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Elon Musk Plans to Remove Option to Block People on Twitter
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Twitter didn't have mute until sometime in 2012 or after. I remember that was a feature Tweetbot had but the official Twitter client didn't. Mute pretty much made block redundant.
They're all death knells. It's all cumulative. Each time they shed users and people begin to disassociate more and more with the platform. At first only a few people are missing. Then someone you really like to follow. Then several. It all falls off. It happens gradually, and then all of a sudden.
Right, but I don’t think Mute was meant to “replace” Block as you’re suggesting here.
If you understand how both features work, Mute is more like a soft block. If you mute someone, they can still see your posts and interact with you. If someone is bullying you and keeps on writing offensive comments on your Tweets/Posts, this will not stop them at all. In fact, they may as well go ahead and start bullying your friends and followers who also interact with your Tweets/Posts. This is not a solution at all.
Block on the other hand kind of solves it, as it prevents that bully from seeing your profile and interacting with your Tweets/Posts completely, unless you unblock them yourself or they make a different account. If you’re suggesting that “oh, but then they can go ahead and make hundreds of accounts to troll you, and therefore it’s useless” well technically, unless that person is a VERY obsessed stalker who will never leave me alone, I don’t really think they’ll do that. Like for real, ain’t nobody got time for that..
I recommend you go and look and how both of them work here. Even the official Twitter/X site suggests that they both have different use cases.
How to mute accounts on X and what happens after muting
Learn how to use X's mute feature to remove an account's posts from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking them.
help.twitter.com
How to block accounts on X
Learn how to use X's block feature when you want to restrict an account from following you or viewing your posts.
help.twitter.com
Again, you can go ahead and suggest that the Mute feature works “better”, but that’s just your opinion. If that was true, then Block should have been removed immediately at the time Mute was added.
But I don’t even think Elon thought of it that way to be honest. He definitely doesn’t think that Mute works better than Block. He’s most likely just mad at all the people who blocked him.
I never said it was meant to when it was released.
I'm well aware of how it works. Don't need a lecture. I've been using Twitter/X for over a decade and have been involved in developing a Twitter client myself.
Blocking doesn't work. Anyone can switch accounts.
Yep they do. Sorry but that's just facts. Twitter accounts are sold by the hundreds via BTC.
You've never had a crazy ex-GF like I have.
The only redeeming quality of blocking is forcing someone to stop following you (which by the way, blocking and unblocking to force someone to stop following you is what is called soft-blocking, not like what you defined earlier) to put your account into private so you can manually approve who follows and sees your account. But:
1. Very rare an account switches to private permanently.
2. Elon/Linda has suggested mute is getting improvements. We're not sticking with the existing mute implementation after block is removed.
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That honestly sounds true to me, many of the (mostly tech related) accounts I follow online are just much less active these days. Despite the monetization motives that were given recently.
He’s destroyed that platform to be fair. I’m convinced he’s bought it to slowly shut it down but by bit. For what reason I do not know, but everything he has done has driven people away from it, especially companies since he removed the measurable analytics.
Well by this logic, Mute doesn’t work either because they can still see your posts and interact with you. You just won’t be able to see their posts.
Both of them have flaws, they’re just some temporary solutions for annoying people, but will not stop them completely.
1. I think the reason why no one switches to private permanently is because by doing so, it’s like you’re blocking everyone except for your followers. No one can see your tweets or interact with you unless they’re following you. No one can even see your replies to public Tweets/Posts unless they’re following you.
So if you wanna reply to a public tweet and want everyone to see your reply, you’ll have to make your account public even if you don’t want to. If you also wanna reply to someone who doesn’t follow you, you’ll have to make your account public so they can see your reply. I happened to switch a lot between public and private on my Twitter account just because of that reason.
It’d honestly be quite better if it was more like Instagram’s private account feature, where everyone can see your comments on public posts but only your followers can see what you post on your profile.
2. I’m assuming by “improving” the current Mute feature, they’ll probably just change it to make it work exactly like how Block works right now. Sounds like a solution in search of a problem to me if they actually did that.. it’s either that or they’ll probably make Block a paid feature only for Twitter Blue subscribers which would be absolutely ridiculous. So again, there was no reason to remove it in the first place. But I guess we will wait and see how this goes..
I think you slightly miss the point of how blocking on Twitter/X works. In your example
- if a number of people corrects a lie and only then they are blocked by the liar, the general public will see all the answers. The block will make all the posts by the blocked invisible to the blocker only.
