After Twitter suspended an account that provided publicly available flight data for Elon Musk’s private jet, the new owner and chief executive of the social media platform suggested the page put him and his family at risk .
In one three tweet thread, Musk said that any account providing “real-time” location information of anyone would be suspended because “it is a breach of physical security”. The billionaire also alleged that on Tuesday night a “crazy stalker” followed and climbed onto the bonnet of a car carrying Musk’s son.
Musk has vowed to take legal action against the student who ran the flight tracking account, which went through @ElonJet, and any “organization that supported the harm done to my family”.
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department said no police report had been filed about the incident that raised Musk’s concern.
“The LAPD Threat Management Unit is aware of the situation and tweeted by Elon Musk and is in contact with his representatives and security team,” the department said in a statement. “No offense report has yet been filed.”
The police statement came as Twitter and Musk came under increasing scrutiny following a wave of suspensions, including several journalists who cover Musk.
Among those whose accounts were suspended on Thursday night are Ryan Mac of the New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Matt Binder of Mashable, Drew Harwell of the Washington Post, political pundit Keith Olbermann and Steve Herman of Voice of, funded by the government. America.
On Friday evening, most accounts were back after Musk hosted a Twitter poll asking if they should be restored “now” or “in 7 days”. The @ElonJet account and Olbermann’s page appeared to remain suspended.
Harwell’s last post before being suspended concerned Twitter deleting the account of one of its competitors, Mastodon, for posting a link to its own version of the @ElonJet account that tracked Musk’s plane, according to a tweet by NBC News reporter Ben Collins.
O’Sullivan and Binder’s accounts were suspended after sharing the LAPD statement.
Binder said Thursday he was suspended immediately after sharing a screenshot of O’Sullivan’s statement.
“I have not shared any location data, per Twitter’s new terms. Nor have I shared links to ElonJet or other location tracking accounts,” Binder said. highly critical of Musk, but I have never violated any of Twitter’s listed policies.”
Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist, has pledged to make sweeping changes to the social media platform once he finalizes his control over the company, although last month, he tweeted that his “commitment to free speech even goes so far as not to ban the account following my plane, even if it is a direct risk to personal safety”.
On Wednesday, Twitter announced a policy update which prohibited the sharing of “live location information, including information shared directly to Twitter or links to third-party travel itinerary URLs”.
“We make no exceptions to this policy for journalists or any other accounts,” Twitter’s head of trust and safety Ella Irwin said. the edge by email.
On Thursday evening, Musk posted several tweets in response to the suspensions of journalists’ accounts.
Criticizing me all day is fine, but doxxing my location in real time and putting my family at risk is not. a tweet read.
“They posted my exact location in real time, basically the coordinates of the assassination, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter’s terms of service,” said another.
Musk also briefly joined a Twitter Spaces audio chat room in which several of the banned reporters were discussing the news.
“You show the link to real-time information, prohibit evasion,” Musk said. “You dox, you’re suspended, end of story, that’s it.”
Harwell, a banned Washington Post tech reporter who was also in the chat room, replied, “This is a report…there is report value in public data.”
Times editor Jaimie Ding contributed to this report.
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