A new update to X (formerly Twitter) will make public content available to everyone, even those who have it blocked. The announcement was made on Monday, with Elon Musk enthusiastically saying he’s been waiting for it.
“It’s about time this happened,” the tech mogul said in a response to the service on Monday. “The block feature blocks an account from participating in public posts, but does not block them from viewing them.”
The X help center also reflected the change, saying that public posts will be visible to everyone, even those who have been blocked. This may be Musk’s attempt to increase engagement on the platform while slightly reducing fake accounts.
Musk has been open about his dislike of the block button. In a June 2023 response to X, he said the block was “pointless” and that it should be replaced with a mute function. In August 2023, he threatened that the block feature would be removed.
Despite these early warning signs, users in the SpaceX founder’s reply section on Monday were not impressed with the change.
“This is not what I want,” one user wrote, while others complained that there was a reason they didn’t want “weird people” to see their content.
A blocked X user cannot respond to a person’s posts, but can still see them, leaving many users feeling annoyed and at risk of further harassment.
In a thread with Musk and Nima Ouji, the indie developer and researcher who broke the news, one female user suggested that this could pose a higher risk for people who are plagued by stalkers.
Not a good move for a woman who has a stalker.
— 🎨Paintress April🌸Sunshine Daydream (@PaintressApril) September 23, 2024
Before the change, X would display a “You’re blocked” message when you tried to view the profile of someone you’d blocked (though you could still see their public Tweets if you were logged out). In addition to blocking the ability to see all posts, users could also no longer see their followers or users they followed.
If you want to keep X posts private, you can still do so, but you’ll need to make your entire account private rather than blocking viewing access for individual users.