American billionaire Elon Musk has announced that he wants to remove a function on X (ex-Twitter) which allows messages from certain accounts to be blocked. « block [bloquer] will be removed as a function, except for DMs,” Elon Musk said on Friday, referring to “direct messages” between users of this social network. This feature is intended to restrict trading between certain accounts on the platform.
Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October, renamed X, for 44 billion dollars, has always justified the changes introduced on the platform by his desire to encourage freedom of expression as much as possible.
Hate messages flourish
Since its takeover by the American billionaire, the social network used worldwide by personalities of all persuasions has seen its advertising revenues collapse, in part due to this encouragement of all forms of expression, including hate, and the return of extremist user accounts. According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), hate messages are again flourishing on the platform, which X, who filed a complaint against the CCDH, denies.
Elon Musk in December reopened the account of former President Donald Trump, who was banned from the platform in early 2021 for his role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6 of the same year by a group of his supporters challenging the result of the 2020 presidential election that gave victory to Joe Biden. X has also reopened the account of American rapper Kanye West eight months after his suspension, according to American media. Last fall, Kayne West, stage name Ye, posted an image showing a swastika intertwined with a Star of David and Elon Musk then decided to suspend his account.