Twitter grounds account tracking Elon Musk’s flights

The billionaire free speech supporter says ‘doxxing’ real-time location information was ‘a physical safety violation’.

Elon Musk had said he would not touch the account after buying Twitter in a $US44bn deal as part of his commitment to free speech. Picture: AFP

A Twitter account that tracked flights of Elon Musk’s private jet was grounded on Wednesday despite the billionaire’s talk of free speech.

“Well it appears @ElonJet is suspended,” creator Jack Sweeney tweeted from his personal @JxckSweeney account.

The account was in action briefly later in the day, after Twitter sent out word that it updated its policy to prohibit tweets, in most cases, from giving away someone’s location in real time.

“Yes I am back!” read a tweet fired off by @ElonJet, which added a link to versions of the flight tracking account at other social networks such as Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon “just in case”.

A short time later attempts to reach @ElonJet, as well as Mr Sweeney’s personal Twitter account, were met with messages that both were suspended. Mr Musk’s jet “flew from LA to Austin last night after my account was suspended on Twitter”, he said in an Instagram post.

Mr Musk said in a tweet that any account “doxxing real-time location info” of anyone would be suspended, as it was “a physical safety violation”. “This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.”

Doxxing refers to revealing identifying information such as home addresses or phone numbers online, typically to target someone for abuse.

Tweets sharing a person’s location that are “not same-day” are allowed under the tweaked policy, as are posts about being at a public event such as a concert, Twitter said.

Mr Sweeney attracted attention with his Twitter account that tracks the movements of the billionaire’s plane and even rejected Mr Musk’s offer of $US5000 to shut down @ElonJet, which had hundreds of thousands of followers. Mr Musk had gone public saying he would not touch the account after buying Twitter in a $US44bn deal, as part of his commitment to free speech at the platform.

Suspension of the account came a day after Twitter co-founder and former chief Jack Dorsey published an online post defending the tech firm’s workers, who Mr Musk has criticised for decisions regarding content moderation. “I’m a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it,” Mr Dorsey wrote. “It should be always available and addressable. Content take-downs and suspensions should not be possible.”

AFP