Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (formerly Twitter) will soon introduce a new feature that will allow users to disable links in replies to their posts. While the feature hasn’t been officially announced and there’s no confirmation as to why it was made, the most likely scenario is that it’s an attempt to combat the plague of spam bots on the platform, that typically leave self-promotional links in reply to people’s posts.
The first was first spotted by independent app researcher Nima Owji and later confirmed by X’s senior director for security engineering, Christopher Stanley, in response to a post. Replying to a post about the new feature, Stanley said: “My team built this.
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While the feature could come as a relief to users tired of spam bots posting irrelevant links in their replies, it could also be a hindrance to people trying to fact-check a post to limit its reach. In any case, we don’t know yet whether the new link-blocking feature will be available to free users or, if like everything else the platform is announcing these days, will be limited to X’s paid users.
Notably, tackling the threat of spam bots has been one of Musk’s main agendas since he took over. In a post on X earlier this year, Musk said that a “systemic purge of bots & trolls is underway” and that the social media platform would track down the people responsible for these bots, while bringing “the full force of the law to bear upon them”.
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Meanwhile, the billionaire had also tested a ‘Not a Bot’ programme for new users in Philippines and New Zealand. The programme requires new users to pay a $1 annual fee for using basic features like reply,like or bookmark a post.
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Published: 22 Jul 2024, 08:41 AM IST