Twitter Suspends @ElonJet For Tracking Elon Musk After He Promised Not To Ban It

Elon Musk's Twitter 2.0 can't keep to stay out of headlines, and mostly for the wrong reasons. Now, the new owner of Twitter has suspended the handle @ElonJet, the account tracking all of Elon Musk's personal jet's movement.

In November, Musk had said that the account was a "direct personal safety risk" but he would not ban it as part of his "commitment to free speech."

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Elon Musk's forgotten promises

As we've been seeing lately, Elon Musk might not be one to keep his promises. He also dismantled Twitter's Trust and Safety Council, while falling short of forming a content moderation council, as he had himself promised.

My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022

In the beginning, it was unclear what happened to @ElonJet, but now it appears that Twitter has updated its privacy policy.

Twitter updates privacy policy to prohibit sharing someone else¡¯s live location, including flight tracking.

¡°We¡¯ll remove Tweets that share this information, and accounts dedicated to sharing someone else¡¯s live location will be suspended.¡± pic.twitter.com/Oyp99YvOKe

¡ª Pop Base (@PopBase) December 14, 2022

Posts from this account are also available on Instagram and Facebook and there doesn't seem to be any particular moment in recent history to draw Musk's ire.

Also read: Twitter To Lose 32 Million Users In Two Years After Elon Musk Takeover, Report Says

The account's last posts showed Musk's jet landing in Los Angeles after a 48-minute flight. A week earlier, the account's creator, Jack Sweeney had claimed that the jet tracker was quietly being restricted by Twitter.

Reuters

Sweeney posted a screenshot of an alleged message from Twitter's internal Slack that showed Ella Irwin, Twitter's trust and safety leader, asking her team to "apply heavy VF [visibility filtering]" to the account.

This meant it would be harder to find @ElonJet in search or suggestions. Now, the account is gone. Sweeney told The Verge that the only communication he received from Twitter was regarding "the default suspension warning."

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Also read: Elon Musk Hints At Revealing Twitter's Darkest Secrets After Calling The Company A 'Crime Scene'

Sweeney had told The New York Times earlier that Musk had reached out to him, offering to pay up to get the account taken down for it was "a security risk."

What do you think about the suspension of @ElonJet? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.

References

Kastrenakes, J. (2022, December 14). Twitter suspends @ElonJet after Musk promises not to ban it. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/14/23508898/elonjet-twitter-ban-elon-musk-jet-tracker