Elon Musk’s latest tweak to Twitter, the former name of what he now calls X: Users will no longer be able to block other accounts — as Musk claims the feature “makes no sense.”
“Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs,” the tech mogul posted on X Friday. “Makes no sense.”
X/Twitter describes block as “a feature that helps you control how you interact with other accounts on Twitter. This feature helps people in restricting specific accounts from contacting them, seeing their Tweets, and following them.” Blocking other accounts is useful if someone is harassing, threatening or stalking you on the platform.
Instead of using the “block,” Musk suggested that X users can use the mute feature instead. Currently, however, the social network’s mute button simply removes an account’s posts from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking that account — whereas blocking an account prevents that account from viewing your public posts on X. When you “mute” X/Twitter accounts, they are still able to reply to your public posts (you just don’t get notifications, and replies are hidden from your view by default).
Musk has previously disparaged Twitter’s block function. In June, he posted, “Blocking public posts makes no sense. It needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of mute,” although he didn’t elaborate on what a “stronger form of mute” might entail.
Source: https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/elon-musk-x-twitter-block-feature-delete-1235699759/