Cedric “Big Ced” Thornton
September 24, 2024
Elon Musk: “The block feature blocks an account from participating in public posts, but does not block them from viewing posts.”
If you’ve been blocking certain users from viewing your posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, you might not like the latest changes that this social media site has made.
According to The Verge, the feature has now been changed so that users who are blocked on X can still see posts but can’t reply to them. Elon Musk, the owner of the platform, responded to a tweet from a user on X.
The latest “feature” was revealed on September 23 when Nima Ouji wrote about it on the platform.
Breaking news: X is removing the current block button, meaning that if your account is public, your posts will be visible to blocked users.
— Nima Owji (@nima_owji) September 23, 2024
Musk confirmed this after responding to Ouji’s post.
It’s about time this happened.
The block feature blocks the account from participating in public posts, but does not block them from viewing public posts.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 23, 2024
Currently, if you are blocked by a user, you will see the message “You are blocked” and you will not be able to see anything related to their posts, nor will you be able to see their replies, media posted to their account, their followers, or the people they follow.
Musk has reportedly voiced his displeasure with the feature in the past. Tech Dirt reported last year that Musk responded to users on the platform who were upset about being blocked. “Blocking public posts is pointless. We need to move to a more powerful mute feature and get rid of the feature,” he said.
He is very against the blocking feature and has previously threatened to ban its use outside of direct messages.
A “workaround” is to set your posts to private, so that you can approve new followers to view your content, otherwise people who don’t follow you won’t have to be blocked and won’t be able to see your posts.
Tech Crunch reports that this has been happening for over a decade. In 2013, Twitter allowed blocked users to view the content of the person who blocked them, follow them, and reply to their posts. The person who blocked the user would not know that their content could be viewed, but other users would. After a backlash from users, Twitter reversed course and changed its protocol to reflect its current policy.