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Comment by andrewinardeer | Hacker News Reader

I guess the argument is did they break X's ToS?

2600 Magazine says they didn't. They posted names and email addresses of DOGE employees.

My partner works for the government in a mid level management position. I'd be pissed if someone on X posted her name and email address in an article that borderline encouraged people to email her in a not so positive manner.

It seems that X deems names and email addresses to be personal info. I'm pretty sure this was in Twitters ToS pre-Musk as well.

Why does breaking X's ToS not warrant an account suspension? You can even sneeze loudly in some subreddits without falling afoul of inciting violence.

Perhaps this is a shift away from cancel culture? I don't see why that's a bad thing.

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I suspect people are upset a because transparent government agencies, which included contact information for their employees, are being harassed, blocked, and shutdown by a dubious body which itself lacks transparency, despite claims otherwise. In short, it's hipocrisy.

Exactly. And people who think that "did the they break ToS?" is the key point here, are perhaps unaware of the rampant dishonesty that apparently became accepted even in government.

Then the consequence of having an X account blocked is not even worth a mention even in passing.

From the perspective of the DOGE detractors, how is this any different than complaining about a serial killer who doesn’t flush the toilet when they’re done?

Presumably complaining about a serial killers toilet doesn't achieve anything. What am I missing?

Exactly. Why is it a story that a private company banned an account for posting content that violates it’s ToS AS WELL AS targets a group of people special to the primary owner of said company? This story is absolutely nothing other than adding synthetic fuel to the fire that already hates Elon.

Because that story has some reach. Lots of journalists are still on twitter for example.

Would you agree the effect of that reach is only further division? Where is the “new” part of the “news”?

To me, this reads like: Breaking: runners in ultramarathon still running in same direction

But your partner's government contact info (name and email) is already accessible, either via a government website or via FOIA. The issue here is that the DOGE employee info was not accessible before, and 2600 is being penalized for publishing it. Regardless of what they say in the article (provided it's not incitement to violence or something), the point is that the names and emails should have been public already.

> names and emails should have been public already.

Why? Is there a law for this other than being able to request a FOIA?

Regardless of where the information came from, plastering personal information of random people on twitter is not okay.

It's not personal information, and it's not random people. It is the government email addresses of government employees, and yes, that should be public, as is the case for all other government employees at every level.

If it were something personal like a home address or phone number, that would be different.

Spamming random employees gov e-mails on the internet is a disservice to tax payers money to put it lightly.

> that should be public, as is the case for all other government employees at every level.

And I'll ask again: is there a law for that other than being able to request a FOIA?

> Spamming random employees gov e-mails on the internet is a disservice to tax payers money to put it lightly.

They aren't random, they are DOGE employees. And at the moment, we don't even know what the role of DOGE is in the US government. Is Elon Musk a cabinet member, despite not being confirmed by the Senate? If DOGE exists solely as an advisory body, then why do they have the power to fire employees of other agencies (which have been ratified by Congress)?

So rather than being upset about posting public email addresses of public employees, I would say the disservice to taxpayers is allowing an unelected agency to make decisions about other agencies with no Congressional oversight.

As for "is there a law" I think this is implicit in the nature of representation. If you vote for someone to represent you, and after they are elected you have no way to contact them, how do they actually represent you? I'm not suggesting people should harass DOGE employees or say bad things to them, just that we need more transparency in general.

I get your point but posting e-mails on Twitter doesn't help. Even if in protest. It only fuels more polarization.

I just looked this up. I feel like this should have been obvious to me before but Trump has a contact form and Obama has an official email address. Though they probably go through like 12 layers of indirection first.

They are definitely read. I had a bad visit and was accused once of plotting to assassinate Clinton because someone I'd given an account to on a Linux box sent a very detailed manifesto to that email address. ~1996?

Sure, but the ToS wording states you need their permission. I'm guessing their permission wasn't acquired. To me it seems like this wording is to prevent witch-hunts. Which this effectively was. I don't know about you but a good old fashioned witch-hunt is shit behaviour for someone doing their job. I don't verbally abuse parking inspectors (as much as I want to). They are doing it to pay their bills and feed their family.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250304001202/https://help.x.co...

>I guess the argument is did they break X's ToS?

What reason do we have to believe the ToS is being enforced fairly and not at the behest of the current regime?

We will never and your point is moot. I agree, the request could have come from the top or the post could have been reported and a janitor banned the account. Yet the fact remains it was clearly a ToS violation as I doubt permission was acquired.

When rules are not adjudicated fairly, it raises the question of the rules’ legitimacy: that is, whether the rules themselves are in place to protect the users or the people in power.

> Perhaps this is a shift away from cancel culture? I don't see why that's a bad thing.

Wait, so canceling the account is a shift away from cancel culture?

What the fuck is cancel culture even at this point?

What a braindead take/ask... Government employees names and gov emails are public information.

The reason they are banned on X is because they annoyed emperor Elon, nothing to do with TOS violations.

Here's X's wording in their ToS:

``` You may not threaten to expose, incentivize others to expose, or publish or post other people's private information without their express authorization and permission, or share private media of individuals without their consent. ``` [https://web.archive.org/web/20250304001202/https://help.x.co...]

I'm going to assume that the employees didn't give the okay for their info to be posted so it's clearly a ToS violation. End of story.

It's not private information, though. If you work for the government it is literally public information, by statutes, federal and state.

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