Topline
Twitter on Wednesday banned several accounts which shared publicly available data on the locations of private jets belong to multiple billionaires, including Twitter CEO Elon Musk who said he was taking legal action against the owner of the accounts for causing harm to his family, another sign that the billionaire has become the singular arbiter of rules on the social platform.
Twitter’s latest rule change is another sign that Musk may be becoming the sole arbiter of policy … [+]
Key Facts
The account @ElonJet was first suspended on Wednesday morning without any notice or explanation—despite previously being singled out by Musk as the type of Twitter will continue to allow as part of his “free speech” commitment.
Later in the day Twitter briefly restored the account after announcing changes to its content policy which now banned users from sharing someone’s current location—despite flight tracking data being publicly available.
The account was banned again a few hours later along with several others which shared the location of private jets owned by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Russian Oligarchs, and several others.
Twitter would then take down the personal account of Jack Sweeney, the 20-year-old who ran these accounts as Musk appeared to blame him for an alleged attack by a “crazy stalker” on a car carrying his young son X Æ A-Xii in Los Angeles.
Musk added that “legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.”
In a separate tweet, the Twitter CEO called the real-time sharing of publicly available flight data—whose broadcast is mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration— “doxxing” and a “physical safety violation.”
Chief Critic
Without mentioning Musk, venture capitalist and Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen criticized the new policy tweeting: “Me suppressing my personal information is protecting my physical safety. You suppressing your personal information is an unacceptable breach of free expression.”
Forbes Valuation
According to our estimates, Musk’s total net worth stands at $174 billion, a steep 45% decline from his $320 billion net worth in November 2021. At the start of this week, Musk also lost the title of the world’s richest man, dropping below Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) CEO and co-founder Bernard Arnault.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/12/15/twitter-suspends-multiple-accounts-tracking-billionaires-private-jets-bans-sharing-of-publicly-available-flight-data/