Taylor Swift Threatens To Sue The Guy Posting Her Private Jet’s Location To Facebook And Instagram

Considering that we’re a car site, we write about Taylor Swift an awful lot here at Jalopnik. Well now, she’s back to grace our pages as it turns out the ‘Hits Different’ singer is threatening to sue a Florida student that’s been tracking her private jet.

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According to a report from the Washington Post, Swift’s attorneys have sent a cease and desist letter to Jack Sweeney, a Florida student who has made a name for himself running social media profiles that share the activity of celebs’ private jets. Elon Musk previously attempted to pay off Sweeney in order to force him to stop Tweeting the location of his own private plane.

Now, attention has turned to Sweeney’s Taylor-tracking tech, which he claims simply takes publicly accessible information and shares it with the world. According to the Washington Post, the accounts on Facebook and Instagram are able to share the location of Swift’s jet thanks to publicly available data from the Federal Aviation Administration. However Swift’s plane data has reportedly been blocked from sites like FlightAware, so instead Sweeney also turns to volunteer hobbyists, who can track aircraft via signals that they broadcast.

Swift purchased carbon credits before embarking on The Eras Tour. Photo: Buda Mendes/TAS23 (Getty Images)

Understandably, Swift hasn’t taken too kindly to her location being shared on the internet, and her lawyers stepped in last December to request that the accounts were taken down. As the Washington Post reports:

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.”

Sweeney argues that the movements of Swift’s private jet offer an “incomplete sketch” of the ‘New Romantics’ singer’s location. He likened it to the publicly available concert schedule for her ongoing Eras Tour or knowing the time and place of the Superbowl, which her boyfriend will be competing in this year.

However, unlike Sweeney’s tracking of Musk, Swift does have a history of scary run-ins with stalkers and other sinister types, so maybe has a little more to fear when her plane’s position is shared to Instagram. Just last month, alleged stalker Joshua Christian was arrested three times in five days after being found outside the singer’s New York home. As per the Post:

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.”

Taylor Swift plays in Tokyo on Saturday and plans to attend the Superbowl on Sunday. Photo: Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP (Getty Images)

Sweeney told the Post that he received the letters from Swift’s lawyers “at a time when she faced criticism over her flights’ environmental impact.” Analysis of Swift’s private jet flights recently found that she was “biggest celebrity [carbon dioxide] polluter” of 2022, the Post reports. The singer’s team refutes these claims as the “jet was often loaned out to other people,” and Swift regularly purchases carbon credits to offset her flights.

However, there’s no denying that flying to Tokyo to perform a show, jetting back to Vegas for the Superbowl and then flying back out to Australia to play the latest show in her Eras Tour is going to have a pretty hefty impact on the environment.