights per month
- her flights pick up slightly with the start of her massive Eras tour but still significantly less than pre-July 2022
- December 6, 2023, Swift embroiled in election conspiracy theory, basically making her MAGA’s enemy number one.
- January 30, 2024, Taylor Swift gets rid of one private jet
- February 6, 2024, news outlets first report on the cease and desist.
How does this make her “actions wrong”? Because you disagree?
Yes, it’s legal for him to do what he’s doing, but it is also legal (and completely reasonable) for Swift to challenge that right because she fears for her safety. This is literally what our legal system is for.
There are a lot of insane people out there (and most of them tracking Swift’s plane at this moment are right wing psychopaths that wish her harm). I really can’t fucking blame her for wanting to do something about it.
Musk made the same argument.
Musk isn’t receiving credible rape and death threats at nearly the level of Swift (if he is at all, let’s be real) by people who are known for following through on such threats.
Look, I even empathize a little with Musk regarding that specific situation. If I were in his shoes, I also wouldn’t want an app like that to exist. I don’t think his situation warrants any kind of action to stop it because it’s really just an inconvenience for him. And he knew that it’s just an inconvenience, so how he handled himself from day to day didn’t really change.
For Swift, this is legitimate fear. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced actual fear for your life, but it’s crippling, and it effects your psyche.
To experience that on a daily basis because of an app? You bet your goddamn ass I’m going to talk to my lawyers about what my options are.
i linked your comment in the original post because yeah. this is the fact that no one gets.
the public information was available for ages and the cease and desist only happened after fox news et al sicced their rabid hoards on her.
we can still debate whether legal action was the “correct” option, but if you think it wasn’t understandable, or counts as “harassment” somehow, it’s because you have never been in the shoes of a woman who lives her whole life in fear.
How is knowing at what airport an airplane is, public information that anyone can just pull up and find without that much know how, a massive risk to safety.
And if it is, hpw is she going to stop them from dping the neglegable research themselves
It’s not about it being public information. There’s tons of shit that’s “public information,” and available to get, but there are steps that need to be taken to get it. Some more steps than others. Kind of like a soft “paywall” of sorts (minus the pay) that makes it so the internet isn’t just inundated with data constantly. And sometimes, get this, you can even be denied requests for information that’s “publicly available” if, for example, t’s deemed that you shouldn’t have it for whatever reason. But I digress…
Just because something is “publicly available information” doesn’t mean it just gets broadcasted all over the internet to anyone with a Facebook account that the algorithm knows is a hateful conservative.
It’s a joke that people are pretending that this is about free speech or something, and not about making it easier to constantly harass and threaten.
It’s about it being targeted at one specific person, and it’s about the people who are doing the targeting (which differentiates it from the Musk situation). No, not the college student who made the app, before you go there to try to undercut this argument. I’m not talking about him.
I’m talking about the people who would use a tool, that they found in their far right/conservative/republican/fascist echo chamber bubble to threaten rape and death to another human being and their loved ones.
This is kind of the crux of it, isn’t it? These people are being whipped into a frenzy by whatever hate-media they consume, and without a Fox News or Tucker Carlson or whomever else to steer that frenzy toward Taylor Swift and this app, then that info would have remained “public knowledge” behind a simple search as it probably should be.
The college kid who made the app is just a tool (witting or not).
No what I mean is the FAA has a very easy registry search, and then I go to any number of FOSS aircraft trackers and I can now find the aircraft by redgistry number. that took me what 10 minutes and I was done? no need for an app. The FAA does it because its public information the plane trackers do it because plain spotting is a genuine hobby (and public information) I am someone who holds this hobby. So taking this app down does basicly nothing, it turns 2 simple steps into 1 simple step
Ontop of this, it is unreasonable to send a LEGAL team out to send a threat when no laws a broken, in some states that is an illegal act, a request from her to stop sure is reasonable (and its reasonable for him to refuse).
