Apparently, Taylor Swift has no major blemishes on her record, except that she has lended out her private jet to family members and other close relations for significant and seemingly trivial trips.

So people are focusing on that.

She could do something unconscionable soon, statistically, but nothing has happened yet.

[–] isthingoneventhis@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Didn't she just sick her legal team on the random kid who was tracking her public flight record habits? I was under the impression it stemmed from that (highlighting her frivolous plane usage).

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Yeah, and this sucks to say, but this is a case of different circles. When you're that rich, you tell people hey, why is this guy..., and then your legal team sends a cease and desist letter.

It isn't suing him, it's telling(telling) him to stop it please, legally.

She's so rich that it's very scary, but it's basically like a neighbor knocking on your door, with the very important caveat that if her steel toed stuffed animal boot decides to kick your door in, you have no legal recourse, since you can't mount a proportionally paid legal defense.

In more free countries that are more supportive of every citizen, this wouldn't be a big deal. In the United States, since money has been legally transmogrified to free speech, it's more of an issue.

[–] oeverbloem@feddit.nl 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The USA: where money has been legally transmogrified to free speech.

You definitely have a way with words!

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago

Appreciate it. Most of my literary and scholarly documentation can be found completely disassociated from and highly derivative of Watterson and similar works.

[–] Mac@mander.xyz 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Someone wrote about this recently but i can't find it. May have been a NYT article.

"When only the ultra wealthy can afford to speak freely
what does free speech mean?"

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago

I wpuld assume that goes back to greece or earlier. Bummer how we haven't found an interim solution.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 1 points 8 months ago

It means that only "people" get to speak freely.

Caveat: if you ain't rich, then you ain't people. (literary callback to a phrase that Biden said during his last campaign)

Oh, and "speech" = $$$ btw (Citizens United).

Translation: facts be damned, rich people gonna do whatever they want, and the laws will even codify that, despite how that means the literal and precise opposite of what America was first founded upon.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's the kind of thing that makes me think that when either side of a legal case spends money on lawyers, they should have to donate an equal amount to the other side.

But that would the require people with power to care about justice.

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's also a grey area because she's such a big public figure that, while the kid is completely within their rights to do this, it presents a pretty big security/privacy concern for Taylor Swift and her family.

I saw somebody mention recently about this whole thing that celebrities like her use transportation like private jets specifically because of security concerns compared to driving and other, more public forms of transportation. The general public and the scummy paparazzi aren't all that different sometimes, and the general public is more likely to have some nutjob with an agenda about the Super Bowl or something.

[–] ricdeh@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Publicly available data should be accessible to all people, period. Regardless of the personal preferences of any useless billionaire.

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 8 months ago

I agree, and I'm not saying otherwise. What I'm saying is that I understand where the C&D letter is coming from because broadcasting said publicly available data poses a security risk. It's like when famous people are holding a panel at a convention or something. I remember Markiplier and his friends talking about how when they'd go to a convention, security wouldn't let them walk around the floor because it posed a security risk to them, and to other people due to the crowds they'd draw. It's not about some billionaire's hurt feelings; it's about the crowds of people that might swarm an area if they think they'll see Taylor Swift there or the dude with a brain smaller than the hemis in his lifted pickup who might see it on Twitter and decide that he's had enough of her woke football agenda.

I'm not supporting the cease and desist, but I get that the kid was adding additional risks that her security detail does not want to deal with. Not that the kid was doing it with malicious intent anyways, because you can get in actual trouble for that rather than just being sent the legal equivalent of "please stop doing that."

I'm sure everybody remembers the story that the Republicans used to rant about of the cake shop that got in trouble for refusing to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. But what they conviently leave out is that the shop actually got in trouble for what they did afterward: giving the couple's info to a Christian hate group who threatened them so badly that they had to leave the state for their own safety. All because they were getting married so that they could adopt the kids of a friend who had died to keep them from going into foster care. The couple's info was publicly available, but the shop got in trouble because they gave it out with the intent of causing them harm. That's the kind of thing the security detail is thinking about when they do stuff like this.