Musk's "brilliant" new idea for X could get it kicked out of the App Store by Apple
For some subscribers to X, the social media platform that used to be known as Twitter, there was something satisfying in blocking someone who was radically opposed to your way of thinking from showing up in your feed. For example, you might have felt compelled to block that one X subscriber who kept sending you a clip of the late Steve Jobs saying "Who wants a stylus? You have to get 'em, put 'em away, you lose 'em. Yuck! Nobody wants a stylus."
Musk wants to prevent X users from blocking users from appearing on their timelines
Jobs made that comment to show the advantages of having a touchscreen display when he unveiled the first iPhone in 2007. And the guy who keeps sending you the clip only does so in response to your positive comments about the Moto G Stylus 5G which is your current daily driver. You're tired of having this guy show up on your X feed every day so you block him.
OPINION: Removing Blocking altogether is going too far.
— X News Daily (@xDaily) August 18, 2023
While it can be used for purposes such as cutting off people who disagree with you politically, it has an important role to combat harassment, trolls and spam which are a significant problem for many users on the platform. https://t.co/GqJ4366VuGpic.twitter.com/15QRM2uYsf
Actually, I'm using this completely ridiculous example instead of the obvious political one so this doesn't become a messy argument. The point I'm trying to make (and maybe I'm just treading water here), is that being able to block certain X users that you don't want to hear from, while possibly close-minded, is still as American as apple pie. So what are we to make of the tweet that X owner Elon Musk posted today. Elon wrote that "Block is going to be removed as a 'feature,' except for DMs. It makes no sense."
How Musk works is that he throws out a trial balloon on a tweet and checks the users' pulse rates with their feedback before changing his mind. When he originally floated the idea of a low cap on the number of messages users would be allowed to read every day (unless they became a paid subscriber), Musk received negative feedback from X subscribers and then adjusted the numbers. Musk must love the idea of using crowdsourced data to run X.
But using crowdsourced data to run a company is not a sign of anything positive. If anything, it reveals that a weak and timid executive is running the show. The X News Daily tweeted, "OPINION: Removing Blocking altogether is going too far. While it can be used for purposes such as cutting off people who disagree with you politically, it has an important role to combat harassment, trolls and spam which are a significant problem for many users on the platform."
App Store Guidelines might prevent Musk from disallowing X users to block others from their timelines
And already, X users are not happy with Musk's new edict which means that the owner of X could be singing a new tune tomorrow. After all, at times, he has supported blocking other X users from his personal X account.
Interestingly, Apple's App Store Guidelines might force Musk to stop his new plan to prevent users from blocking accounts. If X doesn't follow Apple's guidelines, X could be removed from the App Store. The App Store guidelines say that apps that offer "user-generated content" must have:
- A method for filtering objectionable material from being posted to the app.
- A mechanism to report offensive content and timely responses to concerns.
- The ability to block abusive users from the service.
- Published contact information so users can easily reach you.
Most likely Musk didn't bother checking out what the App Store's position would be on stripping X users of the current power they have to block others from their timelines. He is about to find out.
Musk closed on his $44 billion purchase of what when then called Twitter back in October and he admits that the platform has lost as much as half of its valuation since then. And not every decision he made has been bad; we did give Elon points for his long-term goal for the platform which is to turn it into another super app like China's WeChat that can handle instant messaging, mobile payments, and social media posts.
Musk recently rebranded the platform replacing the iconic Twitter name with "X" while giving up the bluebird icon for a stylized version of the 24th letter in the English alphabet.
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Things that are NOT allowed: