Elon Musk pledged in November that he would uphold free speech by refusing to block an account that tracked his private jet despite saying it posed a “clear personal safety concern.” That account was suspended today. then revived. then halted once more. It’s unclear what @ElonJet’s future holds, but it’s likely connected to a new set of guidelines from Twitter Safety regarding how it handles accounts that provide location data for other users.
Sharing another person’s live location is now restricted unless it is tied to a “public engagement or event,” such as a concert or political gathering, according to a series of tweets describing the new policy. There is a higher danger of bodily injury when someone tweets about someone else’s live location, according to the notice. Moving forward, we’ll delete Tweets that contain this information, and we’ll suspend accounts that share other people’s live locations. The post continues to make it clear that these guidelines only apply to “someone else’s” place. Your location can still be tweeted.
- According to reports, Twitter is increasing the cost of Blue subscription on iOS to $11.
- Elon Musk orders Twitter employees to put in excessive hours or quit.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022
Historical location information is allowed, however, so long as “a reasonable time has elapsed, so that the individual is no longer at risk for physical harm.” That part of the policy could leave room for an account like @Elonjet — and while the account was briefly restored this afternoon, at the time of this writing it is once again suspended, as are the personal accounts of Jack Sweeney, the college student who runs @Elonjet. Musk has also said that “legal action” would be taken against Sweeney and “organizations who supported harm to my family” following a recent incident with a stalker and the billionaire’s son.
