Twitter suspends news tracking Musk’s jet and the man behind It | World news
Twitter Inc. has suspended several accounts that track the locations of private jets using publicly available flight data, including one that follows the flight of the company’s owner, Elon Musk.
Musk said publicly last month that he would not ban the account despite seeing it as a security risk, saying it was proof of his commitment to free speech.
Early Wednesday morning in New York, the @elonjet page showed a message that read “report suspended” because it violated the platform’s rules. The account has been operated since 2020 by Jack Sweeney, who also runs other Twitter accounts that track the private flights of Mark Zuckerberg and other celebrities.
In an interview, Sweeney said the 30 Twitter accounts he managed were all suspended, as was his account.
Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October and is set on making some big changes to how the platform works. It has made cuts to company employees, including those responsible for reliability and safety, and has been making its own content decisions, such as restoring the accounts of some people who had been suspended. follow up.
Musk and representatives for Twitter did not respond to requests for comment. The billionaire tweeted later Thursday that posting someone’s location in real time on the social network violates the company’s policy against publishing personal information, “but delayed posting of locations is fine.”
Sweeney’s last tweet on his own account before being suspended asked, “Can I have my $8 back?,” a reference to the infamous Twitter subscription service Musk launched and then shut down.
Jason Calacanis, a venture capitalist and podcaster who has helped Musk get his Twitter handle, appeared to defend the billionaire’s decision. “My personal belief is that the honest sharing of public status information is de facto doxing,” Calacanis said in a tweet before Musk weighed in. that would clearly pose a security risk.”
Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida, said he has not received any other notices from Twitter via email or other mediums.
“Musk actually said he wasn’t going to do anything because he was protecting free speech, but this is the exact opposite,” Sweeney said by phone.
Sweeney, 20, turned down a $5,000 offer from the CEO of Tesla Inc. in 2021 to close his bot account and face with the request to increase the payment to $50,000. Musk made several attempts to contact him to ask to kill him, Sweeney said.
Read more: Teen Following Musk’s Jet on Twitter Makes Unexpected Plans
Sweeney has continued to track Musk’s private jet on Facebook, Instagram and Donald Trump-affiliated Social Truth.
Musk’s plane landed in Austin, Texas, last night, following the suspension of the @elonjet Twitter account, Sweeney said on Instagram.
