Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), has publicly attributed the incorrect labeling of perfectly normal images as “graphic content” to a malfunction involving a “spam/scam bot.”
Business Insider reports that over the weekend, many X/Twitter users reported that regular images, including innocent pictures of books, trees, and cars, were blurred and tagged as “graphic content” on the platform. This issue is the latest in a series of technical glitches that X/Twitter has faced since Musk’s acquisition of the platform in October 2022.
What I posted and what @X is showing people. So weird… how in the world is this graphic content? @elonmusk? anyone? pic.twitter.com/hpvzMBPwxS
— Josiah Kennealy (@JosiahKennealy) January 21, 2024
In response to the issue, Musk acknowledged the problem in a post on his platform, stating that “an X spam/scam bot accidentally flagged many legitimate accounts today. This is being fixed.”
An spam/scam bot accidentally flagged many legitimate accounts today. This is being fixed.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2024
The social media site also addressed the issue through its “Safety” account, confirming that a bug had caused numerous posts to be incorrectly labeled and assuring users that the underlying problem was resolved and efforts were underway to remove the misapplied labels.
Today, a bug in our system caused X to incorrectly label numerous posts as Sensitive Media. We’ve fixed the underlying issue and are now working to remove labels from impacted posts.
— Safety (@Safety) January 21, 2024
This glitch follows several other technical challenges faced by X/Twitter under Musk’s leadership. Notably, in December, the site experienced its largest outage since Musk’s takeover, with nearly 100,000 users reporting issues. Other notable incidents include a bug in August 2023 that temporarily disrupted all pictures and links posted before 2014, and a brief period in July when the site became largely unusable due to “rate limits” allegedly introduced to manage high levels of “data scraping.”
These repeated technical difficulties coincide with significant workforce reductions at X/Twitter. Musk has reportedly reduced the company’s staff by approximately 90 percent since assuming control. This drastic reduction has led insiders and experts to warn that the platform is increasingly susceptible to glitches and bugs due to the loss of “institutional knowledge.”
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.