Welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast.
Today we're discussing Elon Musk's latest alteration to the
platform we now know as X formally Twitter.
A significant change that has caught everyone's attention is
Musk's decision to eliminate the ability for users to block other
accounts. Asserting that the feature makes
no sense in this decision, along with others, comes as part of a
broad transformation of the platform. 6 Must became the
owner after a $44 billion deal. Last year in a post dot X, Musk
announced Block is going to be deleted as a feature.
Except for Dms, ending that the Block feature makes no sense.
Previously, the platform described blocking as a way for
users to control their interactions, especially in
cases of harassment or threats. Instead, Musk has now advocated
for using the Mute feature, a less restrictive option.
This simply hides posts without unfollowing or blocking an
account. But before we go further, let's
take a quick break. Stay with us.
We'll dive into the subject, including reactions from
industry leaders like former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and how
this change affects user interactions on the platform.
Now, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast.
Let's continue our exploration of Musk's decision to remove the
Block feature on X, which allows users to restrict specific
accounts from viewing and interacting with their public
posts. And among those reacting to the
decision was Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, who
expressed his approval by posting a 100% emoji and then
saying mute only in reply to Musk.
This endorsement from Dorsey as a significant voice to the
conversation. The Musk has been openly
critical of the Block feature in the past, stating in June that
blocking public posts makes no sense.
It needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of
mute, though we can't clarify what this stronger form of mute
is quite yet or what it might look like.
And the uncertainty extends further as it's not clear if
accounts previously blocked by users will suddenly become
unblocked with this change. And as an alternative, users can
still set their accounts to private, controlling who can
view and respond to their posts. But for many, this change might
take away a valuable tool in managing their social media
experience. And Musk, already known for his
roles as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and currently the world's
wealthiest person, has continued to shake things up since
acquiring the platform in October of 2022.
From firing top executives to laying off a large percent of
the personnel and even bringing in former NBC Universal Ed boss
Ledi Yakorino as CEO, Musk's vision for X has been ambitious.
However, these changes haven't been without controversy, and
this latest week raises new questions about our control and
privacy on the platform. It reflects Musk's hands on
approach as he continues to oversee X's product and
technology teams, with Yakorino focusing on advertising and
business operations and Twitter's rival Blue Sky faced
performance challenges. After Elon Musk's announcement
concerning his own social media platform A Musk declared that X
will abandon the block feature, and following this declaration,
Blue Sky users encountered slowed load times and other
errors in the site status page showed signs of performance
issues. Now, this incident comes at a
time when Blue Sky has often found itself dealing with an
influx of users in response to Twitter's unpopular changes.
And while Blue Sky's team has not yet confirmed the exact
cause of these recent issues, new registration data on the
decentralized platform seems to suggest a sudden spike in
activity. Now, Blue Sky Status Page
reported degraded performance in its personal data server, or
PDS, and an investigation was underway.
This PDS serves as an accounts trusted agent within the
network, which could explain the slow load times and other
disruptions. Now Tech Memes CEO Gabe Rivera
added to the story by reporting that his new sites were facing
difficulties posting the blue sky due to timing out when
trying to utilize Blue Skies APIs and it's a situation
unfolded. Blue Sky slowly started to
resolve these issues. The status page was updated,
indicating that they had fixed the main problem, but that some
images may not be loading with a fix actively in progress.
Now on the other side of the story, both Blue Sky and Threads
began trending on X, leading to speculations that another
migration from Twitter or X the Blue Sky could be imminent.
As users respond to this news, Blue Skies dependence on Twitter
for user referrals is a noteworthy point.
Data from similar web shows that a few months back, 86% of social
media referrals to Blue Skies app website were coming from
Twitter. This percentage fell to 78.8%
over the past 28 days, reflecting a shift in user
behavior and overall traffic. And the complex dynamics between
these two platforms and how users react to changes provides
an intriguing look into the world of social media
competition. It serves as a lesson for
technology companies about user expectations, network
resilience, and how changes in one platform can send ripples
across numerous others. Now this incident also brings
attention to the nature of decentralized platforms like
Blue Sky and highlights the challenges they can face.
The ability to handle surges and user registrations and activity
is crucial for maintaining both performance and trust within the
community. Now, thank you for joining us
today on the Elon Musk podcast. We hope you found this
exploration into social media's competitive environment
informative and don't forget to hit the subscribe or follow
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Take care of yourselves and each other, and I'll see you in the
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