Meta bans accounts that track celebrity jet travel, including for Zuckerberg
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Meta Platforms took down accounts on Threads and Instagram that track the private jet travel of famous figures including Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian and others. The company said the accounts, which use publicly available data to chronicle the planes’ movements, were suspended for privacy reasons, citing “the risk of physical harm to individuals." The episode echoes a decision Musk made to ban flight-tracking accounts on Twitter after he had acquired the platform, now called X.
Critics say the moves raise questions about the power of giant social-media platforms to favor the privacy of their owners, billionaires or other celebrities over the decisions of users to share publicly-available information. In 2022, Musk said the jet-tracking accounts posed a threat to people’s safety because they disclosed real-time locations. The platform later allowed an account that tracks the location of private flights linked to Musk with a delay of at least 24 hours.
Meta suspended the accounts on Instagram and Threads this week without warning, said Jack Sweeney, a 22-year-old college student at the University of Central Florida who ran the flight-tracking accounts. He also ran the account that had tracked Musk’s flights on X that Musk banned. “These platforms operate without transparency, and it feels like they make arbitrary decisions," Sweeney wrote in a note posted on Threads.
He also said the suspensions raise questions about whether celebrities are being given special treatment. Meta said that its decision was in keeping with a recommendation from Meta’s Oversight Board, an outside body that reviews the company’s content policies. The Board had recommended that Meta
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