The account automatically reporting the routes of Elon Musk's private jet was suspended by the platform on Wednesday despite the entrepreneur's promise not to touch it, illustrating his variable geometry approach to moderation.
The account had been restored late Wednesday in the United States, its owner tweeting: "
I'm back!
".
Before finally being suspended again in the evening.
“
My commitment to freedom of expression goes so far as not to ban the account that follows my plane, even if it poses a direct risk to my personal safety
,” Elon Musk wrote on Twitter in early November, a few days later. having bought the platform for 44 billion dollars.
“
Account suspended
”, was it simply written on the account in question, baptized @ElonJet, on Wednesday.
Read alsoTwitter files: "Proof is made that these censorship methods, which many suspected, exist"
Created by a student and followed by around 500,000 people, @ElonJet used public data to automatically indicate when and where the Spacex and Tesla boss's device took off and landed.
In a message posted at the top of the account when it was still visible, its author stressed having "
all rights to transmit information
" on the jet insofar as the data is public and that all planes have the obligation to be equipped with a transponder, a device intended to help in their identification by radars.
“
Twitter policy states that data found on other sites may be shared here as well
,” the post read.
Mixed messages
"
Posting someone's location in real time violates
'
doxing
' rules
, but posting it offline is allowed
," Elon Musk, the term "
doxing
" meaning publicly disclosing, tweeted on Wednesday.
Internet most often, personal information relating to an individual, without his consent.
The student's personal account, Jack Sweeney, has also been suspended.
Since his arrival at the head of the platform, the multi-billionaire has sent mixed messages about what is authorized or not.
Fervent defender of a great freedom of expression – as long as the remarks respect the law – he restored accounts previously banned by the social network, including that of Donald Trump.
But he also suspended that of Kanye West after the publication of several messages deemed anti-Semitic and refused the return to the platform of the far-right conspirator, Alex Jones.
Read alsoAurélie Jean: "Was it up to Elon Musk to decide Donald Trump's return to Twitter?"
Elon Musk has also promoted in recent days the publication of several series of “
Twitter files
”, internal documents supposed to illustrate questionable moderation practices under the previous management.
He also personally attacked former Twitter security chief Yoel Roth, who later had to leave his home for security reasons, according to US media.
The co-founder and ex-boss of the platform, Jack Dorsey, publicly defended his former colleagues on Tuesday, saying in a message that the attacks against them “
can be dangerous and do not solve anything
”.
He also defended the idea that "
only the original author of content should be able to delete
it" and that moderation should not be done via a "
centralized system
" but carried out by algorithms designed by the general public.
