Sometimes I truly wonder whether or not Elon Musk wakes up each day and wonders, “What terrible ideas should I implement today?” While I do think he’s purposely ruining Twitter, sometimes I wonder if he just likes to f-ck with people. Eh, who am I kidding? It’s probably both. Anyway, Elon’s latest genius business move is to have Twitter no longer hide any of your public posts from any account that you’ve blocked. In the past, if you blocked someone, they had to log out or create a new account in order to see any of your public posts. Now, the workaround has been removed, so whatever creeper you’ve blocked will still be able to stalk you. They just can’t “engage” with you anymore.
X will soon change the functionality behind its block button so that if you block an account, they will still be able to see your public posts, according to changes to X’s website spotted by independent app researcher Nima Owji. Elon Musk confirmed these changes on Monday, noting that blocked accounts will still not be able to engage with users who have blocked them, but they will soon be able to see their posts.
“The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, [a] public post,” said Musk in a tweet on Monday.
Owji says users soon may not see the “You’re blocked…” message when visiting an account of a user who has blocked them, he tells TechCrunch via a DM (direct message) on X. Instead, blocked users will see the account’s public posts, like they were any other user. There will likely still be limitations in reposting, quoting, replying, or engaging with blocked accounts. It’s unclear at this time when the change will take place.
Musk said in his tweet on Monday that it was “high time this happened.” Previously, if a public account blocked a user, that user could simply log out and view the public account’s tweets all the same. There was an easily avoidable workaround, but now X appears to be removing that function altogether.
Roughly 10 years ago, when X was still called Twitter, the platform made similar changes to the block feature that were swiftly reversed. In 2013, Twitter updated its policy to allow blocked users to see content, follow, and even engage with those who have blocked them. The account that blocked them would not be able to see these engagements, but others would. At the time, Twitter reportedly called an emergency meeting due to backlash about the blocking update, and quickly reversed its policy to keep stronger blocks in effect.
Today’s update from X does not go this far — engagements are still not allowed under blocks, according to Musk — but some may not be thrilled about the changes. Social media users often use the block feature to distance themselves from harassers, abusers, or stalkers. Under these new changes to blocking, those barriers will be softened.
I mean, at this point, he has to be tanking Twitter on purpose, right? Is there really no one over there that can tell him something is a bad idea? What does Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino do all damn day? We block people for a reason and that’s usually because of harassment, safety, or the general desire not to engage. Legal bitches, is there some sort of right to privacy law being violated here? Or does it not matter because of some stupid terms of agreement loophole? Elon has consistently made the platform slower and more dangerous, and it’s all for his own sick enjoyment. I bet part of it is ego, too, because now he’s forcing people who’ve blocked him to see his Tweets and he theirs. And yet, the one thing he does protect is letting people see what posts a user has “liked,” which we all know is so that all of the absolute worst people on his platform can like the most hateful, disgusting posts, free from any accountability. Ugh. You can set your profile to private, friends. That’s still safe until Space Karen somehow figures out a way to take that away, too.
Elon found out that most of us had him blocked.
— Randi White (@RandiWhite) September 23, 2024
some engineer showed elon that he was the most blocked account on the platform and he got mad https://t.co/Y8KIYj2ySe
— QuoProQuid (@TNOQuoProQuid) September 23, 2024
so if someone blocked their stalker, the stalker can still stalk them? wow this is a great feature https://t.co/5YXW2wj3iB
— taylor (@wishescametrue) September 23, 2024
Photos credit: IMAGO/Juergen Hasenkopf / Avalon and Olivier Huitel / Avalon