Elon Musk gets fact-checked by Twitter Community Notes after claiming he was removing vital feature
Keryn Donnelly
Featured Image Credit: Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images. Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Images.
Another day, another wild story about Elon Musk.
The eccentric tech billionaire has announced he was planning to remove the 'block' function on X, the social media platform formally known as Twitter.
He tweeted that the feature would be removed from the platform but you would still be able to block someone from sending you a direct message.
Community notes, an internal Twitter branch, then fact-checked Musk on his own platform.
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Yep, you couldn't make this shit up.
“If the ability to block users was to be removed, X would violate the policies of the App Store as well as the Google Play Store," the note stated.
“Potentially, this could lead to X being removed from these platforms.”
When Musk replied that it 'made no sense', the note explained that blocking 'is a basic safety feature that allows basic protection for victims of abuse and stalking'.
It continued: "Removing this feature would compromise the safety of many people on social media."
Musk has also announced that the 'mute' function will stick around but that only mutes the notifications about the person you muted, it doesn't stop them from tweeting about you or trying to contact you on the platform.
Even Elon Musk can get @CommunityNotes pic.twitter.com/koeL7wuV6W
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) August 19, 2023
An engineer at Twitter named Aqueel Miqdad floated the idea of a stronger mute feature.
"I am seeing a lot of users concerned about removing blocks. We can make mutes stronger, like not allow people you mute to reply or quote you. We can also transfer you block list to mute list," he tweeted.
He continued: "Preventing an account from seeing your posts does not work in practice. Anyone with any intent can find out what you post by simply creating another account or logging out."
Meanwhile, some prominent X users have voiced their concern about the removal of the block function, including cyberbullying activist Monica Lewinsky.
"Hey @elonmusk + @lindayaX please rethink removing the block feature. As an anti-bullying activist (and target of harassment) I can assure you it’s a critical tool to keep people safe online - that woman," Lewinsky tweeted.
Musk later tweeted that it has been 'pretty fun blocking people who complain that blocking is going away'.
He added: "How does the medicine taste?"