Jack Sweeney’s personal account with @ElonJet was suspended after posting details of Elon Musk’s flights A Twitter account tracking the flights of Elon Musk’s private jet was suspended on Wednesday amid concerns about the billionaire’s free speech. Despite this, he became grounded. It seems @ElonJet suspended producer Jack Sweeney tweeted from his personal @JxckSweeney account.
The account briefly took later action after Twitter sent word that it updated its policy to prohibit tweets in most cases from giving away someone’s location in real time. @ElonJet who added a link to versions of flight tracking accounts on other social networks like Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon.
A short time later, attempts to reach @ElonJet as well as Sweeney’s personal Twitter account were met with messages that both had been suspended, adding that Musk’s jet was a flight from LA to Austin last night was missed out ‘Field’ on Twitter. My account has been suspended, he said in an Instagram post.
Musk said in a tweet that any account providing real-time location information about a person would be suspended because it is a physical security breach. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location information. Docking is usually done by someone. Refers to revealing identifying information such as a home address or phone number in order to target it for abuse.
Twitter said tweets sharing a person’s location, which are not on the same day, are allowed under the revised policy, as are posts participating in a public event. Sweeney drew attention to his Twitter account that tracks the movements of the billionaire’s plane and even rejected Musk’s $5,000 offer to shut down @ElonJet, which had hundreds of thousands of followers.
Musk was publicly saying he would not touch the account after buying Twitter in a $44 billion deal as part of his commitment to free speech on the platform. Flight-following websites and several Twitter accounts offer near-real-time views of air traffic, but that vulnerability has led to a response ranging from complaints to equipment seizures.
US regulations require that aircraft in designated areas be equipped with ADS-B technology which broadcasts the aircraft’s position using signals relatively simple equipment can pick up. Sweeney said it may take some investigative work to determine or confirm who the plane belongs to. Records the US government’s request to verify Musk’s ownership of his aircraft.
The account’s suspension came a day after Twitter co-founder and former chief Jack Dorsey published an online post in defense of the tech firm’s employees, who have been criticized by Musk for their content moderation decisions. It should be permanent on the Internet, Dorsey wrote, adding that it should always be available and addressable unless the original author chooses to remove it. Content deletion and suspension should not be possible.