Tag Archives: X

People Are Flocking To Bluesky As X Makes More Unwanted Changes

Bluesky, ,

A handful of changes coming to X may be pushing users to its competitor. Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform, says it added 500,000 new users in a day this week. The new wave of signups could be related to several controversial changes on X in the last few days, The Verge reported.

This week, X users got a pop-up message notifying them that their posts will be visible even to users they’ve previously blocked. Those accounts still won’t be able to interact with their posts, but it’s a substantial change to how the block feature works that could open up users to harassment.

“Today, block can be used by users to share and hide harmful or private information about those they’ve blocked,” an official X account posted. “Users will be able to see if such behavior occurs with this update, allowing for greater transparency.”

It goes without saying that blocking is a safety issue, particularly for users facing harassment on a platform or people wanting to create distance between themselves and someone else in their life. But Elon Musk has expressed his distain for blocking, and this change to blocking was teased last month. After users got an explicit notification about it this week, Bluesky wasted no time in using it as a recruitment tool.

Mashable reported: We warned you that this change was coming – but X has just made it official: Blocking on Elon Musk’s social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, will no longer actually block users from viewing content — and now users appear to be fleeing X once again.

Essentially, a block on X will now just mean that a blocked user can’t interact with your posts. They can still see them, though, which was not the case before this change. The change to the block function was met with largely negative reactions, with even Musk supporters pointing out the user safety concerns that come with this shift.

And it appears that the change in the block function was enough for some users to flee to a new social media platform. X alternative Bluesky announced Thursday that it had gained half a million new users in the 24 hours since X made the formal announcement about the change. 

TechCrunch reported: Social networking startup Bluesky, which just reported a gain of half a million users over the past day, has now soared to the top five apps on the U.S. App Store and has become the No.2 app in the Social Networking category, up from No. 181 a week ago, according to data from app intelligence firm Appfigures.

In addition, the growth is not limited to the U.S. market, either. A number of countries are showing four-digit growth in downloads, compared to last Wednesday, leading Bluesky to enter the top 10 in countries like Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan, where it’s No. 1; Hong Kong, where it’s No.2; Canada and South Korea, where it’s No. 4; and Singapore, where it’s No. 8.

On X, users are understandably upset over the company’s decision to change how the block function operates. Soon, users with public accounts can have their X posts viewed by anyone, including those they blocked, unlike before. 

In my opinion, Bluesky is currently gaining a whole lot of people who don’t want to put up with X’s shenanigans anymore. This could – potentially – encourage those who are tired with Elon Musk’s X to stop using it.

X’s First Transparent Report Since Elon Musk’s Takeover

X,

Today, X released the company’s first transparency report since Elon Musk bought the company, formerly Twitter, in 2022, WIRED reported.

Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter would release transparency reports every six months. These largely cover the same grounds the new X report, giving specific numbers for takedowns, government requests for information, and content removals, as well as data about which content was reported and, in some cases, removed for violating policies.

The last transparency report available from Twitter covered the second half of 2021 and was 50 pages long. (X’s is a shorter 15 pages, but requests from governments are also listed elsewhere on the company’s website and have been consistently updated to remain in compliance with various government orders.)

While some numbers remain seemingly consistent across the reports, — reports of abuse and harassment are, somewhat, predictably high — in other areas, there’s a stark difference. For instance, in the 2021 report, accounts reported for hateful content accounted for nearly half of all reports, and 1 million of the 4.3 million accounts actioned. In the new X report, the company says it has taken action on only 2,361 accounts for posting hateful conduct.

The Hill reported the social platform X released its first transparency report since billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company nearly two years ago.

The Global Transparency Report, released Wednesday, provided data about user reports on content violating X’s rules and enforcement actions taken by the company, as well as government requests for information and content removals in the first half of 2024.

“Transparency is at the core of what we do at X,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. “As an entirely new company, we took time to rethink how best to transparently share data related to the enforcement of the policies that keep our community safe.”

