Meta Bans s Tracking Private Jets for Mark Zuckerberg 60555 Elon Musk

The newly banned s include those tracking planes for Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner as well. 146r4e

By Kurt Wagner, Bloomberg | Updated: 23 October 2024 17:57 IST

Meta Bans s Tracking Private Jets for Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk

Photo Credit: Reuters 3v6d2p

Meta pointed to a recommendation from its Oversight Board to justify the change

Highlights

Many of the s impacted were operated by Jack Sweeney
Sweeney is a Florida college student
Musk has long taken issue with Sweeney’s

ment

Instagram that were used to track celebrities' private jets, including the jet owned by its Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, citing a risk of “physical harm.”

The s, which rely on publicly available information to track a jet's location and CO2 emissions, among other details, were banned without warning this week after Meta updated its . The newly banned s include those tracking planes for celebrities, including Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, and business leaders, including Elon Musk.

Meta pointed to a recommendation from its Oversight Board, an external group tasked with reviewing the company's rules and controversial posts, as part of the justification for the change. That recommendation, from early 2022, advised that Meta remove “private residential information” from its site even if that information was publicly available.

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“Given the risk of physical harm to individuals, and in keeping with the independent Oversight Board's recommendation, we've disabled these s for violating our ,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Many of the s impacted were operated by Jack Sweeney, a Florida college student who has gained notoriety by tracking celebrity jets. In a letter posted to his Threads , Sweeney said he “received no communication from Meta” about the bans before they were initiated. “These platforms operate without transparency, and it feels like they make arbitrary decisions,” he wrote.

It's not Sweeney's first run-in with a tech company or billionaire that wanted his s removed. Musk has long taken issue with Sweeney's that tracked his private plane, once calling the information his “assassination coordinates.”

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Shortly after buying X in late 2022, he banned Sweeney's and made a new rule that forbid sharing someone else's location in real-time. Sweeney still tracks Musk's jet on X, but posts the jet's location on a 24-hour delay.

Earlier this year, pop star Taylor Swift's lawyers demanded Sweeney stop tracking her private plane. Around the same time, Meta removed Sweeney's s that were tracking Swift's plane, but left his other s untouched.

Sweeney says that he's had 38 different s banned across Meta and X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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