It doesn’t matter how easy the search is to you or I… The people who have found this tool (or made it, I don’t know. Don’t want to accuse the student of anything untoward) are distributing it to people who would have otherwise:
never even knew such a possibility exists,
had no fucking idea how to even begin finding that information themselves regardless of how simple it may seem to you and I, and,
not have even had the idea to use the information that way in the first place.
This is basic transparency on the part of the FAA. They disseminate this information to keep track of things, and for research purposes. It was never intended to be used in this way.
In fact, if anything significant comes out of this, it would be to limit what info the FAA makes public (and it will skew toward private jets of course). So in the long run this will probably have the opposite effect of what you want.
The corporate bootlicking here is insane
Are you also anti union because a unionized stage crew threatens swifts profits and thus her ability to hire security?
Do you think margret thatcher has girl power?
While yes it will likely remove public access that is more so because that is what capital has been wanting for a while, not only that but I would argue that this is part of the intended use case, to keep track of who is using our air ways and how often. Just because its not often thought of does not mean it is not right proper or intended.
So you think it’s perfectly moral for the ultra wealthy to abuse the legal system to threaten and bully random people into submission because they are ruining the billionaires image?
And again to reiterate, this is all publically available information, anyone who wants to track her jet can do so without the tracker that guy set up. She has no legal standing in her actions.
Lol yeah bud, that’s what I said.
Dude, I understand it’s public information. I understand that current law (probably rightfully) allows air traffic to be tracked, including private jets.
I was simply doing something that you’re clearly incapable of, and empathizing (you remember empathy right?) with her position. A position that is markedly different than Musk’s, given that she receives a constant stream of legitimate death threats from people known to be violent; she has valid reason to fear for her life right now. I think I would probably do similar in such a situation.
I don’t think it’s “wrong” for her to seek to do what she can to protect herself, and that includes this.
The argument that “what they’re doing is legal” is pretty stupid too… I’m not even saying that I disagree that it should be legal, but how do you think laws change? The boundaries of them get tested in courts. This is not an abuse of the legal system, this is using it as intended.
That is in fact, literarily, what you are saying and what you are continuing to say in the rest of your comment.
Oh wont somebody please empathise with the poor billionaires that are using the insane wealth to bully people for criticising their insane over-use of private jets.
You guys are doing actual mental backflips to try and make Taylor Swift the victim here and its honestly just kind of sad.
And those people could find that same PUBLICALLY AVAILABLE information even without the guy’s tracker. So even if he did take it down, she is in literally no better position when it comes to stalkers.
Literally all getting him to take down the website does is stop people from criticising how much she uses her jet, which hurts her image. Thats it.
Like if she ACTUALLY cared that much about being tracked and her safety she could just charter private jets instead of owning her own. That way no one could track her. But she doesnt, because its not about her safety, its about her image.
Lmao swift stans are actually neurotic.
FYI (because apparently this needs to be said), I’ve never once purposefully listened to a Taylor Swift song, and besides maybe two, I couldn’t even tell you if a pop song currently playing is her or not. That’s how little I care about this person’s art/music. My feelings toward her can be described as, at most, ambivalent. I’m definitely neurotic though, but that’s unrelated to this subject.
All I’m doing is empathizing with another human being. Billionaires might be (for the most part, though I’m not sure I can imagine a more ethical way to become one than how she has) awful people, but they’re still people and they deserve basic human rights such as: not being in 24/7 fear for the lives of you and your loved ones because fascists are mad that she told young people to vote.
I’m not even advocating for taking down the site or making the info no longer publicly available. I’m literally just putting myself in her shoes and rationalizing why she did what she did and understanding that I might have done the same.
We seem to be having two completely different conversations here, which I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about given that you clearly can’t comprehend nuance. Your clear hatred for this woman is clouding your ability to be a decent human. Do better.
And all im saying is you can empathise with her without excusing her doing something immoral like harassing an innocent student.
Also you keep talking about empathy but refuse to even consider empathising with the guy being harassed by a billionaire celebrity.
Lol yeah dude that’s definitely “all you were saying”. You’re being such a reasonable interlocutor 🙄
She’s not harassing an innocent student. I don’t think it really matters to her who created it. She is just doing the one thing she can do that would maybe give her a fraction of a feeling of security back into her life. Something that I bet most of us, including you, would do. A student being involved is irrelevant.
