As the site formerly known as Twitter continues to battle spam on its platform, the Elon Musk-led company is working on a feature that will allow users to disable links in replies to their posts.
App Researcher Nima Ouji was the first to notice this feature. Last weekend, Christopher Stanley, senior director of security engineering at X, confirmed the credibility of the attack in a response, writing, “This is something my team built.”
My team built this.
— Christopher Stanley (@cstanley) July 19, 2024
The feature isn’t available to the majority of users yet, and it’s unclear whether the service will be available only to premium users who pay a monthly fee, or whether it will be rolled out more broadly (or if it will even be rolled out at all).
The move could cut down on the amount of spam users see, especially as the social media site continues to battle bots that flood X with links to sites that are often infected with malware and viruses.
While that is certainly a good thing, it can also hinder the free flow of information as people back up their opinions with legitimate data sources, and there is a danger that people will just reinforce their own beliefs without any challenge.
That could be especially problematic in a tumultuous election year where misinformation is rampant.
X has introduced a number of new features over the past year. The company is reportedly planning to add Venmo-like payment features and a community focused on adult content. The site also recently made changes that will prevent users from seeing who “liked” their posts, and is putting more of an emphasis on Musk’s Grok AI project, an option for premium users.
Recommended Newsletters: CEO Daily provides essential context for the news business leaders need to know. More than 125,000 readers trust CEO Daily every weekday morning for insight on and from the C-level. Subscribe now.
Source link