On Monday, Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. took stringent action to banish a social media account on both Instagram and Threads that was tracking the private jets of celebrities, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Kylie Jenner.
Jack Sweeney, a Florida college student was the owner of the private jet tracking accounts.
Meta justified the suspension by stating that accounts tracking private jets post a risk of “physical harm.”
According to Bloomberg, the accounts were banned without warning this week after Meta updated its privacy policy.
These private jet tracking accounts publicly announced the location, distance travelled, the carbon emissions of each journey, and the amount of fuel used among other details.
Meta Oversight Board, an independent body that reviews Facebook owner’s rules and controversial posts advised Meta in early 2022 to remove “private residential information” from its site even if the information was already publicly accessible elsewhere.
Now, a company representative in an official statement said:
“Given the risk of physical harm to individuals, and in keeping with the independent Oversight Board’s recommendation, we’ve disabled these accounts for violating our privacy policy.”
Tracking Celebrities Location, Distance Travelled, CO2 Emissions
In early 2023, Taylor Swift threatened to sue Jack Sweeney for tracking celebrity private jets. The pop icon’s legal team demanded that Sweeny stop tracking Swift's private plane, citing privacy concerns.
Swift's legal action was based on the argument that Sweeney's tracking of her private jet constituted a form of harassment and stalking. Her lawyers claimed that the constant monitoring of her location posed a threat to her safety and security.
As a result, netizens observed that Sweeney had removed his accounts that were specifically tracking her plane from Meta platforms but had not deleted Taylor Swift Jets (tracking) – @SwiftJetNextDay, the X account tracking Swift.
This isn’t Sweeney’s first suspension.
Two years ago, another private jet tracking account called ElonJet was suspended on Twitter now X. Sweeny created ElonJet when he was in high school to track Elon Musk’s private flight journeys.
ElonJet, the private jet tracking account, is now banned on Meta Platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, but it has returned to X under the delayed version name of ElonJet Delayed or @ElonJetNextDay.
“ElonJet but the delayed version by at least 24 hours,” the account description reads.
Active Private Jet Tracking Accounts
However, ElonJet is also active on other platforms including Mastodon, Reddit, Bluesky, Truth, and Telegram.
The Mastodon account just yesterday posted Elon Musk’s whereabouts. The post reported that Musk’s private jet “Landed in San Jose, California, United States. Apx. flt. time 4 h 58 min.”
The Tesla owner flew to San Jose from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In a continued thread, the account reported consuming 2,506 gallons (9,487 litres) of jet fuel, which weighed 16,796 pounds (7,619 kilograms) and cost $14,034.
This jet emitted CO2 worth 26 tons. An average passenger car emits around 4-5 tons of CO2 per year.
Jack Sweeny in an X post reported that his data for private jet tracking comes from “800+ contributors to The Air Traffic who send in data from their ADS-B Receivers, which receive aircraft transponder signals.”
After Sweeney’s private jet tracking accounts were banned on Meta platforms, he alluded to the banning of the ElonJet account in an X post expressing:
“Today feels like December 15th 2022.”
