X’s controversial changes to blocking and AI training led to half a million users leaving for rival Bluesky – which then crashes under pressure

X's controversial changes to blocking and AI training led to half a million users leaving for rival Bluesky - which then crashes under pressure

Elon Musk’s recent changes to Many have switched, in fact, it led to Bluesky briefly declining due to the volume of new users coming in.

The central move started by This was actually announced back in September, but is now officially being implemented (well, it will be implemented “soon” we’re told).

This means that from now on, X users you have blocked will still be able to view your (public) posts – although they will not be able to interact with them in any way (from replies to likes, etc.).

This is problematic for obvious reasons, in terms of enabling stalkers and trolls to still be able to view posts from the account that blocked them, when this was not previously the case. In the past, blocking meant that a blocked user couldn’t see any posts (or anything at all, except for a message telling them they’d been blocked), but soon, that will change.

As The Independent reported, this emphasis on the move to ease blocking led to a flood of departures from X for Bluesky, a decentralized approach to X that was the brainchild of former Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey.

Bluesky posted to say it had more than 100,000 new users in the 12 hours after X’s announcement, after the rival network highlighted the fact that its blocking function prevents those who have been blocked from seeing any posts.

Such was the volume of disgruntled defectors that Bluesky actually shut down for a few hours, as those fleeing X indicated that they couldn’t register (and for that matter, users couldn’t even log in). Down Detector recorded a server outage that lasted for a few hours, although this has now subsided due to some scattered reports, and normal service appears to have resumed for Bluesky.

In an update, Bluesky noted that it has now gained half a million new users in the past day.

There’s another reason why some people are quickly exiting the X stage left (and right, and actually in the middle, climbing over the audience, apparently), and that’s a change in

As reported by TechCrunch, the new policy includes an update that allows third-party collaborators to use content on X to train their own AI models — unless the user opts out. This is a notable expansion of the AI ​​training range on X, which has so far only been used to train Musk’s Grok AI (unless users opt out again).

(Image source: Getty Images) Analysis: You confuse me

There has been strong reaction to both moves, especially the change in prohibition.

Let’s start with the AI ​​side of the equation, and what’s going on there. Artists are not at all happy about the possibility of their content being used to train AI – which they consider effectively “stolen” – but there is an option to opt out (although we don’t yet know where that option will lie).

However, many people clearly feel that this is an ominous shift in the X direction, and are voting with their feet to prove a point. Sure, it should be an opt-in decision rather than an opt-out decision, but this is often an overlooked concern in the tech industry for obvious reasons.

To be fair to Musk, X isn’t the only social media platform headed down this path, of course – Reddit is at the head of the pack in terms of AI monetization.

The shift in banning policy is truly puzzling, and seems to be part of Musk’s self-destructive side when it comes to his social media holdings. We can’t think of a good reason to enact this law, except…nope. We can’t think of one.

For Part

But this does not fit at all, not even remotely, with broader and more pressing concerns about the ability of people who are now banned to behave in harmful ways toward those who have blocked them.

It’s undeniable that relaxing the ban in this way would make life better for stalkers, deranged trolls and people who might harass other X-residents for kicks, and as many rightly point out, there are real online safety concerns here.

Although a blocked person may not be able to repost in theory, there’s nothing stopping them from taking a screenshot of the post and sharing it on X (or elsewhere). Or more broadly, there is nothing to prevent a blocked person from using information from visible posts of a person who might harass or stalk them.

It is certain that when you weigh these two factors – the rights of the blocked, and the rights of the obstructionist – in the balance of concern, the transformation that occurs is severe.

Another reason given for doing away with a full ban is that it’s easy to get around this by creating another fake account – but not everyone will go that far (we imagine it’s far from it), so this is just a partial point of argument at best. .

Overall, at the very least, isn’t there a need for some sort of compromise here? Maybe in the form of some sort of full block option that can be left out.

The reaction to the move has been completely negative, and hopefully X and Musk will take that into consideration.

Bluesky certainly takes advantage of this, not only enhancing that it offers full blocking capabilities as mentioned, but also alongside that (the ability to “subscribe to block lists maintained by users you trust” for example).

Currently, Bluesky has half a million new recruits to its platform, as previously mentioned, and is currently trending on X with over 200,000 posts. The conversation now turns to how the new banning philosophy may end up banning the X app itself from the Google and Apple stores.

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