The user, who has made his account private, says Musk is confusing the features “blocking” and “locking” an account on Twitter.
Elon Musk owns Twitter, the social network considered the meeting place for opinion makers, decision makers. and trendsetters.
He signed a check for $44 billion on Oct. 27 to get his hands on the microblogging website, which he calls the town square of our time.
He immediately started revamping the platform, not only to quickly make it profitable — he contracted a personal debt of $13 billion and therefore owes colossal amounts of interest annually — but also to make a sharp break with Twitter 1.0.
This last point consisted of reactivating most of the accounts suspended by Twitter 1.0 for violation of its policies related to hate speech, misinformation, xenophobia and discrimination.
The billionaire has also antagonized progressives, whom he regularly accuses of repressing thought and cancel culture. Musk sees himself as vindicating conservatives, of whom he has become a champion and, little by little, a hero.
He regularly attacks the symbols of new progressive ideologies such as ESG, or environmental, social and corporate governance, and pronouns, which point to the gender-identity debate. It means people have to stop assuming that gender is binary and to accept that everyone has the right to decide how they want to be referred to: he/his/him, she/hers/her or they/theirs/them.
Musk Is Blocked by a User
These changes have politicized him to the detriment of his other companies, critics say. In particular, shareholders of the electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla (TSLA) – Get Free Report have taken him to task.
Tesla failed to meet its 2022 vehicle-delivery target, apparently due to a demand problem. The company’s stock fell nearly two-thirds (65%) on the stock market last year.
The automaker’s customer base is made up substantially of liberals and progressives who advocate for climate change and want to reduce their carbon emissions. These are some of the people who come in for harsh criticism from Musk.
But Musk remains deaf to the demands from Tesla shareholders that he be less political.
It is in this context that he has just been banned from commenting or interacting with a user who is unhappy to receive content from the right wing.
The user on Jan. 16 posted a message to complain that the social network was promoting far-right content even for users choosing TLS connections, which are supposed to preserve users’ privacy and security and protect their information.
“Is it just me or does Twitter seem to be actively promoting more right wing shit to your TLs too?” the user complained.
Musk defended the actions of his social network as part of an overall strategy of exposing people on the left to the ideologies of those on the right and vice versa.
“People on the right should see more ‘left wing’ stuff and people on the left should see more ‘right wing’ stuff,” the billionaire responded. “But you can just block it if you want to stay in an echo chamber.”
The user seems to have followed the billionaire’s advice by blocking him in the crowd, according to the tech tycoon.
“He blocked me,” Musk wrote later.
Twitter’s Difference Between Block and Lock
“Twitter gives people a variety of tools to control their experience, including blocking,” the company says. “Blocking helps people in restricting specific accounts from contacting them, seeing their tweets, and following them.”
“If you have been blocked by another account on Twitter, you can still block other accounts (including any that have blocked you). If you visit the profile of an account that has blocked your account, you will see a message alerting you of the block.”
But the Twitter user in question later indicated that he had simply made his account private, which is shown on the platform by a “locked” account.
“1. I definitely replied to you,” he tweeted after Musk’s message. “2. Do you really not understand the difference between a block and me locking my account so I don’t have your weird nerds up in my shit all day?”
A private Twitter account means that only followers of the account can see messages posted by the account owner, but they cannot react to tweets — by commenting or retweeting — as they would with an unprotected account.
As for Twitter users who are not following a private account, they must ask permission from the owner to follow the account. The owner then must accept them before they are able to retweet and comment on that account’s messaging.
