X, formerly known as Twitter, says it has begun rolling out a controversial change to its blocking feature. Now, when users block someone else, the blocked user can still visit their profile and see their posts, but cannot interact with them directly.

The change was met with strong negative reactions. Critics said it would only make it easier for stalkers, abusive exes and others to continue to monitor and exploit their targets. Blocked users could attack their targets by taking screenshots of their posts and encouraging followers to hunt them down.

When X announced the change back in October, it said it was because some users were blocking others to share harmful information about them without being noticed too quickly by the person they blocked. “Today, users can use the Block feature to share and hide harmful or private information about the people they have blocked. This update allows users to detect whether such behavior is occurring, providing greater transparency.”

X announced on Saturday that the change was now rolling out, and many responses expressed dissatisfaction. A common answer repeated by many users is, “Nobody asked.”

To be fair, if someone is blocked on X, they can still visit their target's profile from another account. But it's an added layer of friction, and on the surface, this change seems to make a harasser's life easier.

Other X changes that were initially met with resistance have since been accepted, most notably the company's decision to hide who has liked a post. After X made the change, many found that it made them feel more comfortable liking sensitive content without judgment. High-profile figures have been embarrassed by their similar stories over the years, such as when Senator Ted Cruz was discovered to have liked a short clip from a Reality Kings porno called “Dick For Two.” However, ironically, X justifies changing the block function to show Content that promotes greater transparency contradicts the attempt to hide likes for the opposite reason.

Some have pointed out that such a change to the blocking feature may violate Apple and Google's policies on social media apps available in their respective stores. Apple's guidelines specifically state that apps “must have the ability to keep abusive users away from the service.” However, Apple, under the leadership of Elon Musk, appears to have a reasonably friendly relationship with X; For example, it was still early to resume advertising on the platform.

At this point, it remains to be seen what impact this change will have on the user experience. Competing platforms like Bluesky and Threads have, of course, gained many users since Musk's takeover, who felt that his moderation changes made the place more toxic in general. Musk has published increasingly right-wing, inflammatory content in the run-up to the presidential election. A recent report from Assets has found that his posts appear in users' feeds within two sessions, regardless of whether they try to find his account or not.

In response to X's announcement of the block change in October, Bluesky said that its platform would retain the original block functionality. The startup recently announced that it has more than 13 million users, while Meta said in a recent conference call that Threads has more than 275 million users.

At Bluesky we take online security seriously.

If you want to block someone, you can! It is your experience that you can customize.

In addition, you can also:
+ Subscribe to blacklists managed by users you trust
+ Separate quote posts
+ morehttps://t.co/x6v5YW0WFT

– bluesky (@bluesky) October 16, 2024