As teenagers, many of us are consistently on social media, on platforms from Instagram to X to Tiktok and more. X, previously known as Twitter, has recently undergone some changes in its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. As of Nov. 15, 2024, X updated multiple policies. These changes included new ways users’ information is used, a new system of blocking and more. These changes could cause major downfalls for the company itself.
The first major change centers around its Privacy Policy. By default, X now allows user data to be sold to third parties and companies to use for its own purposes (such as developing and training its artificial intelligence models). While users can opt out of this, the setting is turned on by default, which users may not realize.
According to X, “We’ve added language to our Privacy Policy to clarify how we may use the information you share to train artificial intelligence models, generative or otherwise.”
There are also new penalties for external data collectors. According to the new Terms of Service, if an account is flagged viewing a million posts in 24 hours, they will be fined $15,000 and an additional $15,000 per each million. This is its way of buckling down on automated tools extracting mass amounts of data from their platform. Overall, this is a fairly unproblematic change, unlike some of the others.
Additionally, the blocking feature now functions differently. Elon Musk, the current CEO of X said, “The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post.” Essentially, instead of fully restricting someone from seeing and interacting with an account and posts, it only blocks them from liking, replying to or retweeting the account and posts.
The ability to block others on social media can be an absolutely vital feature. By changing the feature to allow for anyone to view a public account even when blocked, people lose a layer of safety. There are many reasons someone may be blocked, and usually people do not block others just to avoid interaction with them, but to fully block that person from viewing their page. Even with a public account, people need the ability to hide their social media accounts from those that may have ill intent or a negative history. It comes down to the fact that this new system can cause major safety issues for many people. This change has the potential to turn people off from using the platform altogether, which could cause huge negative effects for the company.
Overall, while some of these changes are unproblematic and neutral, others are of negative impact to both the users and the community of the platform itself. Data sharing should not be an automatic setting, and users should have the ability to fully block others from viewing their content.
