(Credit: Bloomberg / Contributor via Getty Images)
Two years after plane-tracking enthusiast Jack Sweeney saw his Elon Musk jet-tracking account banned on Twitter/X, Meta has taken similar action against the creator and banned a dozen different accounts across Instagram and Threads.
"Jet tracking on Instagram and Threads got Zucked," Sweeney wrote early Tuesday morning on his personal Threads account, which remains visible.
Sweeney says that Meta hasn't told him why these accounts were banned, and isn't able to submit appeals to restore them. "If I'm not allowed to file an appeal, what's the point of having an oversight system at all? This lack of transparency makes Meta's actions even more concerning," Sweeney wrote.
Sweeney shares data on the movements of private planes belonging to billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Taylor Swift, and the Kardashians, as well as planes used by politicians like former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Instagram has taken down the accounts sharing info on the jets belonging to DeSantis, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Trump, and Musk. Threads accounts respectively tracking the jets of Musk and Trump have also been taken down, as have Sweeney's "CelebJets" accounts on Instagram and Threads, which track celebrities' private planes more broadly.
(Credit: @jacksweeney on Threads/PCMag)"Given the risk of physical harm to individuals, and in keeping with the independent Oversight Board’s recommendation, we’ve disabled these accounts for violating our privacy policy," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch.
It's unclear exactly which posts or account triggered the sudden mass takedown because some of the accounts had been posting for years without action, Sweeney tells PCMag. The Musk jet-tracking accounts were the first to get banned across Meta's apps before the rest of the bans quickly followed. But the Zuckerberg jet-tracking account hadn't posted for about a month before the takedown because the Meta CEO is getting a new plane, Sweeney said.
Back in late 2022—shortly after Musk took over Twitter and started his "X" rebrand—the Tesla CEO banned Sweeney's @ElonJet X account, reinstated it, and then banned it again. Musk insinuated that Sweeney's trackers helped a stalker follow him with one of his children, and said that any account "doxxing real-time location info" would be banned. Musk also said back in 2022 that he'd take legal action against Sweeney over the accounts, but Sweeney tells PCMag that he hasn't received anything.
Last year, Swift's attorneys sent Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter, threatening legal action if the jet-tracking continued. Around that time, Instagram had banned the account that tracked Swift's jets. Sweeney responded with a legal letter of his own, arguing that his accounts are engaging in "protected speech."
Sweeney then established two new X accounts that track Musk and Swift's jets, but post that information a day later. Those accounts remain visible at time of writing. The ElonJet Telegram, BlueSky, and Mastodon accounts are also still live, however, providing real-time data. And the Taylor Swift jet-tracking accounts on Mastodon and Telegram are still live, as well.
Despite Meta and X's attempts to curb real-time jet tracking, the data remains available via the Ground Control website and other places on the web. There are other sites that facilitate ADS-B flight tracking, and there are apps for that, too.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include comment from Sweeney.