- Twitter blocked a series of accounts that tracked celebrities' private jets, including Musk's.
- Around the same time, Twitter updated its privacy policies to prohibit most live-location sharing.
Twitter owner Elon Musk suspended a hoard of accounts run by a private-jet tracker for sharing public information about the whereabouts of both him and other public figures.
But hours later, Musk himself tweeted a video showing the license plate of an alleged "crazy stalker."
Twitter's rules, released this month, prohibit users from posting people's private information "without their express authorization and permission." The rules prohibit the sharing of home addresses, live locations, and phone numbers, but don't directly refer to license plates so it's unclear whether Musk breached the policy.
After taking ownership of Twitter in late October, Musk was quick to shake up the platform's content-moderation policies. A proponent of free speech, Musk celebrated his purchase of the site by tweeting that comedy was now "legal," but was soon mocked after he suspended a series of accounts impersonating celebrities including him.
Musk has allowed some controversial users back onto Twitter, including former president Donald Trump and satire publication The Babylon Bee. He's also rolled out sweeping changes to Twitter's verification system, allowing users to buy blue ticks, which were previously only given to users the site deemed "authentic, notable, and active."
For months, 20-year-old Twitter user Jack Sweeney has been sharing publicly available data on Twitter about the movements of private jets belonging to public figures including Musk, Trump, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, singer Taylor Swift, and reality star Kim Kardashian. Musk said in early November that even though this was "a direct personal safety risk," he wouldn't suspend the account tracking his jet because of his "commitment to free speech."
But Sweeney's account @elonjet was suspended with a note saying that it had violated Twitter's rules. Sweeney announced the suspension on Wednesday, saying it had occurred the night before. The account was then temporarily un-suspended before being suspended again. Sweeney told Insider that his personal account had also been suspended, as well as his more than 30 other accounts tracking celebrities' jets.
At around the same time, Twitter announced that it had updated its privacy policies "to prohibit sharing someone else's live location in most cases," saying that it would remove tweets and suspend accounts dedicated to sharing people's live location.
"Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation," Musk tweeted on Wednesday. "This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info."
Some Twitter users have accused Musk of changing Twitter's terms to target Sweeney's account. A community note was added to Musk's tweet about Sweeney's jet from early November, saying that the account was banned and that it had used publicly available data.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022
In a follow-up tweet on Wednesday about the location-sharing policies, Musk claimed that a "crazy stalker" had been following a car carrying his 19-month-old son and climbed onto its hood. Hours later, Musk posted a video that he claimed showed the "stalker" and included the driver's license plate.
Sweeney told Insider that he planned to continue sharing the whereabouts of Musk's jet on other platforms, including Instagram, Discord, and Mastodon. Sweeney posted on Instagram on Wednesday afternoon that Musk's jet had flown from Los Angeles to Austin the night before.