Social media platform Twitter has suspended a bot account that tracks its owner Elon Musk’s private jet, the account’s operator, Jack Sweeney, said on Wednesday.
The account tracks movements of muskThe private jet uses publicly available data and issues warnings.
Musk said in a tweet in November that his commitment to freedom of expression “even goes so far as not to ban the account that follows my plane, despite the fact that doing so poses a direct personal security risk.”
Sweeney, a 20-year-old University of Central Florida student, tweeted Saturday that Ella Irwin, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, asked for the account to be filtered and made less visible to users.
Twitter and Sweeney did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
In media interviews, Sweeney has said he turned down a $5,000 offer from the Tesla Chief Executive Officer in 2021 to close his bot account.
Sweeney also works in a similar way bot accounts Tracking Musk’s Jet on Other Platforms — Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram and telegram.
Meanwhile, Twitter has subjected itself several changes since the billionaire took over the helm of the social media platform. This week Musk dissolved a key advisory group, the Trust and Safety Council, made up of dozens of independent civil, human rights and other organizations. The company established the council in 2016 to address hate speech, harassment, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other issues on the platform.
On the other hand, by allowing select journalists access to some of the company’s internal communications titled “The Twitter Files,” Musk is attempting to prove that officials from the previous leadership team allegedly suppressed right-wing voices.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
