X owner Musk to scrap block feature on platform
World’s wealthiest person and owner of the microblogging platform, X, formerly known as Twitter, Elon Musk, has announced the scrapping of the feature that allows users to block posts from specific accounts.
Musk who made this known on Friday said, “Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs.”
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For users of the platform, the feature is used to restrict interaction with specific accounts on the platform.
This is inline with his aim to establish free speech on the platform.
Twitter since its taking over last October for $44 billion, its advertising business has collapsed, in part because of its loser approach to blocking hate speech, and the return of previously banned far-right accounts.
According to nonprofit organisation the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), hate speech has flourished on the platform.
X has disputed the findings and is suing the CCDH.
In December, Musk reinstated former US president Donald Trump’s Twitter account, although Trump has yet to return to the platform.
The ex-president was banned from Twitter in early 2021 for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by a group of his supporters seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
X recently reinstated rapper and designer Kanye West around eight months after his account was suspended, according to media reports.
Last fall, West, who now goes professionally by Ye, posted an image that appeared to show a swastika interlaced with a Star of David, and Musk suspended the artist from the platform.
Punch
