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Surprise! 'Free speech warrior' Elon Musk bans the Twitter accounts that track his private jet [1]

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Date: 2022-12-14

The account, @ElonJet, was run by Florida college student Jack Sweeney and had amassed more than half a million followers. It tracked Musk’s plane’s location using publicly available flight data and appears to have been suspended Wednesday morning. “Well it appears @ElonJet is suspended,” Sweeney tweeted Wednesday. He encouraged users to follow him on other platforms. The 20-year-old told CNBC he started the account in June 2020 because he was a fan of Musk’s work at Tesla and SpaceX where he’s CEO of both companies. “Even now, my dream car is definitely a Tesla,” Sweeney said.

Well, that’s nice that you still dream of Teslas, Jack. Musk needs all the Tesla fans he can get these days.

RELATED: Elon Musk is about to learn that liberals—not his new deplorable pals—buy Teslas

Of course, this ban is particularly curious, given that Musk specifically said he would never 86 the account, thanks to his rock-ribbed devotion to free expression.

x My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022

It’s also a personal safety risk to climb onto a stage in San Francisco, where everyone hates you, naively hoping you’ll receive more huzzahs than hisses. But hey, in order to protect himself from that frothing, woke Bay Area mob, he’d probably have to shove the Nazis back in their bunkers, and there’s no way he’s going to do that.

RELATED: Anti-trans villain brings racist billionaire on stage, and the audience erupts in boos

Then again, it’s nice to see Musk is so concerned about everyone’s personal safet—

Oh, what the fuck is this, now?

x My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2022

Nice. So Elon is so concerned about “personal safety” he decided to flush a lit cherry bomb into the seamy septic tank that is MAGA Twitter. Apparently, giving sensible public health guidance to people during a raging pandemic is illegal now. And if the government refuses to take Fauci down for his serial outrages, Elon will release the flying Muskies.

RELATED: 'Prosecute/Fauci': Musk aligns himself with the far-right, and Twitter is now dangerously unsafe

Musk’s banning of @ElonJet also follows an apparent attempt to mute the account. On Dec. 10, Sweeney shared information “obtained by an anonymous Twitter employee” showing that his account was being restricted “to a severe degree.”

Others seemingly confirmed the so-called “shadow ban.”

x Did you know that @elonjet is de-amplified?

You can't keyword search the account or tag the account through suggested usernames.

I'm unsure if this is new due to Elon's purchase or something that's been in place, but it is interesting. pic.twitter.com/jIdMpS6cep — ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) December 9, 2022

Not long after tweeting about the account’s ostensible shadow ban, Sweeney noted that Twitter had apparently relented.

Twitter relented for three days, anyway.

Ah, but if Musk wants to make sure @ElonJet (and its tracking of the world’s formerly richest man’s Uber-like use of a private jet) disappears forever, he’ll have to buy Mastadon and ruin it, too. ‘Cause that’s where Sweeney has since set up shop.

And that’s where he’ll likely stay, since Twitter has now banned Sweeney’s personal account as well:

x Twitter has permabanned Jack Sweeney, who ran the Elon Jets account (also banned) pic.twitter.com/0iQxQQmILD — Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) December 14, 2022

And Musk appears to be protecting his fellow filthy rich guys, too:

x It appears other accounts tracking billionaires' jets using publicly available flight data are now gone as well.



I'm not aware of any changes to Twitter's terms of service. But that may not matter anymore given the platform's owner. pic.twitter.com/6Wru98vMeS — Ryan Mac 🙃 (@RMac18) December 14, 2022

Chances are, before long, the mephitic Musk funk—which hovers portentously over Tesla like Trump’s sweaty neck wattle over a Mar-a-Lago omelet bar—will so overwhelm Twitter that its users will be forced to follow Sweeney out the door. And then Musk and his devotees will finally have the “free speech” hub chub they’ve always wanted.

And … Musk’s demonstrated commitment to all things free speech continues!

x Amazing levels of commitment to free speech. pic.twitter.com/4OYaDM4xzK — southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) December 14, 2022

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/14/2141829/-Surprise-Free-speech-warrior-Elon-Musk-bans-the-Twitter-accounts-that-track-his-private-jet

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