Twitter suspends accounts of developer who shared flight info Elon Musk

Twitter has suspended a developer’s accounts for sharing flight information of planes belonging to famous people. Sharing real-time location data is also immediately prohibited on Twitter.

Developer Jack Sweeney explained to a reporter from The New York Times that all his Twitter accounts, through which he shared public flight information of planes of famous people, have been suspended. There were about 30 of them. Some time later, his personal Twitter account was also suspended.

Twitter has not yet released an official statement about the suspensions, but CEO Elon Musk did provide some explanation. He poses in a tweet that a stalker attacked Musk’s car with his son in Los Angeles on Wednesday night. According to Musk, the stalker thought the CEO was in the car. Musk then referred to Jack Sweeney’s account, stating that legal action has been taken against the man and other organizations that Musk said supported the harassment of his family.

According to Musk, any Twitter account that shares someone’s real-time location data will be suspended from now on, as this would constitute a violation of a person’s physical integrity. According to Musk, this maxim also applies to accounts that link to web pages containing references to people’s real-time physical locations. Sharing location data that is ‘a little’ outdated is not problematic according to Musk and is therefore still allowed on Twitter.

Elon Musk has for years been fiercely against the account @ElonJet, which tracked flights of Musk’s private jet based on public flight data. Musk said, however, after his takeover of Twitter explicit that he would not suspend this account because of his own interpretation of freedom of speech on the platform. He wanted @ElonJet to exist, although he said it posed “an immediate, personal security risk.” It is exactly that wording that Twitter is now using to justify the new policy.

Jack Sweeney is a twenty-year-old American student who created a Twitter account in June 2020 through which he shared flight information from Elon Musk’s private jet. In November last year, Musk contacted Sweeney and offered the man $5,000 to stop spreading the flight information. Sweeney refused and asked for a higher amount. Shortly after Elon Musk took over Twitter, claimed Musk that he would guarantee the right to free speech on the platform. Even if this could create a safety risk for himself. He was referring to Sweeney’s account with flight information from his private jet.