Instagram Has Banned Accounts Tracking Celebrities’ Private Jets

Several celebrity private-jet trackers have just been grounded.

Dozens of Threads and Instagram accounts that follow the paths of A-listers’ private planes were suspended this week, the Verge reported on Tuesday. Jack Sweeney, the college student behind the accounts, took to Threads to announce that they appeared blacked out, with no explanation as to why they were taken down.

“Today brings a sense of déjà vu, reminiscent of all my accounts getting suspended on Twitter,” Sweeney wrote. “What makes this more troubling is that I’ve received no communication from Meta—no warnings, no explanation.”

Sweeney, who first rose to fame as the creator of the @ElonJet account on Twitter (now known as X), uses public flight-path data to track the movements of numerous celebrities. His accounts cover everyone from Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to Kim Kardashian and Jeff Bezos. But as he mentioned, he has been shut down on Twitter and X before. And earlier this year, Taylor Swift threatened to sue him for tracking her private jet, leading @taylorswiftjets to be suspended prior to this week, the Verge noted.

While Sweeney has received warnings and status updates about previous suspensions, he said these recent ones came without messaging on the part of Meta, which runs both Instagram and Threads. Instead, the accounts were blacked out, with no way for Sweeney to interact with them or receive information as to why they were taken down.

“Given the risk of physical harm to individuals, and in keeping with the independent Oversight Board’s recommendation, we’ve disabled these accounts for violating our privacy policy,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch in an email.

While Meta may have decided that Sweeney’s accounts don’t align with the company’s standards, flight tracking is a perfectly legal activity for anyone to undertake—at least for now. But it has historically raised questions about privacy, and Meta seems to be in support of that argument. Sweeney, however, worries that the company’s actions come at the risk of transparency, and that Meta is making “arbitrary decisions,” as he wrote online.

Still, while Sweeney himself is ruing Meta’s decision, the celebrities he was tracking may be celebrating; they can jet off in their private planes without worrying that the whole internet knows where they are.