In His Latest Threat to Public Safety, Elon Musk Says Twitter Will Remove Option to Block Users
In His Latest Threat to Public Safety, Elon Musk Says Twitter Will Remove Option to Block Users
There's no way to know if Musk is ever telling the truth. But if he goes through with his threat, he'll have to answer to Google and Apple.
Its all part of the plan. EM does one outrageous thing each day to constantly stay in the news cycle. The ego must be fed.
Oscar Wilde described this mentality in The Picture of Dorian Gray
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Yeah, who is this guy again? And why does he always look like he's about to sneeze?
“That’s his eager face.”
EM does one outrageous thing each day to constantly stay in the news cycle. The ego must be fed.
Maybe he's competing against MAGA Mango Mussolini.
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Is it the ego feeding or keeping Twitter ("X") front of mind? Kind of like 2010 lady gaga constantly one upping herself to stay in the news (meat dress anyone?)
Is it the ego feeding or keeping Twitter (“X”) front of mind?
They’re the same picture.
Just get off it people. Easy to solve.
Permanently Deleted
I can imagine the conversation.
Elon: "I own this website, and you're telling me that I'm not allowed to see this person's profile or activity because they blocked me?"
Good luck getting a massive narcissist like him to understand why every user should have that right.
He's acting exactly like your typical shitty narcissistic parasite of a parent who finds out they don't control EVERY one of your social media accounts, whether you live with them or not lol. Or when they blocked someone "on your behalf" and you didn't know about it and tried to search for them to no avail.
"Why is the engagement on my posts so low?"
"Well your Excellency, the great and powerful Musk, the users have blocked you."
"They can't do that. How else will they bask in my magnificence?"
"We tried ignoring the block and showing your posts anyway, but we had to reverse that decision unfortunately."
"I have it! Remove blocking completely for everyone!"
"You are most wise. It shall be done, your Excellency."
Back when I had a Twitter account I had blocked this motherfucker because of his narcissistic shenanigans. Needless to say, I wasn’t on Xitter even for full 24 hours after he bought it. Deleted the account along with all the tweets.
Fuck this Apartheid Xitler.
Before someone says "but you can mute those toxic asshole". Muting them means they will continue to see your posts and will still berate you, other people will reply quoting you and you will not only continue to see the toxic content, but you will become a target to more and more assholes with nothing better to do in life
Just a wee selection of my block list: bots, thirst traps, bitcoin bro, invest bros, marketing bros, dating stuff and far too much gambling.
I mean twitter must be down on ad revenue by the amount of gambling sites I block alone. Surely I was just about to sign up and gamble on the big South match between the irresistible Portsmouth v the unmovable object that is Southhampton.
He’ll probably invest his remaining billions in developing a way to thwart adblockers next. It will be as successful as everything else he has done in relation to twitter.
Is there a shared list for blocking? I wouldn't mind importing that.
No idea if I can share it, it's just what I've manually blocked over the years.
Holy shit, "In His Latest Threat to Public Safety", that's in the actual headline. I want this to become a trend.
EDIT: I want the trend of calling out Elon on his bullshit in the headline. It is a threat to public safety because blocking people stops them seeing your tweets, and using mass tagging apps to do so reduces your profile to groups of unhinged right wingers. When you get their attention en masse they might hurt you because they create basically all of the domestic terrorists, and everyone is a member of the public. This isn't difficult to figure out, guys. If you can't understand it then you don't want to.
But go off, tell us more about how much you hate the lying press.
Overexaggerating headlines online? I thought that trend was as old as news sites itself.
Right? It isn't "public" safety, because you have to be like 4 layers deep to be in danger.
- A Twitter user
- Identifiable
- Post
- In a blocked conversation
"Public" refers to people just "walking around", uninvolved I'm whatever is going on. So to relate to this it'd be like, "uninvolved Twitter readers being followed home"
As old as the press, really.
Fuck that twat.
can we just ignore this diseased cunt and stop posting twatter horseshit?
I'd say compromise and post about the crap when he actually does something rather than just saying he's going to. Him saying he's going to remove blocking is an eye roll but him actually doing so and causing more damage to twitter gives me popcorn cravings.
He can't push his apartheid propaganda if people refuse to read it, right? Dutchie is just missing one thing... you don't have to use Twitter. Free yourself from the site, and it no longer holds any power over you.
It's super easy to say "just don't use the site," but you gotta understand that that's a lot like saying "just stop hanging out with your friends" when they invite some neonazi to every get-together. Yeah, obviously it's what you have to do, but it still absolutely blows, especially if you don't fit in with anyone else.
Dude I don't care how long I've known the person, if I find out they are inviting neo Nazis to parties then I am fucking gone.
It does absolutely blow, but sometimes, you absolutely need to do it. I left Twitter after fourteen years of dedicated use, I left Reddit after four years, I was forced to leave Miiverse when it closed after five years. None of that was fun, and I'll probably not see some of the people I left behind again, but sometimes you just run out of options.
