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On Friday, Elon Musk announced that yet another changeover at X, formerly Twitter, is in the works. The owner of the social media platform says that users will soon no longer be able to block other accounts, a feature Musk says “makes no sense.”
“Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs,” the mogul tweeted on Friday in response to a post from the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley account, where Musk is CEO: “Is there ever a reason to block vs mute someone?” Of course, with Musk, it’s tough to know how seriously to take this sort of announcement, given his track record. (X/Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on Musk’s recent announcement.)
The block feature is described on the site as one that “helps you control how you interact with other accounts on Twitter” and helps people to restrict accounts they don’t want to contact them. Anyone who has ever been harassed on the site—not a small sample of users—is likely accustomed to using the feature. Essentially, blocking is the only real way to get rid of your Twitter trolls, and now, it may not be around much longer.
When Musk took over the site formerly known as Twitter last year, the platform saw an immediate increase in hate speech. One racial slur was used 26,228 times in tweets and retweets in his first week alone—more than triple the average for the 2022 year. Similarly, verbal attacks against transgender people exploded. One anti-trans word was used 53% more than the 2022 average. One rather damning 2023 report showed that harassment on the site was up from 23% in 2022 to 33% in 2023 for adults and 36% to 51% for teens. X CEO Linda Yaccarino has disputed claims about rising hate speech, saying the company has policies to “deamplify” hate speech.
While some praised Musk’s latest announcement, like former CEO Jack Dorsey who wrote: “????. mute only,” commenting that users would still be able to use the mute feature, that button doesn’t work the same way. Blocking ensures that users won’t see the content you post, and can’t contact you. Muting simply takes away your ability to see their posts, but they can still see and comment on yours. That’s why, after Musk’s announcement, many were quick to call out the idea that would likely create an even more hostile environment on the site.
“That is a huge mistake,” wrote one user, adding that the site is used by plenty of “toxic people” who users don’t want to interact with. “Block is a critical peace of mind issue for many people because it generally gets the cyber stalkers to move on.”
A lot of users are clearly worried about what the new move might mean, but there are some workarounds. Users can set their account to “private,” which allows them to control who can view and respond to their posts. They also have the option to keep comments open to everyone, only to those they “follow” or “mention in their posts,” as well as to turn them off entirely. However, many users don’t want to go private or limit their tweets. They simply don’t want to be harassed.
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