alt Hacker News> That is a very, very, very different statement than "I'm calling the FBI."
Yes, but on an aircraft the captain is the dictator. They can do basically whatever they want within the confines of law and company policy - and honestly with enough seniority, which the captain on a transatlantic flight has a lot of - they can probably ignore company policy once or twice and get away with it and keep their job.
As far as I'm aware there is no law preventing the captain from deciding to go back because they don't like one of the passengers blasting their opinions to the entire aircraft. What the opinion is, its levels of subjectivity or objectivity, and whether or not it's popular is completely irrelevant.
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> blasting their opinions
Anyone being pissed off and willing to start a fight over a device name should be committed. Put that person in jail, not the person with the tacky device name. Otherwise you are just creating a world where you police the behavior of reasonable people because they might upset unreasonable people. Police the behavior of the unreasonable people.
I'm well aware of the law. I was a full-time flight instructor for years, and the relevant regulation is the first one I taught when introducing students to the regs.
But I'm not talking about whether the captain has final responsibility and authority for the operation of the aircraft.
I'm talking about whether it's sane to escalate directly from something that is very much not an explicit threat of violence, to involving people whose primary tools are suspension of physical liberty and acts of violence.
(Also, please note: that rule says two things. The captain has final authority, yes, but they are also responsible for the choices they make. It's not a free pass to do anything they want for any reason.)