The CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk.
Twitter’s policy: Elon Musk warns Twitter users against doxxing of live locations, Calls It a ‘physical Safety Violation’. The CEO has changed the platform rules on doxxing. He tweeted through his Twitter handle, “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation.”
Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.
Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022
Doxxing is the act of revealing the personal information of an individual such as their name, address, phone number, and financial information without a victim’s permission and with malicious intent.
Twitter on Wednesday suspended the account that was tracking Elon Musk’s jet in real-time. The billionaire is to sue its operator following a stalking incident with his son X. He again tweeted, “Last night, a car carrying lil X in LA was followed by a crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked the car from moving & climbed onto hood. Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.”
Anyone recognize this person or car? pic.twitter.com/2U0Eyx7iwl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022
He asked, “Anyone recognize this person or car?”
Action taken
The Twitter account @ElonJet has been suspended. The account was operated by a 20-year-old university student Jack Sweeney. He had traced the movements of Musk’s private jet using publicly available data. Soon after, Jack Sweeney’s personal account got banned from Twitter as well, along with the accounts of other automated flight trackers he operated.
Doxxing someone’s real life location isn’t free speech.
— D̵̳͔͆͊E̶̖͘E̵̦͒̐J̴̮̤͠͝ (@BirdAppDeej) December 15, 2022
Twitter’s policy on doxxing
The official Twitter Safety account announced the updated policy about an hour before Musk’s tweets. “We’ve updated our Private Information policy to prohibit sharing someone else’s live location in most cases,” Twitter Safety wrote.
“When someone shares an individual’s live location on Twitter, there is an increased risk of physical harm. Moving forward, we’ll remove Tweets that share this information, and accounts dedicated to sharing someone else’s live location will be suspended,” the announcement continued.
There are several exceptions to the new rule. “You can still share your own live location on Twitter. Tweets that share someone else’s historical (not same-day) location information are also not prohibited by this policy. Content that shares location information related to a public engagement or event, such as a concert or political event, is also permitted,” Twitter wrote.
This week’s changes are detailed in Twitter’s updated private information and media policy. That policy previously hadn’t been updated since April. Under the heading, “What is in violation of this policy?” the following section was added:
Suspensions of accounts similar to the ones Sweeney ran will be automatic, the updated policy says. “If your account is dedicated to sharing someone’s live location, your account will be automatically suspended,” it says.
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Due to its various exceptions, enforcing the new policy may be complicated or at least require human review in many cases. One exception is “publicly sharing someone’s home addresses or live locations to seek help after a natural disaster.”
“Note: regardless of intent, if the information is not shared during a crisis situation to assist with humanitarian efforts or in relation to public engagement events, we will remove any tweets or accounts that share someone’s live location,” the policy says.
Tweets sharing live location information may be removed even if there’s no “abusive” intent. Under the heading, “What is not a violation of this policy?” the updated document includes “sharing information that is publicly available elsewhere, in a non-abusive manner (with the exception of live location information).”
The first violation of sharing private information or media will get your account locked and you’ll be asked to remove the information/media. The second violation will fetch you a permanent suspension. As for accounts dedicated to sharing someone’s live location, those will be automatically suspended.
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