Twitter on Wednesday suspended more than 25 accounts that track the planes of government agencies, billionaires and high-profile individuals — including one that followed the movements of the social media company’s owner, Elon Musk, who has said he was committed to “free speech.”
Jack Sweeney, a 20-year-old college student and flight tracking enthusiast, said he woke up on Wednesday to find that his automated Twitter account, @ElonJet, had been suspended. In recent months, the account amassed more than 500,000 followers by using public flight information and data to post the whereabouts of Mr. Musk’s private plane. Twitter later reinstated the @ElonJet account before suspending it again.
Mr. Musk had been aware of @ElonJet for months. After buying Twitter for $44 billion in October, he said that he would allow the account to remain on the platform. “My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” Mr. Musk tweeted last month.
Mr. Sweeney’s personal Twitter account was also suspended on Wednesday, along with the other accounts that he runs that track the planes of tech billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. Mr. Sweeney shared a message that he had received from Twitter, which said his account had been suspended for violating rules “against platform manipulations and spam.”
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