Claytoonz: NORAD doxxing Santa?
I don’t know why, but I love NORAD’s Santa Tracker. I open it on Christmas eve and watch Santa and his reindeer fly around the planet. Maybe it’s because I’m a geography buff or I just love the imagination with it. I’m not even that much of a Christmas fan, but I like the Santa Tracker. I leave it open in a tab while doing other things. I’m a multitasker.
I do wish the Santa Tracker was online when my kid was little because then I could have used it to get him to go to bed. But then again, he could have used it against me too like pointing out that Santa was in New Zealand, so he could stay up for a few more hours.
This year, however, you may not be able to keep track of Santa by following NORAD’s Santa Tracker Twitter account because Elon has rules against doxxing. Although, Santa Claus is pretty generous, doesn’t share hate, and despite being all clad in red, he’s not a MAGAT, so maybe the rules won’t apply to doxxing his location. Elon seems to be making up new Twitter rules as he goes along.
Last week, he suspended an account for tracking his private jet, which is public information. Elon created this rule out of self-interest and didn’t tell anyone until he suspended the jet-tracking account. Later, he suspended the accounts of several journalists who had linked to the jet account or stories about the jet account. He suspended some just for mentioning it.
A few days ago, Elon suspended the account of a Washington Post reporter for doxxing the location of the creator of the account Libs of Tiktok, which is an anti-LGBTQ hate account. The funny thing though, the reporter did the doxxing last April by revealing the creator as Brooklyn real estate agent Chaya Raichik. Now when I post the link to this blog, I’ll be in violation of Elon’s Twitter rules but he probably won’t notice because I’m not a big deal.
Elon believes that tweeting hate on his platform anonymously is OK, but outing them is a terms-of-service violation.
The suspension of Taylor Lorenz’s account also came after she had tagged him in a tweet seeking a comment on a story, which he must not have liked.
Let’s hope Elon doesn’t suspend me or NORAD for Christmas. He’s currently looking for someone to replace him, but I don’t know if he can find someone who’s that much of an asshole.
Clay Jones is the 2022 recipient of the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award in Editorial Cartooning, and won a 2021 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists. He was a finalist for the Herblock Prize in 2019 and a finalist for the National Headliner Award in 2020. See more award-winning editorial cartoons from him at Claytoonz.com.