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Meta bans accounts that follow Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk’s planes

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Two years after plane-tracking enthusiast Jack Sweeney saw his Elon Musk plane-tracking account banned on Twitter/X, Meta took similar action against the creator and banned a dozen different accounts on Instagram and Threads.

“Following Jets on Instagram and Threads has been removed,” Sweeney wrote early Tuesday morning on his personal Threads account, which remains viewable.

Sweeney says Meta has not told him why these accounts were banned and he is unable to appeal to have them restored. “If I’m not allowed to appeal, what’s the point of having a monitoring system? This lack of transparency makes Meta’s actions even more concerning,” Sweeney wrote.

Sweeney shares data on the movements of private planes owned by 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 removed accounts sharing information about jets belonging to DeSantis, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Trump and Musk. The Threads accounts that follow Musk and Trump’s jets, respectively, were also removed, as were Sweeney’s “CelebJets” accounts on Instagram and Threads, which follow celebrities’ private planes more broadly.

“Given the risk of physical harm to individuals, and in accordance with the recommendation of the Independent Oversight Board, we have disabled these accounts for violating our privacy policy,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch .

In late 2022, shortly after Musk took over Twitter and began his “X” rebranding, the Tesla CEO banned Sweeney’s @ElonJet X account, reinstated it, then banned it again. Musk insinuated that Sweeney’s trackers helped a stalker track him and one of his children, and said any accounts “doxxing real-time location information” would be banned. Musk also said he would take legal action against Sweeney over these accounts. PCMag has contacted Sweeney for comment.

Last year, Swift’s lawyers sent Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter, threatening legal action if the tracking of the planes continued. At that time, Instagram banned the account that followed Swift’s jets. Sweeney responded with his own legal letter, arguing that his stories engaged in “protected speech.”

Sweeney then created two new X accounts that follow Musk and Swift’s jets, but post this information a day later. These accounts remain visible at the time of writing. The ElonJet Telegram, BlueSky and Mastodon accounts are also still active, providing real-time data. And the Taylor Swift plane tracking accounts on Mastodon and Telegram are also still online.

Despite Meta and X’s attempts to limit real-time aircraft tracking, data remains available through the Ground Control website and other places on the web. There are other sites that make ADS-B flight tracking easier, as well as apps for that.