X/Twitter users may be losing their app pretty soon, and it's all thanks to Elon Musk.
Elon Musk has brought up his newest idea for X/Twitter, and many users aren't happy about it. Following his post on August 18, many users are concerned about the removal of the block feature that might be coming to X/Twitter.
Block is going to be deleted as a "feature", except for DMs
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023
Among many problems, one that sticks out the most is that X/Twitter could be removed from multiple app stores, should the block feature actually be removed from the platform.
Why Elon Musk Wants To Remove The Block Feature
Elon Musk followed up his first post, by stating, "it makes no sense". It, in this case, being blocking on X/Twitter.
His argument against those that are complaining about the removal, is X's "mute" feature. Basically, the mute feature allows you to "mute" certain words, conversations and accounts. If you mute someone or something, these posts will not show up on your feed anymore. However, muted accounts can still follow you, and you can still follow them. Additionally, a muted account can still contact you via direct message.
Besides the mute feature, another argument is that users could always change their profile from public to private to avoid harassment.
These arguments aren't really helpful for those that are constantly harassed, threatened or stalked on the platform, especially those who are public figures, that can't really afford to set their profiles to private. Because of that, many users worry about the safety of those with public profiles. Especially, bots and persistent scammers could turn out to be quite problematic.
It seems as though the block feature could still apply to DMs, as Musk stated in another tweet.
Why X/Twitter Could Be Removed From App Stores
The Google Play Store and Apple App Store both have rules for apps with user-generated content. As some users have pointed out, part of these rules are that users need to be able to prevent abuse against them. And, in order to do so, one necessary ability that users need to possess is the ability to block abusive users, as one X/Twitter user points out:
If I'm not mistaken, blocking is part of the requirements to be on the App Store. pic.twitter.com/KRLnB9EGvP
— Connor (@Jchammond_) August 18, 2023
So if X actually goes through with this change, Google and Apple could technically remove the X app from their stores, which would force users to move to X's website. This could potentially turn some users away from the platform, or lead to less usage of it at least, as many prefer to use apps instead of the web browser versions of social media.
Instead of the block feature, Musk wants to push the "mute" feature's usage and proposes to strengthen it on X/Twitter. What he exactly means by "strengthening" the mute feature is still unclear.
Since X/Twitter has this mute feature, it's not very likely that the app will be removed from the app stores, but it remains a possibility. We'll probably only find out if the app will be removed once the block feature is actually taken down from the platform.
Remember that Apple has already bent its rules earlier this year, when the app's name was changed from Twitter to X. Even though the Apple App Store apparently has a two-character name policy, this rule was obviously not enforced in this case.
So far, Elon Musk hasn't commented on this problem and whether the removal from app stores would bother him. Instead, in an ironic turn of events, Musk has been blocking those users, that are complaining about the feature being removed.
Pretty fun blocking people who complain that blocking is going away. How does the medicine taste?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2023
If this isn't a good sign for X's future, then I don't know what is (*irony off*).
But hey, at least Instagram has its own Twitter now: