From the Block Me Bro section
Elon Musk’s superpower doesn’t seem to be rocket science or electric cars — it’s the uncanny ability to misunderstand why ExTwitter features exist.
What’s clear from his book about the Twitter takeover, Character Limit, is that he only viewed Twitter features through the lens of whether they would be useful to him, the richest man in the world, without any consideration that not everyone else on Twitter has the same experience as him.
He made that clear from day one, when he decided to grant a blue check (without the corresponding certification) for $8 a month, which was based on a misunderstanding of how certification works and why it’s important.
Similarly, Elon doesn’t understand why the “block” feature works the way it does. He doesn’t understand that it’s used so often as a way to prevent harassment, especially harassment of vulnerable people, because this kind of harassment is not an issue for the richest man on earth.
Instead, he believes it’s because people don’t want certain opinions to be heard, which is why Elon is again insisting, as he has done before, that blocking will be removed.
As he puts it, “The block feature blocks an account from engaging with public posts, but it doesn’t block you from viewing them.” Some might argue that this makes sense, given that many people switch to incognito mode to view content from accounts that have blocked them, but it ignores the reality (and years of evidence) that blocking is an effective tool to stop harassment.
Not only does Elon misunderstand why blocks exist, but he also highlights (once again) very little intellectual curiosity to understand why things are done the way they are.
Because Twitter tried this before. 11 years ago. Twitter introduced something almost identical. Then everyone hated it so the company rolled it back after a few hours. Apparently Elon doesn’t know all about it because he cut off everyone who might have told him about its history.
The replies to Elon’s post, of course, show the idiots who are paying Elon to get their hands on an anti-signal blue check, but also that even his most staunch supporters absolutely hate the idea. These are just the top set of replies to Elon’s post that I’ve seen, all from blue check accounts, and all panning his idea:
Of course, no one at Elon’s company is willing to challenge any of Elon’s ideas because they would likely get fired immediately, so he goes ahead with the dumbest idea he can think of – an idea that’s already proven to be stupid.
There were a lot of ways Elon could have made Twitter better, but he chose none of them.
Categories: Abuse, Blocking, Elon Musk, Harassment, Trust & Safety
Company: Twitter, x