Why the changes to the block feature on Elon Musk's X platform are causing users to leave

Elon Musk's X will alter the nature of the block function. That's not like how other social media apps work.
Why the changes to the block feature on Elon Musk's X platform are causing users to leave

Elon Musk's X will alter the nature of the block function. That's not like how other social media apps work. If the blocking policies are altered, individuals who have been blocked by one person will still be able to see what that person posts as long as they are public posts. They simply will not be able to like, retweet, or reply to the posts.

"Blocking public posts makes no sense," Musk said on X last year. "It needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of mute."

Former co-founder and CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey agrees. To that extent, Dorsey and Musk have a case. On most social media, if someone blocks you, you can still find their public posts-you simply need to log out of your own account. But Tracy Chou, founder of anti-harassment tool Block Party, responds that this extra bit of friction counts.

Chou writes on X, "sure someone from twitter (elon) is arguing that block eversions were always possible from other accounts but the point is that friction matters!! making it easy for a creeper to creep is not a good thing!!

Many X users agreed with Chou, generating interest in other platforms. A Twitter alternative, Bluesky, added another 1.2 million new users in the past two days, as people sought an alternative to X. The U.S. App Store top charts put Bluesky at No. 2 in the Social Networking category, up from No. 181 the previous day.

Growth spurts don't always translate into sustained use. Still, relative to some of its other platform updates — such as the renaming of Twitter to X — this policy shift is not symbolic. It's a change in which it moves closer to centering the experiences of those being blocked rather than the blockers themselves, who are so much more often threatened in the short term.

Today, block can be used by users to share and hide harmful or private information about those they've blocked," the engineering team of X wrote in a post. "Users will be able to see if such behavior occurs with this update, allowing for greater transparency."

This position alienates users from being more concerned about their own safety rather than this scenario of being blocked by some person who may then go ahead and share information about them.
Claire Waxman, serving in the London Mayor's Office as the appointed Victims' Commissioner, has also expressed concern about how the new changes may affect victims of abuse.

"This is a dangerous decision for a social media company and will have profound consequences for victims — among them, stalking victims — and their safety," Waxman said on X. "Allowing blocked users the ability to see posts caters to abusers and stalkers, coddles, and enables their actions."

Colten Meisner, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University who focuses on social media harassment, agrees. 

The block feature has been a first line of defense for people being harassed, Meisner said to TechCrunch. It feels like there's no way to interpret this policy change without saying, 'Victims of harassment, the first line of defense you've had, we're now going to take away.' Because if you want views, if you want visibility, that's what it comes with on X.

Meisner also shows the tendency in how personal beliefs and vendettas by Musk were reflected in platform policy.

"[Musk] is definitely the archetype of the person that's being blocked, and so it almost feels like a childish retaliation in some sense," Meisner said. "Elon specifically has had this history of making policy changes basically at his own whims."

For instance, X has blocked links to its competitors, such as at various times both Substack and Mastodon. It has also labeled NPR as "state-affiliated media," a distinction usually reserved for those outlets that have less than total editorial independence from their government. NPR receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is funded through the federal budget.

On a platform that has already seen marked increases in hate speech, the revamped block feature is a harbinger of the same trend continuing.

"This policy change is just a massive backstep in the history of harassment," Meisner added.

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2024-10-19 17:37:46