Twitter Turns Off Sweeney’s Whereabouts Message: The #elonjet Account Revisited After Musk Has Been Removed
Then, hours later, Musk brought back the jet-tracking account after imposing new conditions on all of Twitter’s users — no more sharing of anyone’s current location.
He also threatened legal action against Jack Sweeney, the 20-year-old college sophomore and programmer who started the @elonjet flight-tracking account, and “organizations who supported harm to my family.” It’s not clear what legal action Musk could take against Sweeney for an account that automatically posted public flight information.
The account was offered to be shut down by the billionaire. It would be great support in college for me to get a car, it would even allow me to get a Model 3 if I wanted it, that’s why I countered the offer. Musk felt that it wasn’t right to shut this down, after some back and forth.
live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes, actual physical location, or other identifying information that would reveal a person’s location, regardless if this information is publicly available;
Sweeney wrote in a January post that the data is public and “every aircraft in the world is required to have a transponder” in order to have the right to post jet whereabouts.
He saw a notice that the account had been permanently suspended, after logging into the service. The note did not explain how it broke the rules.
There was no response for a request for comment. Musk has promised to eradicate automatically generated spam from the platform, but Twitter allows automated accounts that are labeled as such — as Sweeney’s were.
Musk has previously criticized that filtering technique and alleged that it had been used to suppress right-wing accounts. He has said the new Twitter will still downgrade the reach of negative or hateful messages but will be more transparent about it.
In the weeks since the Tesla CEO took over Twitter, the @elonjet account has chronicled Musk’s many cross-country journeys from his home base near Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, to various California airports for his work at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters and his rocket company SpaceX.
Musk was flying to New Orleans just days before he was to meet with the president of France.
The platform did not give reason for the journalists being exiled from it, and neither Musk nor the platform responded to a request for comment Thursday evening.
Musk falsely claimed that the journalists had violated his new “doxxing” policy by sharing his live location, amounting to what he described as “assassination coordinates.” CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan did not share the billionaire’s live location.
The future of the platform has been referred to as a digital town square by some, despite the fact that there are many questions regarding it. It raised serious questions about Musk’s commitment to free speech.
The New York Times and Ryan have yet to receive an explanation of why the mass bans occurred. We hope the journalists are vindicated and that they get a satisfactory explanation for why they were taken down.
Elon is banning journalists for exercising free speech, and he says that he is a free speech champion. I believe that calls into question his commitment.
The President of the Society of Professional Journalists made a statement about the suspension and itaffects all journalists.
The platform stopped enforcing its policies prohibiting Covid-19 misinformation after Musk reinstated previous rule-breakers.
As the furor over the account suspensions unfolded, some Twitter users reported the platform had begun intervening when they attempted to post links to their own profiles on alternative social networks, including Mastodon.
He is unsure why he was suspended, wrote a post on Substack. He said he did tweet on Wednesday a link to a Facebook page for the jet-tracking account.
The #MediaFreedomAct: Changing Twitter’s Privacy Policies to Ensure the Protection of Freedom of the Press, as Properly Assured
Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the advocacy group Free Press, echoed Jaffer’s remarks, saying suspending journalists based seemingly on personal animus “sets a dangerous precedent.”
“We will suspend any accounts that violate our privacy policies and puts other users at risk, I can’t comment on any specific user accounts,” he said. “We don’t make exceptions to this policy for journalists or any other accounts.”
Musk claimed that an account under the handle Elonjet was used to follow a car in Los Angeles carrying one of his children.
Musk promoted the so-called Twitter Files, a list of internal documents he claimed to expose a censorship scandal, but in reality revealed messy debates about important subjects more than anything else.
“Freedom of the press cannot be switched on and off as you please,” Germany’s foreign ministry tweeted on Friday. “As of today these journalists are no longer able to follow us, to comment or criticize. We have a problem with the social networking site.
