My Reaction to Elon Musk’s “Ridding X From The Block Feature”
First of all it hasn’t even been a full year and Elon is seemingly driving Twitter to bottom GODSPEED!! It almost seems to me that he hated twitter all his life and bought it (Overpriced!) on purpose to tank it to oblivion. Ok, I’m not here to talk about Musk, whether you’re a fan of him or not, that’s not the point. He made it perfectly clear that the block button is “pointless” on Twitter. Side Note: I will refer to X as Twitter through out this entire article. It’s my way of showing revolt to this obscene remark by Musk.
First of all, ALL OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS HAVE THE BLOCK FEATURE! So how does it “Makes No Sense”, Elon? Or is it just one of your sociopolitical stunts that you love to always flaunt? Oh, You So Edgy!
Anyway, here are 3 reasons why the block feature is a necessity and is not to be messed with under any circumstances:
- Personal Safety: Do you how many stalkers, sexual offenders, and downright serial killers use social media to hurt people? A lot! In fact social media made it super simple for criminals to conduct their actions without being seen. A stalker can gather so much data on you, simply by following your accounts and getting EVERY FREAKING update about your life. Yes, a lot of people share their life openly on the internet thinking it’s safe. See The Murder of Rapper Pop Smoke to get an idea of how scary this is. Mind you, a simple block feature couldn’t have saved Pop Smoke. But his story would be sufficient to convey how criminals use social media to work in ‘Silence’. Unseen and unheard.
- Cyberbullying & Harassments Have Real Consequences: This ties in to the first point, but deserves it’s own spot. There are a lot of kids on social media. They use it to connect with their friends and share interesting photos of themselves and things they own. In the midst of that, they may receive hateful comments also know as cyberbullying. There are a lot of kids who get emotionally abused by bullies. Some even take their own lives. Yes, this how sad it can get. Now, kids know the block button like the back of their hands. This use it at will whenever they feel uncomfortable. Something about social media just gives the the upper hand on bullies. And Musk think that “makes no sense”?!
You know I used to think Musk was an entitled rich baby who’s lightyears disconnected from the real world… never mind. - Privacy: You know how Musk’s other crazy nephew ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ almost lost it all due to allegations against him not protecting the privacy of people on his Facebook platform. Being irresponsible with people private data got severe consequences. Imagine a stalker that you can NEVER get rid of forces you to change the way you interact on Twitter and the people you follow, all out of fear of writing something that might jeopardize your safety. How “private” would you feel on Twitter? Imagine a slew of pornographic and/or other unwanted material flooding your timeline in the morning. Because these offenders know they can’t get blocked, thus feeling more and more empowered to spam their junk. I could go on and on about how this invades on the privacy of Twitter users, but I’m not going to insult your intelligence by writing about something that you probably got PhDs in (metaphorically).
Last and not least, I thought I’d add this little interaction between Musk & actor James Woods over the whole issue. Mind you Woods is a far-right activist (you could say). Which mostly where Musk leans towards. The far-right has been known to champion every thing Musk does, no matter how small. I thought it was pretty hilarious.
Please, delight me with your follow.
Julia F.
