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Sensitive information disappeared from the radar. Will this affect the safety of celebrities?
Meta has banned dozens of accounts tracking private jets of celebrities and oligarchs on Instagram and Threads. On Monday, 38 accounts managed by Florida student Jack Sweeney were blocked. Through these accounts, he published data on the movements of aircraft of famous people such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and various businessmen, including Russian ones.
Sweeney noted that the blocking occurred without warning and explanation. "It's all reminiscent of December 2022," he wrote on Threads, recalling the conflict with Musk. At the end of 2022, Musk accused Sweeney of threatening his safety and, after buying Twitter, immediately blocked the account that tracked his plane.
Despite this, Sweeney has successfully continued his activities on other platforms, including Instagram and Threads. According to him, flight data is publicly available information and is taken from sites such as ADS-B Exchange. In the United States, such data must be open by law, and on some resources it is even possible to track the movements of board number one (the plane on board which the US president is onboard).
Sweeney stressed that his accounts have not violated the rules for several years. The only exception was the temporary blocking of the page tracking Taylor Swift's plane after a request from the singer's team.
Meta explained in an official statement that the blocking was due to the recommendations of an independent Supervisory Board. The company noted that the placement of such data poses a threat to the physical safety of famous people, which contradicts the platform's privacy policy.
Interestingly, the accounts that tracked Trump and DeSantis' planes were not initially blocked. However, after the publication of this in Fortune, Meta added them to the list. Sweeney also said that he could not log into blocked accounts or file an appeal through the Supervisory Board website, which complicates attempts to challenge the blocking.
Meanwhile, on the X platform (formerly Twitter), Sweeney continues to publish flight data with a delay agreed with the administration of the platform. He noted that if Meta had warned him in advance, he would have been willing to do the same.
Source
Meta has banned dozens of accounts tracking private jets of celebrities and oligarchs on Instagram and Threads. On Monday, 38 accounts managed by Florida student Jack Sweeney were blocked. Through these accounts, he published data on the movements of aircraft of famous people such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and various businessmen, including Russian ones.
Sweeney noted that the blocking occurred without warning and explanation. "It's all reminiscent of December 2022," he wrote on Threads, recalling the conflict with Musk. At the end of 2022, Musk accused Sweeney of threatening his safety and, after buying Twitter, immediately blocked the account that tracked his plane.
Despite this, Sweeney has successfully continued his activities on other platforms, including Instagram and Threads. According to him, flight data is publicly available information and is taken from sites such as ADS-B Exchange. In the United States, such data must be open by law, and on some resources it is even possible to track the movements of board number one (the plane on board which the US president is onboard).
Sweeney stressed that his accounts have not violated the rules for several years. The only exception was the temporary blocking of the page tracking Taylor Swift's plane after a request from the singer's team.
Meta explained in an official statement that the blocking was due to the recommendations of an independent Supervisory Board. The company noted that the placement of such data poses a threat to the physical safety of famous people, which contradicts the platform's privacy policy.
Interestingly, the accounts that tracked Trump and DeSantis' planes were not initially blocked. However, after the publication of this in Fortune, Meta added them to the list. Sweeney also said that he could not log into blocked accounts or file an appeal through the Supervisory Board website, which complicates attempts to challenge the blocking.
Meanwhile, on the X platform (formerly Twitter), Sweeney continues to publish flight data with a delay agreed with the administration of the platform. He noted that if Meta had warned him in advance, he would have been willing to do the same.
Source
