ExTwitter Makes It Official: Blocks Are No Longer Blocks

It has been rumored for a while that Elon wants to remove the official “block” functionality on ExTwitter, but now it’s official. The company has announced that it will soon start rolling out a new version of “block” that no longer blocks content, only interactions. That’s ExTwitter’s engineering team saying: Soon we’ll be launching a change to how the block function works. If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked will be able to view them, but they will not be able to engage (like, reply, repost, etc.). Today, block can be used by users to share and hide harmful or private information about those they’ve blocked. Users will be able to see if such behavior occurs with this update, allowing for greater transparency. This is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, though I’d push back on people calling it a “crazy” idea. There actually is some logic to it. As many people will point out, even with the existing “block” functionality, you can still see the content in question if you just switch to an incognito view. And, of course, there is something slightly odd in posting some content publicly, and then expecting that certain people should be “blocked” from seeing it. That’s the theoretical argument for why what Elon is doing here seems to make sense. But reality and theory don’t always match up. The reality is that the current “block” feature acts as a form of friction to stop abuse, and it’s…ExTwitter Makes It Official: Blocks Are No Longer Blocks