According to Bloomberg News and other reports on the 22nd (local time), the banned accounts included several accounts tracking private jets of famous broadcasters such as Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, as well as entrepreneurs such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Meta has been recommending Meta to delete private housing information on the platform since 2022 by the Oversight Committee, an external monitoring group, and said, “In consideration of the risk of causing physical damage to individuals, we have deactivated the account that violated the privacy policy according to the Oversight Committee’s recommendation.”
Many of the banned accounts were run by Jack Sweeney, a Florida college student who made his name for his activities tracking celebrity private jets, Bloomberg explained.
He is known to use public data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and aircraft signals to identify the private jet route. In a post on his thread account, Sweeney said he had not heard from Meta before the account was banned, adding, “It feels like these platforms are operating without transparency and making arbitrary decisions.”
Sweeney’s account, which previously tracked Musk’s private jet in real time on X, was permanently suspended after Musk acquired X in 2022.
The account currently operated by Sweeney X shows the location of Musk’s private jet 24 hours late. Also, an attorney for pop star Taylor Swift called on Sweeney to stop tracking the private jet in February, and around the same time, Meta first deleted Sweeney’s account, which was operating on its platform.
Sweeney said a total of 38 accounts have been banned from Meta and X.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
