In the head-spinning Elon Musk era of Twitter, edicts come and go, seemingly at the whim of the self-described chief twit. Just last month, Musk portrayed himself as a free speech martyr for not banning @ElonJet, a Twitter bot that used publicly available flight records to track the tech billionaire’s private plane. “My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” he wrote. Now, not only did Twitter suspend @ElonJet on Wednesday, but Musk later announced plans to take legal action against Jack Sweeney, the 20-year-old college student behind it.
“Last night, car carrying lil X [Musk’s son] in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood,” wrote Musk, who later posted a video of the alleged stalker’s masked face and license plate. “Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.”
In response to Musk’s legal threat, Sweeney told the Daily Beast, “I never meant for any intent of, like, any harm or anything. And I don’t think there’s that much of a risk of posting data that’s already there.”
In perhaps a move more consequential than banning one account, Musk said Wednesday that he has changed Twitter’s policy on the sharing of some real-time information, despite that being one of the platform’s most important features since its explosion into the mainstream. “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation,”he tweeted. “This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info. Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.”
As noted by MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, this change could severely limit how journalists use the platform to cover protests and public officials. “So journalists can’t say where, say, the president is? Or can’t say who is speaking at a live protest or rally?”wrote Hasan. “And what does ‘slightly delayed’ even mean? Who defined that?”
Ultimately, this could be just another case of Musk making up Twitter rules on the fly and enforcing them whenever he sees fit, especially considering his long-running personal grievances with Sweeney. Last December, Musk contacted the University of Central Florida student and asked him to take down @ElonJet due to it being “a security risk.” The world’s almost-richest man also offered to pay Sweeney $5,000 to shut down the account, but after the college student, per his telling, made a counteroffer of $50,000, Musk decided the deal didn’t “feel right.” Sweeney also told CNN that on Saturday, before the ban, he was tipped off that “visibility filtering” was being applied to his account, which would limit its reach. Sweeney has indicated that he plans to continue tracking Musk’s plane on other platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
