Elon Musk has been ratioed on his own X (formerly Twitter) platform after encouraging James Woods to delete his account after the conservative actor expressed his frustration that the ‘block’ feature on the social media platform will come to an end. Musk’s response quickly criticized by X users, viewed over six million times.
Then delete your account
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2023
Woods claims the website would be “untenable for people like me, who are willing to share their identities” if Musk enforced the ban on blocking. He highlighted his previous experiences of being targeted by as many as 30 trolls on the site amid an ongoing libel dispute, adding:
“Musk, whom I once championed, is only doing this to protect his advertisers anyway. Users of X are mere pawns to turn the site into an electronic shopping mall. The man I thought was a defender of free speech is just another greedy capitalist. Disappointing, but not surprising.”
The decision to remove the “block” feature has been roundly criticized from the X community. The X owner’s claims about the “block” function have even been subjected to a a number of community notes, including: “Blocking is a basic safety feature that allows basic protection for victims of abuse and stalking. Removing this feature would compromise the safety of many people on social media.”
Elon Musk’s overall popularity has begun to waver over the past few months following his decision to announce the World Economic Forum-linked Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of the social media platform in an effort to lure advertisers back to the site.