- if the blocker blocked a number of people before making a false statement, the blocked will not even see the posting and they will have no chance to correct it, so you're right in this case.
This is the reason Twitter disabled en masse list blocking years ago: there used to be a feature that allowed to block thousands of accounts with a single click. Fraudulent users (or user networks) spreading dishonest posts made use of it by adding thousands of account names to a list and then sharing this list to other members of the network (or fans, or followers). This allowed a tight control of bans on users frequently and actively correcting false statements while allowing random readers to be exposed to those statements. This was a mechanism that allowed growth of malevolent accounts and luckily it has been removed.
However, while removing blocking may be extremely annoying, it is a double-edged sword, so I'd carefully and with some reserve back it. But muting an account should also prevent the muted account from mentioning the account that muted, in order to stop the mockery.
"You just won’t be able to see their posts. " that's exactly what mute is supposed to do. It works as intended.
Could someone switch accounts and post something that you can see? Sure, but they won't know you muted them unless you told them. So either way, it works.
Well no, mute is doing exactly like you said: "You just won’t be able to see their posts. ". That's the goal.
Ok? Hence block is not really useful. The one thing block does for you (removing followers), it's not very practical for that small one use case because the moment you open the account back up, trolls can switch accounts and follow again.
We don't know what they're planning. All we do know is that it won't be the same mute.
I totally agree. By looking at all of his nonsensical decisions ever since he bought it, I can’t even think of one reason why he spent $44B on Twitter other than to destroy it.
The rebranding to “X” alone basically killed a 17-year-old brand. He literally killed the name “Twitter” by choosing the most ridiculous brand name I’ve ever seen. At this point, why did he even buy it instead of making his own platform ?
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Again, this is just your opinion. For me, I think both are useful but they both have different use cases. I’m just not so convinced that Mute works better than Block as you’re stating here.
It depends on the person, but if I can’t see their posts but they can still see mine, I’d honestly still be worried. What if I just don’t want that person to interact with me or see my posts AT ALL ? And what if I don’t wanna make my account private at the same time ? That’s what Block is and has always been for.
If they were so obsessed and decided to make other multiple accounts so they can continue to annoy me, I can block or report the other accounts as well.
It may not seem useful for you which is fine, but for so many people it has been useful. This is why it has existed in the first place. This is why no one has ever complained that it should be removed. Elon has always been doing stuff that nobody asked for.
He memed himself into buying a company (thinking he wouldn't get it anyways) that was already in a downward spiral with no plausible way to positive cash flow and now throws every brainfart at the wall hoping something will stick.
Why not both. Blocking is better against harassers. Mute is better annoying ads or people who post a lot. So why get rid of a tool that’s better against harassers and tell them to use a different one that doesn’t work at all?
So if it didn’t do its job 100% then get rid of it? It works in most situations. They shouldn’t get rid of a useful tool (except Elon) unless they can replace it with one that works better. Otherwise they are just taking away features making the service worse and less useful.
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It’s certainly quicker to block an account than it is to register a new one on Twitter though. I’m sure the trolls would get quickly fed up with someone repeatedly blocking their accounts.
That’s a bad suggestion. The crappiness of some users shouldn’t force people trying to use the platform in good faith to have to lock down their accounts. You used to be able to assume the base level interaction is decent, and a locked down account is useless in any sort of promotional sense.
Also, regarding multiple accounts.. More often than not, no they don’t, it’s too much hassle. And it’s easy to block their extra accounts currently when they do.
Most problematic users likely to cause problems aren’t trolls so much as they’re objectionable idiots who you don’t need interacting with your feed and followers at all.
Every single Twitter-like allows blocking, as it performs a useful function. People will just continue to migrate away from X as he picks at it like this.
Uhh.. it does clearly have its uses and is clearly different to mute as people have pointed out repeatedly during the thread.
You don’t have to like or use it, but what you do has no impact on whether it’s a useful feature.
Nero didn't fiddle while Rome burned, he turned the palaces into a living space. Even Suetonius, that miserable gossip, says as much.Its like Nero watching twitter burn down.
Also, Twitter was already on fire and considered by most of the intelligent world as a cuddle of the mob.
Musk tweeted/posted in June, "Blocking public posts makes no sense. It needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of mute."
It sounds like Musk doesn't think mute alone (as it is now) is strong enough, at least if block goes away. What "stronger form of mute" is being considered?
It sounds like Musk doesn't think mute alone (as it is now) is strong enough, at least if block goes away. What "stronger form of mute" is being considered?
Im all for the Death of social media. Can't go away fast enough.