“The EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct,” Jourová said in a post on Twitter, adding that Musk “should be aware of that.”
The EU warned Musk that he had to take steps to comply with the bloc’s content moderation laws.
“Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and protect freedom of speech, tackle disinformation with resolve, and limit targeted advertising,” Breton said at the time. “All of this requires sufficient AI and human resources, both in volumes and skills. We will go to assess Twitter’s readiness on site when I am done with progress in these areas.
This new approach will have a lasting impact on Twitter. Journalists have helped keep the platform relevant despite its small size relative to competitors like Facebook: They fuel the platform with free, vetted content when news breaks and speculation and rumors swirl.
Davisson doubts Twitter, which has gutted its moderation staff, would be able to enforce Musk’s new policies announced this week in a way that covers all users.
Some journalists have begun to return to their jobs after Musk asked in a new poll if he should stop suspending accounts who do not report his location in real time. (The journalists did not reveal his real-time location.) The option that got the highest amount of responses was, now, with 58.7 percent of the responses. There were nearly four million responses in the poll.
On Thursday, Musk also attended a Twitter Space hosted by Buzzfeed News’ Katie Notopoulos, which was also attended by several of the suspended journalists, who had apparently been allowed to join due to a technical glitch. Musk told the person that they would get suspended before he left the call. End of story, that’s it.” Twitter later turned off the Spaces feature. Notopoulos is unable to start and join a Space, as she was sent a message stating that she could not go live because she violated the rules.
After hearing that accounts were being reinstated at a fast pace, Musk declared today was freedom Friday, in response to the comment of a former congressional candidate. Several prominent right-to-far-right figures were unsuspended on Friday, including MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and Gateway Pundit editor Jim Hoft, as noted by Shayan Sardarizadeh, a reporter for the BBC. This seems to be a part of Musk having fulfilled his promise to give most previously-suspended accounts “general amnestied” by the results of a poll.
CNN, Ryan Mac, and Drew Harwell were banned by Musk on Thursday. Independent progressive journalist Aaron Rupar, former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, and Insider columnist Linette Lopez were also banned.
Harwell provided a copy of his appeal to CNN. Harwell added that his tweet did not include a “link to anyone’s private information.”
Rupar told CNN that he had ultimately decided to simply remove the tweet and move on from the episode, though he described the whole affair as “kinda [sic] absurd obviously.”
Twitter CEO Elon Musk Hasn’t Really Learned a Single Day in a Lattice: A Warning against Misusing the Legal Team
The suspension of the journalists had been met with swift condemnation by news organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, United Nations, Democratic members of Congress and others.
Elon Musk tweeted a poll Sunday evening asking people to vote on whether he should step down as Twitter’s CEO. Musk said he would abide by the poll’s results.
Replying to a tweet Sunday, in which MIT artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman said he would take the CEO job, Musk hinted he hasn’t been completely happy with his new gig.
Lost in the chaos is how successful Musk has been in blocking the real-time flight data on the internet. He is trying to take aim at a vital source of information, which has helped researchers, journalists, and experts in a number of areas, like tracking Russian oligarchs to investigating the fate of missing aircraft. Musk isn’t the only one trying to keep this type of information out of the public’s hands.
Both real-time and historical information on the main private jet of Musk is missing from the two main flight- tracking platforms.
The location of Musk’s plane has caused us to stop displaying it at the moment. Musk is threatening legal action, so we don’t want to take any risks.
Rommes says his office has not heard from the Musk legal team, but they took the step as a precautionary measure. He warns against messing with the former richest man of the world.
FlightAware: Government data collection for real-time flight path forecasts from airliners and planespotters to Airliner.net
The FAA requires aircraft operators to report detailed information on their flight path. The public record contains that data and is published to a variety of websites popular with airline enthusiasts.
FlightAware adds government data to their own sources of real-time flight information. Some websites, like planespotters.net and airliners.net, allow users to submit photos taken of aircraft as they travel around the world.