If Musk really does this, instead of backtracking off it, he’ll really kill the site. He had never realized that the way he uses Twitter is NOT the way that everyone does. He can’t see past his own nose, and no one there will tell him no.
I reckon he’ll either latch onto the Apple and Google TOS as an excuse to backtrack when it finally gets through his thick skull that this is a terrible idea, or he’ll double down on it because no one tells him what to do.
If Musk really does this, instead of backtracking off it, he’ll really kill the site.
Man I think I read this somewhere else. Oh right it was the last ten times he did batshit things, and yet...
Ok but how is that a public safety risk?
Block buttons are genuinely valuable for public safety.
kiwi farms is the most notorious of them, but there are many groups dedicated to targeting and harassing people of various demographics with the sole goal of tormenting them until they commit suicide. And they succeed far too regularly.
Communal blocklists go a long way toward negating this. Obviously they aren't the most public, but various groups and "trusted allies" more or less share the users they block and why. I was involved with one for reddit and we are likely to set another up for the various subfederations (?) of Lemmy. The idea being that if someone triggers a red flag or two, you block them and then post their name and profile link into a google doc or a discord channel or whatever. And people either vet each entry in the list or just run a script to apply the entire blocklist to their account. So only a limited number of people need to see the assholes and people are less likely to find their feed/comments section/whatever full of people telling them to kill themselves.
Get rid of blocking and you remove that ability and people just have to "sit there and take it". Which... has horrible consequences. Because it doesn't matter how "strong" you are. Being told you have no worth and should end your life endlessly for months on end will wear anyone down. And while he was a right prick who did more than his share of damage, Total Biscuit put it best: (paraphrasing) You could be having the best day of your life. If someone tells you that your nose is ugly, that sticks with you.
And these hate groups make sure that those negative thoughts are all that people can think of.
And considering musk's hatred for trans folk and minorities and the like? He knows this and this is what he wants.
I can imagine people feeling safer, when they are able to block someone stalking them. When you mute a user, this user still can see your profile, your posts and simply knows that you are there, active, posting. On the other hand, when you block another user, you don't exist for this user. I don't remember if a blocked user sees a "you're blocked" message or if your account vanishes completely when the blocked user is logged in.
I guess people who have the habit of harassing other people on social media often have multiple accounts. The feeling of safety when blocking such an account is certainly real but if someone really wants to stalk you he can. Instagram tries to solve this problem by having the option 'block this and all associated accounts'.
I feel like it could be considered dangerous for some people. For someone who faces harassment regularly, taking away the option to block people means making them choose between a) dealing with constant online harassment, or b) leaving the only online community you know. At the very least, this change will be severely detrimental to some folks' mental health, while providing absolutely no benefit to anyone.
It could also be a public safety risk because twitter is a place where many people get news about natural disasters and severe weather. The people who are forced off of the platform because of this change will lose a valuable aggregate of information, and when it gets removed from app stores for violating their TOS (they require that social media services allow blocking), even more people will be without that information.
You never saw how many toxic people are over there? Once they brigade on a target they can easily push someone to suicide
Good. This will drive even more people off his platform.
What's the over under on how many days until he backtracks this wonderful idea? I'll put it at 5. I choose over but only because I think that's how long the coke and benzo binge will take to wear off.
So let's say someone is harassing and abusing somebody on the platform. Blocking gives the victim a recourse. Let's say someone with an extreme ideology, such as a Nazi anti-semite, consistently posts hate at a jewish person. Blocking gives the victim a recourse. Blocking is an essential feature of social media, and Musk is a complete idiot.
Yes but now you pay for that service. So it's fine.
Truly a mystery why he would do this.. /s
The wording is funny, "public safety". I'm pretty sure all social media is bad for public safety.
Bro is completely unhinged
alwayshasbeen.jpg
Watch Quo Vardis (1951) the other day. Elon is in it. Played by Peter Ustinov.
🤦♂️
Threat to Public Safety
Dude, you forgot which of two worlds is the real one. Hint: it's not the Internet.
I like this since it forces people who do not like having their world view shaken up to have their world view shaken up. This will either limit echo chambers on the platform or cause people to leave Twitter. Most likely cause people to leave Twitter which I am all for since it is a big tech spyware platform filled with toxic people.
Nostr is were it is at! Not mastodon.
BTW I do not have a Twitter account nor do I use Twitter.
People don't just block others for "shaking up their world view", lots of blocks happen because of harassment, rude behavior, etc. Taking away one of the few tools to stop harassment is insane.
You obviously don't use Twitter if you think well-argued/constructive challenges to worldviews are the sorts of things people need the blocking feature for.
For some twitter users use the blocking feature to live in a echo chamber. For some it is to block spam. For some it is to block rude people.
The con of no blocking feature is not able to block spam.
no.
Im all for it, if it means that government 3 letter organizations cant demand block of users either...
This sentence is barely literate
Has the DOE often demanded one Twitter user block another?
They clearly mean the Department Of Transportation.
just in case this wasn't sarcastic... it obviously doesn't.
