The partnership is unprecedented, at least in the US. Many tech platforms are fairly deferential to subpoena requests, but what if you didn't even need that? What if you could easily supply a government with DMs between journalists and off-the-record sources?

What if you could monitor plans for political organizing? Deliver reports about those seeking reproductive care? Negotiations with clients? Payments? What if you could tie anonymous accounts to IP addresses/phone numbers? The potential for X to become a honeypot is staggering.

I don't know the logistics. Maybe there are magic TOS firewalls that would prevent it. But having the sole director – unrestrained by a board — also become an official member of the Trump administration is ... concerning. fortune.com/2024/11/06/elon-…

There's long been a moral and psychic trade off for me in continuing operating on here — but it's also offered the best way to connect with the largest number of people. But I'm increasingly, personally, thinking of this as a safety issue and suspect I'm headed for an Xit.

While Musk did famously demand his engineers design something he couldn't access with a gun to his head, it largely hasn't panned out There's encryption of certain DMs but ONLY if both users subscribe to blue AND have it turned on. And it excludes

And it excludes group chats, media and links. Messages to someone you don't yet know are not encrypted. help.x.com/en/using-x/encryp…

Even worse, X still says that even the encrypted system is vulnerable to "man in the middle attacks" — where a "malicious insider" or even "X itself" could intercept the messages. And no one would know. This doesn't inspire confidence.

And that's to say nothing about things like location data, use of Twitter payments, contact between individuals, bookmarks, likes etc, all of which could be accessed on the command of a high-ranking member of the government, who also happens to own the company.

Again, I could be off! I'd be happen to be proven wrong. People like @mer__edith @samleecole @evan_greer @thedextriarchy know a lot more about digital privacy than me. But man am I uneasy using a platform owned by someone who may also have high government rank for activism.