Mark Zuckerberg Bans Student’s Accounts Tracking Celebrity Jets

Jack Sweeney, a college student known for tracking the private jet travel of wealthy celebrities, had his Meta Threads accounts abruptly suspended, raising questions about the platform’s stance on publicly available data.

Fortune reports that Meta’s social media platform Threads has suspended several accounts maintained by Jack Sweeney, a college student who gained notoriety for tracking and sharing the flight paths of private jets owned by some of the world’s wealthiest and most famous individuals. The suspended accounts included those tracking the jets of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian, and Kylie Jenner. Later, accounts tracking the jets of Taylor Swift, former president Donald Trump, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis were also suspended.

Sweeney, who had previously faced backlash from Musk when the billionaire took over Twitter and banned similar jet tracker accounts, had moved much of his activity to Threads. The data shared on these accounts is publicly available and maintained by the FAA. However, the sharing of this information on social media has raised concerns among the celebrity jet owners, who argue that it infringes on their privacy.

Both Musk and Swift have threatened Sweeney with lawsuits, referring to the jet accounts as “assassination coordinates” and “stalking and harassing behavior,” respectively. However, Sweeney’s accounts do not reveal the exact locations where the planes or their occupants travel, and neither Musk nor Swift have taken formal legal action against him. TechCrunch reports that a Meta spokesperson stated, “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.”

The suspension of these accounts has sparked a debate about the balance between the public’s right to access information and the privacy concerns of high-profile individuals. While the data shared by Sweeney is legally obtained and publicly available, the use of social media platforms to disseminate this information has become a point of contention.

Read more at Fortune here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.