American company Meta has, without any notice, blocked several accounts and threads on Instagram that promoted flights on private planes belonging to celebrities. Responsible college student Jack Sweeney did it made public And it brings together, among other things, the jets of various celebrities (CelebJets), Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Jeff Bezos are affected, but also the private flights of Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg.
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An account promoting Donald Trump’s private flights was initially not affected, but has now been blocked as well. Instagram accounts and, if available, accounts on threads were blocked. In all cases, existing Facebook accounts can still be accessed.
student vs meta
This process isn’t new to Sweeney, but until now his problems have always come from affected celebrities. student conducts A full range of accounts On short messaging services X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads and Nostr, but also on Instagram and Facebook. Based on publicly available data, certain celebrities send notifications when their private planes take off. In late 2022, this brought him into conflict with Elon Musk, who had an account there temporarily blocked following the Twitter acquisition. In late 2023, Taylor Swift also tried to shut down her private flights accounts and was already blocked on Instagram and Facebook. The basis for this was the data protection rules of the platform.
What exactly lies behind the current approach is unclear. According to Sweeney, he was not given any reason for this. A total of 38 of his accounts have now been blocked, and once again these are “arbitrary decisions” without transparency, he criticized. The student reminded us that Swift’s private flights account was blocked on Instagram months ago, but others continued to operate. This is a clear example of unequal treatment that has persisted for a long time. What is particularly problematic is that he cannot even complain about the ban to Meta’s Oversight Board. It’s also annoying that they have recently expanded their presence on threads. He doesn’t know what happened now.
Musk and Swift criticized the accounts because they were a threat to them. They are based on publicly visible data and simply make them more accessible. Apart from this, a summary of the flights is given, there is no information about the whereabouts of the celebrities.
Because the accounts also listed how much CO₂ was emitted per flight based on flight data, they at least once served as the basis for an analysis of the biggest environmental offenders among celebrities. Taylor Swift tops the list for 2022. Even later, his plane travels and the emissions associated with them were repeatedly criticized. Sweeney sees the handling of accounts as an act of transparency.
(mho)