And yeah, I do empathize with that guy as well. Assuming they didn’t create the app specifically for these types of people to be able to harass and endanger her more easily. Which he may have, I don’t really know all the details.
Isn’t that crazy? Empathizing with both people in a situation? Wild right?
Also, this pretending that it’s about giving her shit because of the environmental impact, give me a fucking break. Let’s not waste everyone’s time with that bullshit. Conservatives only “believe” in climate change, when they can use it as a cudgel against someone they feel threatened by. Actually a textbook fascist move (this isn’t a joke, it really is).
and
are contradictory statements
You are bending over backwards to excuse what she is doing. and its really just kind of sad.
Like i said last time. If she actually cared so much, she would just charter a jet instead. That would literally solve her whole problem, no one could track her and she would be perfectly safe. But you keep ignoring this point because it doesnt fit dumbass position you’ve argued yourself into where Taylor is just an innocent girl whose scared for her life 🥺 and shes just using her vast wealth to threaten people into doing what she wants because shes sooooo scaaaared.
And now you’re trying to claim everyone critical of her is a conservative? You dont think there are any leftists out here criticising the billionaire for being one the most directly polluting people on the planet?
No they’re not.
Empathizing with the guy who programmed it: An unprovoked, targeted campaign of rape threats, death threats and harassment (and the media/legal storm that follows) against another person, all because of some little thing you coded for fun in your free time (again, giving benefit of the doubt)? And then being dragged into all of this? Yeah, I empathize like a motherfucker .
No, I think the only people who give a shit about this are right wing concern trolls.
Based on the way you’ve been spelling words, it would seem you’re not actually from the US. Perhaps if you lived here, you would understand the real and actual danger this kind of stochastic terrorism as we’re seeing it every single day. Taylor Swift is a figure who has just recently become a major target of hate and actual legitimate death/rape threats from the right because she encouraged young people to vote (no, I wish I was kidding). I don’t think she even endorsed a candidate.
The GOP is so terrified of her; this is a half-assed, stochastic call to violence against a young woman who has done nothing, and this tool has gone way far beyond basic “FAA transparency,” and into tool to target and potentially ruin the lives of people who do not deserve it.
(In case anyone didn’t see my previous comment: not only am I not a Taylor Swift fan, I don’t think I could name more than one or two songs. And if a song of hers came on the radio, I wouldn’t be able to know if it was her or not)
You are insanely pathetic. Thanks for the hilarious reads.
If she wants security in life she can just stop, change and get a 9-5 job
Lmao simp. Taylor Swift does not care about you and will never acknowledge your existence.
There’s no way musk doesnt get nearly a billion death threats per day, but when your job is to be known by as many people as possible, it scales up the good and the bad.
But if either of them are having a bad day I’m sure they can dry their tears with a couple hundred dollar bills and sue some more poor people into dust (completely legally!) to make themselves feel better
I would bet my next paycheck that Taylor Swift gets at least one order of magnitude more death threats on a daily basis than Elon Musk. At least.
Let’s just say there are certain demographics that tend to lash out in that manner, and they seem to overlap quite a bit with Musk fans.
And yeah dude, I get it. They’re billionaires, it’s hard to empathize. I agree to a point that they should shut the fuck up and just wipe their tears away with $100 bills. But in this case, when we’re talking about legitimate threats against her life constantly, by people who have shown to be very capable of carrying out such threats, then I can start to see why she is doing what she’s doing. Just because she’s got money doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to live a life free from that kind of fear.
That’s all.
Then youre losing your paycheck
I worked in video games, and at one company there were five game designers, one of them a woman, the rest men.
I think she got a death/rape/etc threat once a week. One of the other designers had never even been messaged, and another designer was also the Community Manager. So, despite one guy being the literal face of the company, the single named woman on the design team got almost every single threat.
She left the industry, which is worse for it, but I don’t think anyone thought she made the wrong choice.