X (formerly Twitter)’s new phone and video calling feature may be one of the biggest social media privacy and security blunders I’ve seen in a long time.
Last week, X enabled audio and video calls on the platform for everyone. Not just those who pay for X Premium ($8 per month), but for average, everyday, unverified X users.
Sounds great, right? A free way to call anyone on X. Only that is not the case.
audio and video calls are now available to everyone on X! who do you call first? pic.twitter.com/DYvB7ZRrbYFebruary 28, 2024
Without asking,
The big problem, however, is that now that we have been on the platform for almost twenty years, many of us followed and have been followed by many people we don’t actually know that well or even want to know anymore. Have we ever accepted or sent a direct message to them? Certainly. But that was ages ago, and maybe we just forgot to unfollow them.
Now imagine this. Any of these followers (whom you follow) can go to an existing Direct Messages thread, select the little phone icon that appears next to their X contact’s profile photo, and immediately place a call (audio or video). You won’t be asked if this is a good idea, nor will you be reminded to text them first. You select the calling mode and X starts the call. Surprise!
The truth is, most of us prefer texting to calling. Audio and video calls are reserved for our closest friends and family (and the requisite office video conference calls).
And while I’ve built a close bond with my Twitter (X) friends, almost none of them have my phone number, and I don’t have theirs either. Most of them would be shocked if they received a voice or video call from me.
I understand what Elon Musk is trying to do here: turn X into a do-it-all platform, something akin to China’s WeChat. It could be a worthwhile ambition without X’s myriad problems, such as negative public sentiment and a significant loss of advertisers due to the the platform’s endless pipeline of vitriol and some of the views expressed by Tweeter-in-Chief, Elon Musk.
No one I know has asked Twitter…er…X.. to add this feature, and certainly no one expects it to be enabled by default.
The ability to make X audio and video calls is a privacy and security disaster in the making and X and Elon Musk should disable it by default immediately.
In the meantime, if you’re still using X, you can open the DM panel in the mobile app and disable the feature. You could at least enable “Enhanced Call Privacy” to hide your IP address from contacts during calls (I can’t believe Musk turned that on by default too). 🤦♂️