
In A New Email, Elon Musk Accused A Cave Rescuer Of Being A "Child Rapist" - dsr12
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email
======
css
> Though Musk prefaced one email with “off the record,” BuzzFeed News did not
> agree to that condition of the correspondence.

> (Per common journalistic practice, a conversation is off-the-record only if
> both parties agree to the terms.)

I assume that Musk would not have said these things "on the record" so does
Buzzfeed's rejection of his claim mean anything here? I understand that there
are no "laws" but the ethics of this feels... dubious. Especially since the
NYU Journalism Handbook [0] they link says this (emphasis mine):

> In general, it is best to avoid off the record conversations; another option
> might be to converse off the record and then try to _convince the source to
> agree to waive the agreement_.

[0] [https://journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/resources/ethics-
handboo...](https://journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/resources/ethics-handbook-for-
students/nyu-journalism-handbook-for-students/#human-sources-record)

~~~
pulisse
There's nothing ethically dubious at all about what the reporter did. The NYU
discussion you link to begins:

> _On the record, on background, not for attribution and off the record_ :
> These are prearranged agreements between a reporter and a source, which
> govern how specific information can be used. These deals must be agreed to
> beforehand, never after.

A conversation doesn't become off-the-record when one party utters the magic
words and continues without input from the other party.

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TillE
In case anyone thinks Musk has secret evidence (that he's inexplicably not
sharing with anyone, not even police), remember that his first tweet on the
subject was:

"Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point
when we were in the caves."

He then quickly made his "(sus)" insinuation explicit with the "pedo guy"
tweet. It's very clear that this was all based on nothing, just a stereotype
of a white man in Thailand.

------
konschubert
I wanted to admire Elon. It is honestly sad to see what's happening. I hope he
finds a way out of this. As a person. I also hope he resigns as the CEO of
Tesla, it will be better for him and for the company, I think.

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dewey
Can we change the URL from the AMP one to the normal one? It's unreadable and
the images are blurry if not on mobile for some reason...

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-
thai-...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-
rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email)

~~~
slenk
Oh my; I thought the images were blurry so you couldn't easily read Musk's
email that was "off the record".

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smt88
Why is this flagged and why can't I vouch for it? This story is important for
some of us financially and/or through our employers.

~~~
detaro
> _why can 't I vouch for it?_

because it's not [dead]

------
dsr12
Why anything criticizing Musk is always flagged?

~~~
GW150914
Two reasons I think. First, understandably by now the moderators must dread
these kinds of submissions, given that they inevitably evolve along the same
acrimonious lines. Supporting this submission by pinning it or unflagging it
is sort of making a rod for their own back. Second, some people are
fanatically pro-Musk and they downvote or flag without second thought. I don’t
think it’s coordinated, I just think the result is rapid downvoting and mass
flagging.

My advice is to email them if you feel strongly about this or other articles,
and ask them to pin it or unflagging it, it understand if they err on the side
of protecting their sanity rather than the submission.

~~~
imustbeevil
I'm someone who appreciates technology, so I appreciate the technology that
has been produced by Elon Musk's companies.

I would flag a story like this because it has nothing to do with technology.
I'm not particularly interested in "famous person does drugs and goes crazy",
because that's a boring story.

~~~
smt88
It may not relate to technology, but it does relate to the leadership of a
closely-watched tech company. What if this were Steve Jobs? I doubt we'd flag
it.

~~~
tomhoward
If it were Steve Jobs doing the same things he'd been doing for months or
years, it'd probably be treated just the same, because it doesn't qualify as
content that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".

To me, these stories about Musk fall in the same bucket as those described
thus: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless
they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.".

There's nothing interesting or new here, and the repetitive discussions
confirm that.

------
tomohawk
The hardest thing to control is one's mouth. You either control it, or it
controls you.

------
l9k
I honestly don't understand why he would get into a legal fight publicly with
an unknown man, even if he had very secret info and his claims were true.

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meddlepal
We're watching a mental breakdown in real time. Gotta wonder how long it's
going to be before Tesla's board asks him to step down or aside.

~~~
tim333
Yeah I'm also getting the impression he's kind of losing it. I mean the first
tweet could have been a simple error but then instead of saying sorry he just
seems to be digging himself deeper. Also 'pedo guy' seems pretty non pedo
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6132427/Elon-Musk-
ac...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6132427/Elon-Musk-accuses-
British-cave-diver-moving-Thailand-child-bride.html)

------
dsr12
I can't believe anyone can be so naive to write such things on mail and trust
a news site to consider "off record" tag.

~~~
dawnerd
Seriously. I don’t get why anyone would say that to a news org even off the
record given how easy it is for things to leak. Really dumb on his behalf.

------
nunez
I wish that Twitter were like Hacker News whereby tweets older than _x_
minutes are made permanently immutable. People would wise up quick if that
were the case.

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haney
Musk seems like he's gone completely off the rails

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mrkstu
It is very sad to see him seek out problems and controversy. He has
accomplished an unimaginable amount to this point and so many hopes for the
future ride on his shoulders- and it appears to be breaking him.

He's sliding into the Howard Hughes path to self-destruction and I desperately
hope he can pull out of the dive before it becomes a terminal one.

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ghthor
Any idea if Elon Musk used cryptographicly signed messaging anywhere, because
this starts to feel like his messaging has been compromised. Our president has
plenty of reasons to want to destroy this man, and this could be the first
extremely public example of the president using his power.

