On Instagram and threads: Numerous accounts for celebrity flights blocked

The US company Meta has blocked numerous accounts on Instagram and threads that have publicized the flights of private jets belonging to celebrities without prior notice. The college student responsible for this, Jack Sweeney, has made this public and summarizes that accounts relating to the jets of various celebrities (CelebJets), Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Jeff Bezos are affected, as well as the private flights of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

An account that publicizes Donald Trump's private flights was not initially affected, but has now also been blocked. The Instagram accounts and, if available, those on threads have been blocked. In all cases, however, existing Facebook accounts can still be accessed.

Student vs. meta

Sweeney's approach is nothing new, but until now his problems have always been caused by the celebrities themselves. The student operates a whole series of accounts on the short message services X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads and Nostr, as well as on Instagram and Facebook. They send messages based on publicly accessible data when private jets of certain celebrities take off. At the end of 2022, this brought him into conflict with Elon Musk, who had an existing Twitter account temporarily blocked after the Twitter takeover. At the end of 2023, Taylor Swift also attempted to have accounts for her own private flights shut down and had them blocked on Instagram and Facebook. This was based on the platforms' data protection rules.

What exactly is behind the current action is unclear. According to Sweeney, he has not been given a reason. A total of 38 of his accounts have now been blocked, and once again these are "arbitrary decisions" without transparency, he criticizes. The student recalls that although the account for Swift's private flights was blocked on Instagram months ago, the others continued to function. This is a clear example of unequal treatment being perpetuated for a long time. It is particularly problematic that he cannot even complain about the blocks to Meta's Oversight Board. It was also annoying that he had only recently expanded his presence on threads. He did not know what had happened now.

Musk and Swift had criticized the accounts because they posed a threat to them. However, they are based on publicly accessible data and merely make it easier to access. In addition, the flights are summarized and there is no information on the whereabouts of the celebrities.

Because the accounts also list how much CO₂ was emitted per flight based on the flight data, they were used at least once as the basis for an analysis of the biggest environmental offenders among the celebrities. Taylor Swift topped the list in 2022. Even later, there was repeated criticism of her plane trips and the associated emissions. Sweeney sees the operation of the accounts as an act of transparency.

(mho)