X’s controversial changes to blocking and AI training sees half a million users leave for rival Bluesky – which then crashes under the strain
www.techradar.com
Concerns over the enablement of stalkers and trolls abound

Elon Musk’s latest changes for X are driving more users away – not exactly a surprise, granted – and many of them are flocking to rival social media outlet Bluesky. So many made the switch, in fact, it led to Bluesky briefly going down due to the volume of incoming new users.

The central move initiated by X that made the headlines for driving migration away from Musk’s platform is a change to the way the ‘Block’ button works. This was actually announced back in September, but is officially being implemented now (well, it’ll be in place ‘soon’ we’re told).

It means that going forward, X users who you have blocked will still be able to view your (public) posts – though they won’t be able to engage with them in any way (from replies to liking and so forth).

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

Bluesky posted to say it had in excess of 100,000 new users inside 12 hours following the announcement by X, after the rival network highlighted the fact that its block function stops those who are blocked from viewing any posts.

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

There’s another reason that some folks are rapidly exiting from X stage left (and right, and indeed center, clambering over the audience, it would seem), and that’s a change to X’s privacy policy.

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

  • nutsack@lemmy.worldEnglish
    122·
    28 days ago

    ive been enjoying bluesky more than twitter. i just wish more bug accounts would migrate. i post on both platforms with a script that i wrote and my engagement/followers ratio is far higher

    • dan@upvote.auEnglish
      10·
      28 days ago

      I tried Bluesky but just couldn’t get into it. Same with Mastodon. I like Lemmy because long-form posts/comments are more interesting to me. I’m liking Threads a bit, too.

        • dan@upvote.auEnglish
          31·
          28 days ago

          I think one of the main reasons is that a lot of tech people on Twitter ended up on there. Mastodon originally filled that spot for me, but I found that a bunch of people that moved from Twitter to Mastodon ended up abandoning their accounts (or very rarely posting) a few months later.

          It’s also probably the largest Fediverse instance, as users can opt in to sharing their posts to the Fediverse.

          I still don’t use it often, though. I don’t spend a lot of time on any social networks (or similar services) any more.

          • nutsack@lemmy.worldEnglish
            33·
            28 days ago

            Mastodon has shitty clients, the servers are slow and the communication across them is buggy. some things are still just broken.

            typically I’ll open the android client and stare for 15 seconds at a spinning “wait” symbol, and then I’ll close it and not look at it for the rest of the day.

            maybe it’s the instance that I’m on? or maybe it’s something else.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        27 days ago

        I like the long form posts and I also find those sort of sites way too fast-moving to keep up with.

        Maybe it’s because I’m an old man who grew up on BBSes, but forums are much more my speed.