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#just to have it on here

evermoredeluxe · 3 months

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/taylor-swift-jet-tracking-legal-threat/

By Drew Harwell

Taylor Swift’s attorneys have threatened legal action against a Florida college student who runs social media accounts tracking the flights of her and other celebrities’ private jets.

Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, has for years run accounts that log the takeoffs and landings of planes and helicopters owned by hundreds of billionaires, politicians, Russian oligarchs and other public figures, along with estimates of their planet-warming emissions. The accounts use publicly available data from the Federal Aviation Administration and volunteer hobbyists who can track the aircraft via the signals they broadcast.

Sweeney’s accounts fueled a free-speech debate in late 2022 when X, formerly Twitter, banned Sweeney for sharing what the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, said were his “assassination coordinates.” The accounts don’t say who travels on the aircraft or where they go once the planes land.

In December, Swift’s attorney at the Washington law firm Venable wrote Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter saying Swift would “have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies” if he did not stop his “stalking and harassing behavior.”

Sweeney’s accounts had caused Swift and her family “direct and irreparable harm, as well as emotional and physical distress,” and had heightened her “constant state of fear for her personal safety,” the lawyer, Katie Wright Morrone, wrote, according to a copy of the letter sent to the home of Sweeney’s parents. Sweeney shared the letter with The Washington Post.

“While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our Client,” Morrone wrote. She added that there is “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control.”

The pop star has routinely faced stalkers showing up outside her homes, Morrone wrote, and one man now faces stalking and harassment charges after being arrested last month outside her townhouse in Manhattan.

Asked whether Swift’s representatives knew of any evidence that stalkers had used the jet-tracking accounts, Tree Paine, a spokeswoman for Swift, said, “We cannot comment on any ongoing police investigation but can confirm the timing of stalkers suggests a connection. His posts tell you exactly when and where she would be.”

Sweeney, 21, told The Post he saw the letter as an attempt to scare him away from sharing public data. The accounts offer only an incomplete sketch of which cities Swift might currently be in, similar to the public schedules for her concerts or any NFL games she might attend, he said. And the letters, he added, were sent to him at a time when she faced criticism over her flights’ environmental impact.

“This information is already out there,” he said. “Her team thinks they can control the world.”

Private-jet flights are routinely criticized for their “disproportionately high” impact on climate change, and Sweeney’s accounts have often been used to name and shame their most famous passengers. In 2022, the accounts were cited in an analysis that estimated Swift was the “biggest celebrity [carbon dioxide] polluter” of the year.

Her publicist told The Post then that the analysis was flawed because her jet was often loaned out to other people. Paine told The Post on Monday that Swift bought more than double the “carbon credits” needed to offset her travel before her recent tour kicked off.

Around the time of the December letter, Facebook and Instagram disabled the accounts Sweeney had created to track Swift’s air travel, saying they broke the platforms’ privacy rules, he said. He began posting those updates onto accounts on Facebook and Instagram that he uses to log the travel of planes used by a range of stars, called Celeb Jets. Then, last month, Morrone sent a second letter saying his posts about Swift’s aircraft constituted “harassing conduct.”

The letters included the names of three other Venable attorneys experienced in litigation, including one who says on LinkedIn that she is the founding member of the firm’s “Digital Crisis Planning & Response client solution” and helps “high-profile individuals” manage crises of varying magnitude, such as “celebrity disgrace events.”

Morrone did not respond to requests for comment. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, also did not respond.

Planes in the sky regularly broadcast their locations via transponders so air traffic controllers and other pilots can see where they’re going. Anyone on the ground can pick up those signals using a cheap device, known as an ADS-B receiver, that is widely sold online.

The FAA allows plane owners to request their flights be hidden in the federal data that undergirds popular consumer flight-tracking websites, such as FlightAware. Swift’s jet appears to be blocked through such a request.

