by Madeleine Hubbard
Twitter CEO Elon Musk changed the social media platform’s rules on live location tracking after what he described as a “crazy stalker” followed a car carrying his child and “climbed” onto the vehicle.
In making the change, Musk also said Wednesday that “legal action is being taken” against Jack Sweeney, the man behind the account using publicly available data to track the location of the Tesla CEO’s private jet, following the attack on his 2-year-old child, X Æ A-Xii Musk.
As Twitter’s new owner, Musk previously promised to keep the jet-tracking account because of his commitment to free speech, despite his belief that the page carries a “direct personal safety risk.”
In what appear to be his final decision on the matter, he also said Wednesday in a tweet: “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 [that] is ok.”
Just over a half hour later, Musk followed up with another tweet: “Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood.”
He said he is taking legal action against Sweeny as well as “organizations who supported harm” against his family. Musk then posted a video of the alleged stalker to ask if anyone recognized him.
Sweeney, a 20-year-old college sophomore, started the @elonjet account to track Musk’s flights. The page had more than 500,000 followers by Wednesday when Musk suspended the account.
“He said this is free speech and he’s doing the opposite,” Sweeny told The Associated Press. The college student’s personal account was also suspended.
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Madeleine Hubbard joined Just the News as a fast file reporter after working as an editor at Breitbart News.
Photo “Elon Musk” by The Royal Society. CC BY-SA 3.0.
