Taylor Swift has received a response from 21-year-old Florida college student Jack Sweeney, to whom she sent a formal letter to cease tracking her private jet, as confirmed by the student on his social media platforms.
Through his X account, formerly Twitter, the student shared the letter sent by his lawyers to the legal team of the pop superstar, asserting that Sweeney did nothing illegal by sharing her flight route with the world. The post, far from the interest in the letter’s content, has drawn attention for the brazen reference to one of the singer’s songs that accompanied the image of the missive. “Look what you made me do,” referring to the 2017 track from the Reputation album.
Last December, Taylor Swift’s lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to the student to stop publishing the whereabouts of her private plane. The missive claimed that the student ran the now-defunct Instagram account @taylorswiftjets and had engaged in “harassing behavior” by sharing the artist’s flights on social media.
Publicly Available Information
“This conduct poses an imminent threat to our Client’s safety and well-being and must cease,” said her legal team, adding that it was a “life or death matter” for Swift, who has dealt with stalkers since she was a teenager.
Sweeney’s legal team, on the other hand, asserted that they had not identified any legal claims against their client, who posts publicly available data from the Federal Aviation Administration.
“In short, there is nothing illegal about [Sweeney’s] use of publicly available information to track private planes, including those used by public figures like Taylor Swift,” explained lawyer James Slater.
Likewise, he argued that the young man also shares content about other celebrities and public figures like Elon Musk.
“The @taylorswiftjets account engages in protected speech that does not infringe upon any of Ms. Swift’s legal rights. Your letter makes this clear by not identifying any legal claims,” he said.
For violating its privacy policy, Instagram shut down the @taylorswiftjets account; however, Sweeney continues to share posts about the star’s air travel on his other account Celeb Jet, where he also posts about Hollywood elites’ trips. In 2022, the singer was named the “biggest carbon dioxide polluter” of the year in an analysis citing Sweeney’s accounts.
This story was written in Spanish by Daniel Matute in Cultura Colectiva.