Twitter fact checks Snopes report on Missing submarine using Elon Musk starlink satellites

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Twitter fact checks Snopes reports on Missing submarine using Elon Musk starlink satellites. 

OceanGate Expeditions, which owns and operates the lost submarine, uses SpaceX’s Starlink system while in the ocean. The company tweeted on June 1: “Despite being in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have the internet connection we need to make our #Titanic dive operations a success – thank you@Starlink!”

The Starlink internet subplot had less frenzy around it Tuesday than the “submarine-is-controlled-by-a-Logitech-controller” subplot and the “billionaire’s stepson went to the Blink-182 show” subplot. But a Snopes article Wednesday focused on the fact that OceanGate uses Starlink for internet access at sea, and people have made the nonsensical jump that, because Titan lost communication with its above-sea support vessel, Starlink (and thus, Elon Musk), might somehow be to blame for the fact that the submarine is missing.

“Was the Missing Titanic Submersible Using Satellites from Elon Musk’s Company?” asked the Snopes article. It rated the claim as true with a big green check mark. “Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which Elon Musk runs. However, we do not know how much Starlink is responsible for the loss of contact with the submersible, nor the reasons behind that loss of contact.”

Snopes tweeted out the article and readers used the community notes feature to immediately add context. “You can’t even run a good psy op,” Musk said, replying on Twitter. Since Musk responded to them, a parade of blue check Twitter accounts have responded to Snope’s tweets with scorn.

David Pogue, who embarked on a voyage aboard the vessel last summer, expressed hope the sub has successfully reached the surface and is currently adrift.

Pogue emphasised the challenging circumstances faced by anyone inside the vessel, stating, “There’s no way to escape, even if you rise to the surface by yourself. You cannot get out of the sub without a crew on the outside letting you out.”

Elon Musk is once again involved in a submarine-related, time-sensitive international news event. This time, one of the details involved in the increasingly absurd and endlessly fascinating search for OceanGate’s Titan submersible that is lost on a billionaire’s expedition to the Titanic is the fact that OceanGate’s boat has SpaceX’s Starlink internet.