But many aviation hobbyists feed their raw data into independent websites, such as ADS-B Exchange, that those FAA requests do not cover. Criminal investigators, journalists and researchers have used those sites to look up historical flight paths or see who’s flying overhead.

Swift, Time magazine’s 2023 “person of the year,” made history Sunday as the only musician to win four best-album Grammy Awards, and her every movement is closely watched by paparazzi and superfans. Her “Eras Tour” last year was credited with boosting the local economies of every city she stopped in; one study cited by The Post estimated that “Swifties” spent about $93 million per show.

Her travel plans have drawn increased attention in recent weeks as she’s flown to watch her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, play for the Kansas City Chiefs, including from conservatives who have seized on the trips to criticize her.

They have also become a key point of interest for her fans, especially because her upcoming concert in Tokyo is just hours before Kelce’s scheduled Super Bowl appearance on Sunday in Las Vegas. Even Japan’s embassy in Washington recognized the public’s interest, posting on X last week, “Despite the 12-hour flight and 17-hour time difference, the Embassy can confidently Speak Now to say that … she should comfortably arrive” on time.

Sweeney’s accounts have in recent months tracked two jets that were owned by Nashville-based companies and registered to be operated by a Swift company called Firefly Entertainment, according to FAA documents. They do not track who travels on the planes or any other chartered flights.

Swift’s spokeswoman told The Post that “there is only one plane.” One of the planes previously tracked by Sweeney’s accounts, a Dassault Falcon 900, was marked in FAA records last week as being transferred to a real estate company. Each jet sells for about $25 million, according to brokerage estimates cited last month by The Post.

After X banned him and his accounts in December 2022, Sweeney opened new Facebook and Instagram accounts for Swift, former president Donald Trump, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, reality star Kim Kardashian and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, among others. All of those accounts except for Swift’s remain online — including the accounts for Zuckerberg, who runs both sites. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Sweeney continues to post Swift jet updates to other platforms, including Bluesky, Mastodon and Telegram. To abide by X’s rule against real-time location tracking, he also created accounts that post Musk and Swift’s flight updates with a 24-hour delay.

The December letter from Swift’s attorney states that Sweeney’s actions are “in violation of several state laws” but does not specify them. The letter does, however, cite nine anonymous Instagram comments saying the account is “scary,” “pathetic,” “weird,” invasive” and “dangerous” “stalker behavior.”

The letter says Sweeney is “notorious for disregarding the personal safety of others in exchange for public attention and/or requests for financial gain” and cites a message he sent to Musk in 2021, during which he countered Musk’s $5,000 offer to delete the Musk-jet account with a suggestion of $50,000, as first reported by the now-defunct tech blog Protocol. Sweeney said no money was ever exchanged.

After receiving the letters, Sweeney said he asked for help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, which sent his request to a list of attorneys. James Slater, a Florida lawyer who specializes in First Amendment and internet speech issues, responded on Sweeney’s behalf to the Venable letter.

Slater wrote that Morrone had not identified any legal claim, that the jet information posed “no threat” to Swift’s safety, and that Sweeney’s account had “engaged in protected speech that does not violate any of Ms. Swift’s legal rights,” according to a copy reviewed by The Post. Slater said he has yet to receive a response.

In an interview, Slater said he thought the Swift attorney’s letters were “hyperbolic and unfounded” and sent in hopes that Sweeney would “just delete everything and do what they said.”

“This isn’t about putting a GPS tracker on someone and invading their privacy. It’s using public information to track the jet of a public figure,” he said. “This is their means to try to quash a PR issue and bully my client to have the bad coverage die down.”

