Elon Musk-owned social media giant X (formerly Twitter) will now show blocked users posts from the person they’ve been blocked by, but they won’t be able to engage with those posts.
In contrast, under the current system, blocked users only receive a ‘you’re blocked’ message when they try to view the profile of someone they have been blocked by. They also won’t be able to see replies, followers and other profile details about that person.
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In response to a post explaining the reasoning behind the change, Musk wrote: “High time this happened… The block feature will prevent that account from engaging with public posts, but will not prevent them from seeing public posts”.
Notably, Musk has been a vocal critic of the block button on X. Publicly stating last year that the block feature needed to be “deprecated” in favour of a stronger mute button. He also said that “Block is going to be deleted as a feature, except for DMs”.
However, as things stand, X users can still block the people they don’t want to engage with, and such accounts could receive no information about their actions on the platform. With the new change, while users will still have the peace of mind of not interacting with such users, the blocked accounts will be able to see past and new posts of the said user.
While Musk’s dislike for the block button has been public for some time. People have wondered why the billionaire would have problems with such a simple feature that is a staple of all social media platforms. Some reports have suggested that the weakening of the block button could be an attempt to prevent users from circumventing ads on the platform. While others have suggested that it could be for a more personal reason.
However, since Musk took over Twitter. He has made sweeping changes to the social media platform to make it a “public town square”.
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Published: 24 Sep 2024, 11:21 AM IST