X received more than 224 million user reports between January and June, according to the report. The largest share of user reports — nearly 82 million — were about abuse and harassment. 

Nearly 67 million user reports were in regard to hateful conduct, and another 40 million were about violent conduct.

Engadget reported X has published its most detailed accounting of its content moderation practices since Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. The report, X’s first in more than a year, provides insight into how X is enforcing its rules as it struggles to hang on to advertisers who have raised concerns about toxicity on the platform.

The report, which details content takedowns and account suspensions from the first half of 2024, shows that suspensions have more than tripled since the last time the company shared data. X suspended just under 5.3 million accounts during the period, compared with 1.6 million suspensions during the first six months of 2022.

In my opinion, it seems that X has a haphazard way of determining what accounts to remove, which ones to place a label on, and a lot of potential problems with trying to encourage brands to stay on the platform.

X Says It’s Closing Operations In Brazil

X,

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said today that it’s ending operations in Brazil, although the service will remain available to users in the country, TechCrunch reported.

The announcement comes amidst a legal battle with Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who sought to block certain accounts on X as part of an investigation into election disinformation and “digital militias.”

In a post from X’s global government affairs account, the company said Moraes has “threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders.”

Media platform X said on Sunday it would close its operations in Brazil “effective immediately” due to what it called “censorship orders” by Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes, Reuters reported.

X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, claims Moraes secretly threatened one of the company’s legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform.

The social media giant published pictures of a document allegedly signed by Moraes which says a daily fine of 20,000 reais ($3,653) and an arrest decree would be imposed against X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao if the platform does not fully comply with Moraes’s orders.

“To protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately,” X said. 

Brazil’s Supreme Court, where Moraes has a seat, told Reuters it would not speak on the matter and would not confirm or deny the authenticity of the document shared by X.

The X service remains available to the people of Brazil, the platform said on Saturday.

The social media platform X will close its office in Brazil amidst a legal battle with the South American nation’s Supreme Court over a purported secret order to remove some posts from the site in Brazil, according to a statement posted by the company on X, The Hill reported.

“The decision to close the X office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to @alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there as no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed,” Musk wrote on X.

X posted a screenshot of the order from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who’s been investigating digital militias that have been accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during he government of far-right former President Jair Bolsanaro.

Earlier in the year, Moraes directed X to block some of those accounts. X complied and then Musk said he would reactivate the accounts on X that the judge had ordered blocked. Musk called Moraes’s decision regarding X “unconstitutional”.

In my opinion, I doubt that Elon Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes are going to make peace together. They both seem adamant on getting their way.

Former Twitter Board Member Sues Elon Musk’s X For $20 Million In Pay

Elon Musk, ,

A former Twitter board member, Omid Kordestani, sued the social media company owned by Elon Musk on Friday, claiming that the billionaire refused to cash out more than $20 million worth of shares, The New York Times reported.

Mr. Kordestani, who joined Twitter’s board in 2015 and helped oversee the sale of the company to Mr. Musk in 2022, received most of his compensation in stock. But after Mr. Musk bought the company, now called X, he refused to pay Mr. Kordestani for those shares, the lawsuit said.

X “seeks to reap the benefits of Mr. Kordestani’s seven years of service to Twitter without paying him for it,” said the suit, which was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco.

A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Such a public battle between a former board member and the company he once helped manage is rare — most boardroom disputes are settled quietly behind the scenes. But Mr. Musk’s tumultuous acquisition of the social media company for $44 billion upended many notions of normal business practices, and the billionaire has faced a slew of lawsuits over his handling of the deal.

With his lawsuit, Mr. Kordestani becomes the most senior Twitter leader to take legal action against Mr. Musk — but certainly not the first. Twitter’s former chief executive, chief financial officer, and top lawyers have also sued the company to recoup compensation, and thousands of employees have joined mass arbitration cases that accuse Mr. Musk of wrongfully terminating them and refusing to pay proper severance.

Omid Kordestani, a former board member of Twitter, (now rebranded as X), has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s social media company alleging that they failed to cash out over $20 million worth of his shares, Benzinga reported.

The lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco on Friday, accuses X of benefiting from Kordestani’s seven years of service to Twitter without compensating him.

The Iranian-American businessman, who joined Twitter’s board in 2015, played a significant role in the sale of the company to Musk in 2022.  He received most of his compensation in stock.

However, after Musk’s acquisition, he allegedly refused to pay Kordestani for those shares, the report noted. 

According to the lawsuit, Musk’s purchase agreement stipulated that Kordestani’s 800,000 stock options, worth over $20 million, should have been paid out within five days of the deal’s closure. However, that payment was allegedly not made.

In my opinion, Mr Musk should have done the right thing and paid out the stock options that Mr. Kordestani had earned. I cannot imagine why Mr. Musk decided to just … not fulfill his obligation to pay Mr. Kordestani what he as owed.

Irish Watchdog ‘Surprised’ Over X Move On User Data

X,

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has expressed “surprise” over social media company X’s decision to use user posts to train an AI chatbot, The Independent reported.

Users of X, formerly known as Twitter, expressed outrage after discovering that the company had enabled a system where their posts could be used to train its Grok AI chatbot.

Grok, which is available to X Premium customers, is billed as a humorous enhanced search feature powered by a “state-of-the-art large language model,” that was initially trained on publicly available sources.

The company now wants to use user interactions and posts to improve the service.

X users are opted in to the new system by default but can choose to opt out in settings on the web-based app.

When enabled, the setting allows posts on he site as well as interactions with the chatbot to be used for “training,” while the data may also be shared with the xAI partner company.

Irish Independent reported Ireland’s Data Protection Commission says that it is “surprised” that Elon Musk’s X platform has automatically ‘opted in’ all X users into Grok AI training programme without a choice. The watchdog says that it will now probe the matter further with X to see whether it complies with EU privacy law.

The move, which cannot be reversed by those using the mobile app, means that Grok AI is using X users’ personal information, including posts, to built its own AI as a rival to ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

“The DPC has been engaged with X on this matter for a number of months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday,” said a spokesperson for the DPC.

“Therefore, we are surprised by today’s developments. We have followed up with X today and are awaiting a response. We expect further engagement early next week.

The Guardian reported Elon Musk’s X platform is under pressure from data regulators after it emerged that users are consenting to their posts being used to build artificial intelligence systems via a default setting on the app.

The UK and Irish data watchdogs said they have contacted X over the apparent attempt to gain user content for data harvesting without them knowing about it.

An X users highlighted the issue on Friday, pointing to a setting on the app that activated by default and permitted the account holder’s posts to be used for training Grok, an AI chatbot built by Musk’s xAI business.

Under UK GDPR, which is based on the EU data regulation of the same name, companies are not allowed to use “pre-ticked boxes” or “any other method of default consent.”

The setting, which comes with an already ticked box, states that you “allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning. According to the X users, the setting can only be turned off on the web version of X.

In my opinion, Elon Musk has been very sneaky about requiring users to let Grok use their posts. I’ve opted out of that on the X website, specifically to prevent having my posts used to train an AI.

X Is Making Likes Private For Everyone

X, ,

Thanks to X showing what its users “like” on its platform, politicians and public personalities have been caught looking at salacious and unsavory tweets in the past. Now, the platform formerly known as Twitter is making likes mostly private, and according to company chief Elon Musk, it’s an important change so that people can “like posts without getting attacked for doing so.” Engadget reported.

The company originally launched the ability to hide the likes tab as a perk for X Premium subscribers last year. “[K]eep spicy likes private,” X said when it announced the feature.

In a new tweet, X’s Engineering account has revealed that the social network is making likes private for everyone this week. Users will no longer be able to see who liked someone else’s post, which means likes on the platform will no longer cause PR crises for public figures who like sexual, hateful, and other unpalatable posts in general.

They can still see who liked their tweets, however, along with their like count and other metrics for their own posts.

