Elon Musk’s latest plan for Twitter — er, X — apparently focuses on pissing off a large number of users.
The man-child mogul announced on Friday that the site would be largely dumping the “block” feature that allows users to heavily restrict interactions with the accounts of others, claiming that “It makes no sense.”
Musk said that users would still be able to block direct messages from others and to mute accounts, which hides a person’s tweets from a user’s timeline.
Block is going to be deleted as a “feature”, except for DMs
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023
You will still be able to mute accounts and block users for DMs
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023
People can also set their accounts to “private,” meaning they would get a request when new people want to follow them, and can approve or deny it.
One account on Musk’s site, X News Daily, tried to explain to the billionaire that muting “isn’t a full replacement for blocking.” It also noted that “blocking is more of a service to your followers to stop them seeing harassment, spam etc” and “also prevents someone from quote-posting you to direct harassment your way.”
Muting isn’t a full replacement for blocking.
If anything, blocking is more of a service to your followers to stop them seeing harassment, spam etc.
It also prevents someone from quote-posting you to direct harassment your way.
Look at the replies. The feedback isn’t good.
— X News Daily (@xDaily) August 18, 2023
Another benefit of blocking is it’s a clear signal to let someone know their behaviour has crossed a line.
When we talk to people about why they don’t use X, harassment/trolls are one of the biggest reasons. Making the tools we have less effective is not a good direction IMO.
— X News Daily (@xDaily) August 18, 2023
Musk didn’t take such suggestions seriously, instead insisting that people use the mute feature.
As a result, Twitter users weren’t mute about their dissatisfaction with Musk’s seemingly arbitrary decree.
Blocking is a necessity to prevent the porn bots from replying with porn in your timeline, @elonmusk. You may like them and tolerate them and use them to goose X’s daily user numbers, but I’m not interested in having them puke replying on my posts. https://t.co/ovBkozarEZ
— FilmLadd (@FilmLadd) August 18, 2023
This is the first “X” proposal that is an absolute disaster
Some people are just trolls who need to be blocked, as research repeatedly shows. There will be no way to stop trolls or bad actors from attacking you or folks in your comments. Not seeing them organize it isn’t enough https://t.co/DnIaYvyPPC
— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) August 18, 2023
And with that I’ll finally be looking at setting up that Threads account. This is just about the dumbest decision I can think of for actual user experience. “You must be exposed to anyone who wants to call you a kike! Because reasons.” https://t.co/vyzerLZCY7
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) August 18, 2023
This is an atrocious idea.
There are lots of people who intentionally spend their time trying to harass people they disagree with and the people who follow/reply to them. Muting doesn’t solve that problem for followers so you’re inviting such behavior. Please reconsider. https://t.co/bb1f8loShu
— AG (@AGHamilton29) August 18, 2023
I block people for safety reasons all the time. Please reconsider.
— Layah Heilpern (@LayahHeilpern) August 18, 2023
you permabanned @ElonJet but can’t understand why the block feature is necessary?
— Nick Wing (@nickpwing) August 18, 2023
Elon is going to remove the block feature
I’ve blocked 29,224 ppl, many of whom are racist, sexist & hateful
Twitter can be a cesspool for women, esp for minorities
Taking away one of our last remaining protections on the 103rd anniversary of the 19th amendment is SO on brand
— Lindy Li (@lindyli) August 18, 2023
No word on when the block feature will be dropped. As of Friday afternoon, the social media site still had a page explaining how to block and unblock accounts.
