Yesterday it became known that Twitter blocked the bot, which tracked the flights of its new owner Elon Musk, but later the social network reported that it now in principle prohibits the distribution of such information. As part of the new rule, the platform blocked other bots that tracked the planes of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires.
In addition, the bot author himself – Jack Sweeney, who launched these projects in 2020 based on open data – was blocked. Musk also said that legal action is being taken against Sweeney and “organizations that have supported harming my family.”
The billionaire later tweeted that posting someone’s real-time location on the social network violated the company’s policy against publishing certain personal data.
“Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info. Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok,” reported Musk.
As notes Bloomberg, Sweeney’s last tweet on his own account before he was suspended asked: “Can I get my $8 back?” with a link to the Twitter Blue subscription service.
Jason Calacanis, a venture capitalist and podcaster who helped Musk with his takeover of Twitter, defended the billionaire’s decision.
“My personal belief is that sustained sharing of public location information is de facto doxing,” Calacanis said in a tweet before Musk made his point. “If one individual followed another around all day & shared their location on a twitter handle called “Susan’s location” that would obviously present a dangerous security risk.”
Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida, said he had not received any other communications from Twitter via email or other media.
It is worth noting that the publication of information about aircraft flights is not closed or illegal in the USA, it can be viewed on services such as Flightradar24.
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