Kate Mills
Feb 08, 2024
The image shows the X (formerly Twitter) logo in 3D, — Freepik
Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has secured the top slot on App Store, becoming the most downloaded free app in the world.
The popularity of the application skyrocketed reportedly after a prominent figure scandal captured the limelight on the platform. With the hashtag “drakevideo” trending on top, the video shows a partially naked person, who is said to be the rapper Drake, engrossed in an intimate act.
This scandal has emerged less than two weeks after the platform was grappling to somehow prevent the dissemination of another salacious celebrity image.
Read more: Microsoft internally rolls out Copilot to enhance AI integration among developers
In late January, there was a circulation of AI-generated explicit images of Taylor Swift on the platform, resulting in the company temporarily blocking all searches for the artist’s name.
However, the controversies appeared to have little impact on X's number of downloads. Elon Musk, the owner of X, proudly announced the app's rise to the top of the App Store rankings on Wednesday, writing, “If I had a dollar for every time the media reported that one of my companies was going to die, I would never need to raise money!”
Spokesperson Joe Benarroch stated that X is “completely committed to maintaining a safe and respectful environment for all users,” and has “zero-tolerance policy” against the sharing of nonconsensual nude images. According to Benarroch, the company has already taken action on numerous posts and is “actively monitoring the situation” to remove any new violating posts.
Despite this statement, seven posts were discovered that were at least a day old, some with millions of views, featuring a purported Drake video by simply searching "Drake" in the video tab and scrolling briefly. A publicist for Drake declined to comment, The Verge reported.
Notably, Musk reduced the teams responsible for content moderation and safety features on the site shortly after taking over the company in 2022.