NBC News reported X is now hiding what posts users like from other users. The news rolled out in a post Wednesday morning from Elon Musk as the site update was being rolled out.

“Important change: your likes are now private,” Musk said, quoting an explanation posted by the company’s engineering account on Tuesday.

According to the post, users will still be able to see which posts they have liked themselves, and who liked their own posts, but not who liked someone else’s posts.

On Wednesday, the tab on most users’ profiles showing what posts they had liked had disappeared.

According to NBC News, Haofei Wang, X’s director of engineering, had teased the update in a post on May 21.
“Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior,” Wang wrote. “For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be ‘edgy’ in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image. Soon, you’ll be able to like without worrying who might see it.”

He added that if users now more freely like posts they’re interested in, X’s algorithm will become more tailored to them.

The Verge reported X is rolling out private likes as soon as today, according to a source at the company. That means what users like on the platform will be hidden by default, which is already an option for X’s Premium subscribers. Following the publication of this story, X owner Elon Musk reshared a screenshot of it, saying it’s “important to allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so!”

According to The Verge, late last year, Musk told the platform’s engineers that he wanted to get rid of the tweet action buttons altogether and instead place a stronger emphasis on post views (also called “impressions”). Musk’s goal was to remove the section that contained the like and repost buttons entirely because Musk believed likes weren’t important.

In my opinion, it is possible that by removing the ability to publicly “like” someone else’s post on X might make the platform easier to navigate. That said, the platform itself is going to still know what you chose to “like”.

Elon Musk’s X Loses Lawsuit Against Bright Data Over Scraping

X, ,

A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X against Israel’s Bright Data, in a case that involved the scraping of public online data and its appropriate uses, CNBC reported.

X, formerly Twitter, sued Bright Data, alleging the company “scrapes data from X” and sells it “using elaborate technical measures to evade X Corp.’s anti-scraping technology.” X also claimed the company violated its terms of service and copyright.

In dismissing the complaint, Judge William Alsup wrote, “X Corp. wants it both ways: to keep its safe harbors yet exercise a copyright owner’s right to exclude, wresting fees from those who wish to extract and copy X users’ content.”

Giving social networks complete control over the collection and use of public data “risks the possible creation of information monopolies that would disserve the public interest,” the judge wrote. He added that X was not “looking to protect X users’ privacy,” and was “happy to allow the extraction and copying of X users’ so long as it gets paid.”

Reuters reported U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ruled on Thursday that X, formerly Twitter, failed to plausibly allege that Bright Data Ltd had violated its user agreement by allowing the scraping and evading X’s own anti-scraping technology.

Alsup said using scraping tools is not inherently fraudulent, and giving social media companies free rein to decide how public data are used “risks the possible creation of information monopolies that would disserve the public interest. 

The judge also said X was not entitled to “de facto copyright ownership” in copyrighted content that X’s user made available to the public.

Or Lenchner, Bright Data’s chief executive, said in a statement: “Bright Data’s victory over X makes it clear that the world of public information on the web belongs to all of us, and any attempt to deny the public access will fail.”

ArsTechnica reported a US district judge William Alsup has dismissed Elon Musk’s X Corp’s lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X (formerly Twitter) systems and selling data.

According to Alsup, X failed to state a claim while arguing that companies like Bright Data should have to pay X to access public data posted by X users.

“To the extent the claims are based on access to systems, they fail because X Corp. has alleged no more than threadbare recitals,” parroting laws and finding in other cases without providing any evidence, Alsup wrote. “To the extent the claims are based on scraping and selling of data, they fail because they are preempted by federal law,” specifically standing as an “obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of” the Copyright Act.

“X Corp. wants it both ways: to keep its safe harbors yet exercise a copyright owner’s right to exclude, wresting fees from those who wish to extract and copy X user’s content,” Alsup said.

In my opinion, it appears that Elon Musk wants to prevent other companies from scraping X’s user data, but also wants to be paid for that data. I see why the judge dismissed Mr. Musk’s complaint.