Elon Musk continues to backtrack on previous promises he made on Twitter. The latest is about the ElonJet Twitter account. If you don’t know that account tracks the new owner of Twitter’s private jet. If you want to follow it you can’t on Twitter anymore because the account is now suspended.
Why Was ElonJet Twitter Account Suspended?
That’s the question without an answer at the moment because back in November Elon Musk tweeted he wouldn’t ban the account due to his commitment to free speech:
Then a month or so later it appears the new owner changed his mind and suspended the account. Could it be that Elon Musk wanted ElonJet gone for security reasons? I could see that as a reason. However, flight data is public information. So I don’t understand how this would be a security issue when it’s public information. A privacy issue? Of course, I can understand that point totally. However, Musk didn’t say that.
According to The Verge, the permanent suspension comes about a week after the account’s creator, Jack Sweeney, tweeted the platform restricted ElonJet:
An executive, Ella Irwin VP at Twitter Trust and Safety, even requested her team to “apply heavy VF” to the ElonJet account “immediately.” VF means Visibility Filtering, which severely reduces the promotion (or visibility) a tweet gets. Several Twitter users complained they couldn’t find the ElonJet Twitter account when they searched for it on the platform. That’s because of the VF action taken against it.
Yet, on December 12 the restriction (or shadow-banning) ceased. Sweeney believes his tweets about the action caught major attention, causing the platform to backtrack regarding their decision to restrict the account.
Then today Sweeney tweets his account tracking Musk’s private jet was permanently suspended:
The Account Is Still Active On Other Platforms
Although ElonJet Twitter is now permanently suspended, people can still follow it on Mastodon, Facebook, and Instagram. That’s just a short list of where you can follow the account. The full list is here.
Breaking News (As Of 8:37 PM EST Dec 14th)
Jack Sweeney’s personal account was permanently suspended on Twitter today. In addition, the other accounts he had tracking other billionaires’ planes were also permanently suspended. Elon Musk tweeted about the account stating Twitter will not allow live tweeting of people’s location due to security and privacy concerns:
As a result of this Twitter’s Terms of Service about this change have been updated. Also, Elon Musk states he’s going to take legal action against Jack Sweeney.
