UPDATE, 4:09PM, CST: a Community Note added to Musk’s announcement says Musk “cannot” eliminate the block feature, as it is a mandatory condition of social networks being allowed on both Apple and Google’s app stores. Musk has not yet said whether this news changes his plans.
(LifeSiteNews) — The social network formerly known as Twitter has instituted multiple changes long championed by conservatives since being taken over by iconoclastic tech mogul Elon Musk, but a newly announced decision has received an overwhelmingly hostile reception: eliminating users’ ability to block certain accounts from replying.
Musk announced Friday that Twitter, recently rebranded as X, will be removing the “block” feature for public interactions with other accounts, claiming it “makes no sense,” while continuing to allow users to block unwanted people from sending private Direct Messages (DMs):
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1692558493255942213
The news met a swift backlash, as blocking has conventionally been social media users’ most effective tool to stop strangers from bombarding their posts with all manner of unwanted content. Musk suggested blocking DMs and muting unwanted replies, which stops the muter from seeing them but allows them to continue replying as much as they want, with whatever they post visible to the muter’s followers.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1692565221645127949
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1692572880461087124
Many who saw the news argued that while the change will likely be a boon to advertisers, the effects are overwhelmingly likely to be negative for everyone else, who rely on blocking to keep their online experience free from rude behavior, bot accounts, threats, fringe material, obscene content, stalking, and harassment.
In theory, content moderation is supposed to remove content that violates the site’s rules. But with hundreds of millions of users, it is not possible for staffers or algorithms to catch everything that might warrant removal in a timely manner (or necessarily at all), and without blocking users cannot control being subjected to content that is unwanted but technically not in violation.
https://twitter.com/xDaily/status/1692570324691304564
https://twitter.com/ChrisLoesch/status/1692579010700624207
https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1692596356127350850
https://twitter.com/dmb1031/status/1692583285602267195
https://twitter.com/skydiveicarus/status/1692586640785502488
https://twitter.com/MINT_Crypto/status/1692589466991648908
https://twitter.com/jschaf01/status/1692591338670207137
Musk purchased Twitter in October 2022 and set to work making it more open and politically neutral. To that end, he has instituted a number of reforms to the platform and other actions that have overjoyed conservatives, such as replacing fact-checkers with a far more accurate, user-driven Community Notes feature, releasing troves of information about the previous management’s censorship activities, reversing the old Twitter’s classification of “deadnaming” as bannable “hate speech,” and reinstating numerous high-profile accounts banned by the old regime.
However, there have also been some setbacks and causes for concern as to how thoroughly the platform will change, such as Musk hiring former World Economic Forum executive chair Linda Yaccarino to take over day-to-day business operations as CEO and giving lip service to the notion that “outrageous” content should be subject to reduced “freedom of reach.”