The new privacy policy of the X, a microblogging platform, has recently caused substantial controversy due to the provision wherein users’ DMs can be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
The update reported by X user @kimdotcom on Sunday shows that the Elon Musk-owned platform will now scan DMs to look for violations and misuse of its services, investigate reported violations and misuse of services, or tend to legal or governmental requests.
Alleviating the user’s concerns, Elon Musk affirmed the policy update but did not give out much information as a follow-up. He said that it is currently implemented in a ‘stupid’ manner for one-to-one messages, but the company is looking at making it more flexible and, thereby, possible to expand to group messages. Musk also mentioned that all of X’s Audio and Video calls are end-to-end encrypted.
However, the move has been immensely criticized by other users, with concerns raised over the invasion of other users’ privacy and the traceability of collaborations with governments in scanning people’s private conversations.
‘Complying with government requests’ is not okay. ” Do you stand for free speech anymore? One follower joined the rest of the people who distorted expressions of concern over the manual review of DMs.
Under the available information from the X website, encrypted DMs have been a useful feature of the app in pursuit of its goal of being the most trustworthy web destination. As mentioned in this help center: “Regarding direct messages, the standard should be, as Elon Musk once said, if someone puts a gun to our heads, we still can’t access your messages. ”
The change in policy has spurred a lot of controversy among the platform’s users. People are now doubting whether Musk and X care about users’ privacy and freedom of speech, given that they will bow down to authorities.
