American Airlines Blocks Twitter On Troubled Flight | Hacker News Reader

American Airlines Blocks Twitter On Troubled Flight

uncrunched.com

24 pointsdwynings9 comments

I have a hard time believing they selectively blocked Twitter and it wasn't just some connectivity issue.

The Facebook post screencap implies it was an emergency landing due to a security issue. I guess the presumption behind this person not being able to access Twitter is that AA would block Twitter during a security related emergency to a) keep "terrorists" from coordinating a potential attack or b) keep passengers from leaking anything out.

If that's the case, why would they block Twitter and leave Facebook wide open? Or any other services -- why wouldn't they just shut off the internet service altogether, because clearly terrorists and normal people also can use VPNs.

From the comments....

"Jennifer Fader says: October 13, 2011 at 10:44 pm Jennifer here…. And back up in the air. Headline not quite precise. No way AA could have blocked twitter It just happened to be down while I was reporting. I moved to FB. Happily we are all a-ok wheels up and LAX bound. Anyone hear details on possible twitter outage?? So curious… And relieved. FBI is amazing they handled everything and quickly."

The plane was diverted. Perhaps it just went out of range of a GOGO ("AirCell") tower? After all, it did end up in Denver on its way from NYC to LAX, so it's feasible that instead of following a popular route with good AirCell reception, it cut across 'empty' airspace to get to Denver.

"Service is available only when it is within the operating range of the Aircell system or of an operator with which Aircell has an applicable roaming agreement. Aircell coverage locations and maps are subject to change at any time without notice."

Although, saying that, the T&C's do explicitly mention emergencies as a reason for unavailability:

"Service is subject to unavailability, including emergencies, third party service failures, transmission, equipment or network problems or limitations, interference, signal strength, maintenance and repair, and national security issues, and may be interrupted, refused, limited, or curtailed."

[1] http://www.gogoair.com/gogo/cms/work.do [2] http://www.gogoair.com/gogo/mobilecms/terms.do#term6

something unsettles me about the fact that the first thing someone would think of doing during an emergency landing is tweeting about it.

At what point does your life just become a digital narration of your activities? Kind of like those old detective movies, but duller.

I think it's about personal preference. I'd want my loved ones to know what was going on if I had the ability and we were in some kind of a situation. Nosediving is totally different from an emergency landing, obviously. Having the luxury to update people I care about is nice, in my opinion.

Where are the news reports of this incident?

someone should get a comment from AA HQ whether it is indeed corporate policy to block twitter during an emergency landing. Other possibilities may be that this is a GOGO policy, or there was just an issue connecting to twitter.

I'm afraid we're out of luck. AA doesn't communicate with their customers.

Disclaimer: Personal bias arising from poorly handled situation; may not be representative of all situations.

can we kill this?

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