#just to have it on here #jet #jack sweeney #arshia talks

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spyglassrealms · 1 year

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had a fucking hilarious dream that tumblr replaced the "block" function with the far funnier "glock" function, which did the exact same thing except whenever anyone blocked you a random bullet hole, like a png of a bullet hole, would appear on your blog. discourse blogs were unreadable bc you'd go to the page and the sheer amount of bullet hole pngs stacked over the blogs obscured everything. I woke myself up laughing

#normally I don't chronicle my dreams here but fucking hell that one was funny #I think this would genuinely make tumblr better tbh #@ staff do this cowards #spy has thoughts #my life is a sitcom and i am my own laugh track #functional website #spy's smash hits #Glock function #edit for everyone in the notes saying 'everyone clapped'#I know I can't prove to you that it happened for real you're just gonna have to trust me on this #but I swear on my goddamn life I'm not making this up #I make so many conscious puns that sometimes my subconscious cooks up a real good one

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romansmartini · 3 months

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hey guys if you’re planning on making a vaguepost on the dashboard can you message me with the details and some of the lore behind the vague post you’re making. a vaguepost for the dash and a detailedpost for me. because i like to know what’s going on. if you do this i will automatically take your side because you’ve done the right thing by letting me know what’s up. thanks in advance ❤️

#jillian.txt #believe it or not there is not an active vagueposting situation happening so you don’t have to worry i’m doing the vagueposting here #100% serious about this btw i will keep your secrets and hype you up. i just like to know what’s going on

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panstarry · 21 days

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heads up: this games charity bundle was finally approved on itch.io! it opens this friday, april 12th, and will run for a week. all proceeds will go to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund.

you can check out the bundle on itch.io and follow @vgforpalestine on twitter for more updates!

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EDIT: as of april 20th, 2024 this bundle is now live!!

#free palestine #itch.io #charity bundle #video games for palestine #palestinian relief bundle #pan talks #just got the email that the project is finally live after a couple tehcnical hiccups and itchio road bumps here and there #they said we could share so i figured i'd post abt it here on tumblr since it appears that they're not on here o7 please boost!#i have a zine in this one but please be sure to check out all of the work

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daisywords · 6 months

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One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

#idk what to tag this #worldbuilding #writing fiction #historical fiction #fantasy #a real-life example: my dad (a pediatrician) was once entrusted with the care of a baby who was born with a rare condition #this was in a place without great hospital/medical access and anyway they were going to fly the baby over #and he specifically asked them to bring the mother and baby #they show up with baby and...the baby's uncle #and he was like. y'all. do you think I asked for the mom to come just for fun??? We don't have formula here. what is the baby going to eat?

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artistotel · 5 months

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hey! for todays protest, i made this little zine about palestine (holding just simple and basic information).

you can download the zine here, fold it yourself, and distribute it around.

no credit is needed. feel free to leave it around bars, protests, or wherever. simply print it (borderless) and fold it. here is a tutorial on how to do it.

dont stay silent. there is a genocide of horrendous, atrocious proportions going on. also if you are a zionist here to argue with me, i dont plan to entertain you at all, not on my art blog. fuck off, you'll be swiftly blocked. i see enough of you clowns on my main and i have no energy for you. you can skip the death threats too bc i dont give a shit.

(i'm off to get ready for a surgery now, i just wanted to post it before this. if you need anything, i might take a bit to reply)

#free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #anti zionisim #israel is a terrorist state #israel is an apartheid state #palestine resources #gaza #palestine #art #comics art #art zine #p.s. i usually put my socials on the end of my zines #i didnt do it here not bc i dont stand behind my words #but bc im not interested in self-promotion over palestinian dead bodies!#srsly you dont have to credit me i just hope this zine gets distributed #and as always do *not* sell this.#its a free resource based in what ive learnt from palestinians themselves #its not made for monetary or followers gain

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1eos · 11 months

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the glorification of your 20s and fear of anything else has got to stop. mainly bc your 20s is quite literally the worst decade of your life the idea that ppl think you peak at 25 has me so sad for them

#in your twenties everything starts to go wrong and you have no experience yet so it's just #ego death after ego death #no way ppl think it's all down hill from here like how BLEAK

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