Jack Sweeney first learned that @ElonJet, his Twitter account that tracks Elon Musk’s private jet travels, had been banned when he woke up this morning to a notification that the profile had been suspended from Twitter.
The 20-year-old University of Central Florida student had set up @ElonJet as one of more than a dozen flight tracking bots, using the Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) system to monitor flight paths. But as of this morning only @ElonJet was banned. (That changed shortly after the publication of this story, then Twitter has suspended Sweeney’s personal account – for violating rules “against platform manipulation and spam” – and about 30 others he ran. By early evening, @ElonJet was tweeting again; it wasn’t immediately clear what had happened.) “I’m pretty surprised, especially after he posted a tweet saying he wouldn’t,” Sweeney told BuzzFeed News, referring to @ElonJet’s suspension. “But I think he’s probably not too happy about that after the latest commotion of the weekend.”
The “commotion” Sweeney was referring to was his tweets claiming that as of Dec. 2, @ElonJet had been suppressed by Twitter’s moderation system. team members “apply heavy VF [visibility filtering] immediately to @elonjet.” BuzzFeed News was unable to verify the legitimacy of the screenshot Sweeney provided. The student claimed he got it from an anonymous source via an untraceable burner email. Neither Musk nor Twitter’s press relations team, which is reportedly no longer in existence, immediately responded to a request for comment. Sweeney knew he risked arousing Musk’s wrath by posting the allegedly leaked internal message. “From the start, he wanted me to disappear,” he said. (Musk offered the student $5,000 earlier this year to delete the account. Sweeney, who previously told Rolling Stone he set up the Twitter account because he was a fan of Musk, declined.) “Twitter Files” — the same thing Musk has mentioned a series of Twitter threads, written by journalists of his choice, about the inner workings of the company. “I’m sure that pissed him off,” Sweeney said. “Nevertheless, it’s still a surprise to a lot of people after he publicly said he wouldn’t.” The creator of @ElonJet said the account suspension showed the risk posed by a single, impulsive individual having total control over a social media platform. “It just shows they can play the rules however they want, really, for whoever they want,” he said. He believed Twitter would try to excuse the ban as part of a wider crackdown on automated bot accounts, but was surprised the company hasn’t given a reason to ban @ElonJet. “It could really be anything right now, couldn’t it?” he said. Later in the day, Musk gave his reasoning behind the suspensions:
Sweeney said he plans to continue @ElonJet’s work elsewhere. “I will definitely pay more attention to other platforms,” he said. He also told BuzzFeed News that he is working on a website version of @ElonJet. The reason he’s going ahead with the project is simple: “It’s important to hold people accountable no matter what side they’re on.” The ban seemed to energize Sweeney. “Now I’m going on forever,” he said. “I don’t think I can let him win now.”
UPDATE
December 14, 2022 at 11:33 PM
