Post by the owner announces a further revolution in social security policies. And, according to a survey by Nature, thousands of scientists have already reduced the use of the social network or even abandoned it
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X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, will remove the ability for users to block other accounts. He stated it directly Elon Musk in a post (under subscription) on the same platform on Friday.
Musk, who acquired Twitter last year for $44 billion and has decided to overhaul the social media site, said blocking will still be possible for direct messages, but that it will be scrapped as a “feature”.
Blocking was a tool that helped users protect themselves from unwanted interactions on X-Twitter. Ensures that blocked accounts don’t see your posts and that their posts don’t appear in your feed. Also, the blocked account cannot send you direct messages.
One way banning
People will still be able to mute other accounts, which means they won’t see that user’s posts. But a deactivated account will be able to see the posts of the person who deactivated them, reply and repost them to their followers, allowing them to be commented on. Muted accounts will still be able to send direct messages to users who muted them.
Since acquiring the platform, Musk has totally changed the security policies X-Twitter had in place. He also fired content moderators and reinstated previously banned users who broke previous rules. Many advertisers left the platform, contributing to a 50% drop in advertising revenue. In response to criticism of how the changes impacted the platform’s security, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said that “over 99% of the content users and advertisers see on Twitter is sane.” However, she did not disclose what she defines as “healthy” or how the company calculates that measurement.
Scientists leave the social network
Meanwhile, the exodus of scientists from Twitter has begun, which has now become ‘X’ to all intents and purposes: according to a survey by Nature, thousands have already reduced their use of the social network or even abandoned it in disagreement with the new management of Elon Musk which in the opinion of many would leave more and more room for fake profiles, haters and trolls.
The first doubts had already emerged last autumn after the acquisition of Twitter by the owner of Tesla e SpaceX (video) . Many, even on the pages of Nature, wondered what the fate of the microblogging platform would be, which in the last decade had brought about a major change in scientific communication, favoring interactions between researchers and facilitating a direct relationship with the public. The concerns of many have then found confirmation in the new and controversial policies imposed by Elon Musk, such as the cuts for content moderation activities, the paid blue check and the maximum limit on the number of tweets that users can read each day.
Less users sensitive to the climate crisis
Now that Musk has nearly completed the transition from Twitter to X and ‘twitters’ have been replaced by posts, the results are starting to show. A few days ago, a study published in the Trends in Ecology & Evolution magazine highlighted how the new management of Twitter-X had alienated almost half of the users attentive to the climate and environmental issue, reducing the role of the social network as a virtual square in which to raise awareness of public opinion and organize mobilisations.
A similar tendency to escape is also being registered in the scientific community, as evidenced by the survey conducted by Nature of almost 9,200 scientists who use Twitter-X. The results show that more than half of them have reduced the time they use the platform in the last six months and almost 7% have stopped using it altogether.
«The motivations given by the participants are varied – reads the Nature website – but many of those who have markedly reduced or stopped their activity on X mention Musk’s management of the platform. Many say they have noticed an increase in the amount of fake accounts, trolls and hate speech on the platform.” 46% of respondents have already opened a profile on other social media such as Mastodon Linkedin, Instagram e TikTok while there is a growing fear that this fragmentation will cause the scientific community, which had established stronger relationships through the old Twitter, to lose cohesion.
What will happen now? “It is unclear whether X will be able to regain its attractiveness to scientists or if some other social media platform will grow in its place,” writes Nature. According to Inger Mewburn, an education and technology researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, the loss of Twitter won’t be a fatal blow to the science initiative. “I don’t think science has become overly dependent on social media,” she says. In her opinion, scientists may have more difficulty networking and building their careers, but they will certainly come up with new creative solutions to overcome the impasse.
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2023-08-18 19:41:15
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