Twitter Users Will No Longer Be Able to Block Other Accounts

https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/elon-musk-x-twitter-block-feature-delete-1235699759/

by jbegley • 3 years ago

20 36 3 years ago

JohnFen3• 3 years ago

What is his rationale for this? It seems insane to not allow blocking -- that's a fundamental and essential tool to keep things usable.

I don't understand the reasoning behind removing it at all.

Avshalom• 3 years ago

Assuming he's serious and didn't just like drink a bottle of nyquil or something it's a couple things: 1) hate fueled engagement is still engagement, he's betting that statistically he'll generate more hate-reads than account-closures 2) the specific kind of shitheel that he reply-guys to don't like being blocked because it prevents them from directing harassment at users 3) The block-the-blue thing again. Can't sell subscriptions if subscribing makes you less visible.

JohnFen3• 3 years ago

The block-the-blue thing again.

I didn't know this was a thing -- but that alone explains everything, I think.

guax• 3 years ago

You might be overthinking it. Its likely just that he's not happy people can block him.

cwkoss• 3 years ago

Users can block ads, and after a few weeks of doing this casually you can block a large proportion of advertisers, because most sane businesses recognize twitter as the negative-reputation cesspool that it is.

3cats-in-a-coat3• 3 years ago

He said earlier that blocking is like DDoS for the servers. The blocks are filtered as an additional step from the timeline lookups. So when there are lot of blocks, you multiply the requests to build enough tweets for display.

Because people on Twitter are polarized and constantly attacking and blocking each other, and Elon has no money for infrastructure, it has become a problem. And his solution is expectedly dumb.

Additionally it’s bad for business when people block advertisers and blue checks.

graeme2• 3 years ago

I’ve been getting really bad ads, so I’ve been blocking a set of advertisers.

This might be why he is doing it. Though really I’m just making up for bad ad targeting

rasz• 3 years ago

Pure BS, takes same server CPU time as muting, exact same lookups must be performed.

jfengel• 3 years ago

X has a "muting" feature which will remain. That means you don't have to see them -- that's how a lot of people understand "blocking" anyway. That's obviously essential.

The extra features of blocking are less obviously essential: people can still reply and you don't see it. But your followers still see it, and by following you they're exposed any harassment you receive.

That might not be quite as fundamental, but it's still pretty damn important. If people lose followers or their community is unable to talk over the noise, people will leave.

JohnFen3• 3 years ago

Muting is insufficient -- even counterproductive sometimes -- because it doesn't stop people from harassing your followers, but it does stop you from seeing when that's happening.

I think blocking is essential. Muting is nice to have.

ksaj• 3 years ago

It means your harassers can reply to your posts with all kinds of things meant to change other reader's perceptions of you, while you, the victim, are completely unaware of why your circle keeps shrinking.

Otherwise you could block the aggressor outright, which disallows this kind of activity.

Muting is not the same, even if some people mistakenly believe they are. Muting is what you do to annoying users that always try to be the center of attention, even though they are so extremely boring or whatever. They can still participate in threads... you just won't see their constant floods. They aren't harming you. They're just an eyesore.

Blocking is what you do to someone you don't want involved in any aspect of your life, and especially in your active conversations. Harassers, exes, etc.

PaulHoule• 3 years ago

I've seen people on Mastodon be pretty eloquent about the advantages of blocking rather than muting, particularly blocking prevents people replying to your threads that your friends can see even if you can't. Things like this seem to cause some people a lot of stress.

Mastodon has other problems in the same vein, for instance, it is said that some people who are on servers that aren't good about blocking rouge servers get harassed by certain people and that other people don't see this because they are on servers that are tougher about rouge servers.

cubefox9• 3 years ago

Servers blocking other servers is even worse than users blocking other users they want to block. It means you can get effectively blocked by countless people merely because some admin decided to block the entire server you are on. It's a barbarian form of sibling punishment.

matsemann5• 3 years ago

The "community notes" on Elon's tweet says that would be against social media / user generated content app rules for both Apple and Google and could get the twitter app banned.

graeme2• 3 years ago

It’s false, at least for apple. The apple App Store rules require that the app can block bad users. It isn’t a requirement for a user block function

That said this is a dumb plan

cubefox9• 3 years ago

Apple only says it requires "filtering". The mute function still filters.

tjpnz• 3 years ago

This isn't going to open the flood gates of harassment. You can still block accounts from your DMs and mute accounts more generally. Genuine assholes can easily roll new accounts or incite a mob of their own followers, just as they've always done. What this really does is make it harder for petty people to get the last word, and ironically this also includes Elon who's notoriously thin skinned.

If Twitter were to be the digital manifestation of a town square this would arguably bring it one step closer. Public spaces can be cruel and inhospitable places, they were never meant to be your personal safe space.

matsemann5• 3 years ago

This is a bad and dangerous take, spoken as someone that has never faced real abuse on twitter. If you're any kind of minority, the hate is endless. You're acting as if blocking is mainly used to "get the last word", which it's not. It's to not have people constantly harassing you for just existing.

And if you can only mute, you will not see it all but instead be a vessel to spread abuse to all your followers.

The town square analogy sucks. No one would accept a hate group going into their circle to shout slurs. Free speech absolutists don't care about other's freedom to live peacefully, only their own "right" to harass people.

cubefox9• 3 years ago

If you're any kind of minority, the hate is endless.

I don't think this is true at all. People who get the most hate are not minorities but non-minority celebrities with controversial takes like J.K. Rowling.

Twitter Users Will No Longer Be Able to Block Other Accounts

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