X to weaken block function despite harassment and privacy fears
Elon Musk’s X is pushing ahead with controversial plans to weaken the power of its ‘block’ function.
The social media network has confirmed that anyone will be able to view a user’s public posts even if they have been blocked by that user.
The changes mean blocking somebody will simply stop them from being able to reply to a post, like it, repost it or share it.
This means the only way to prevent someone being able to see your posts is to deactivate the ‘public posts’ setting, which will also prevent everybody except existing followers from seeing the posts too.
Currently, blocked accounts cannot see a user’s posts at all – although this can easily be circumvented by logging into another account.
Users who simply want to stop seeing posts a certain profile can still ‘mute’ them to remove their content from their timelines.
X claims the change will protect people against attempts to ‘share and hide harmful or private information’ about them.
Currently, harassers can block their target to prevent them seeing if they share posts about them.
It says the platform will move towards ‘greater transparency’ thanks to the change.
Critics argue it will empower ‘stalkers and harassers’ by making it much easier for them to see content posted by their targets.
‘So now the Block feature is essentially useless,’ one user wrote in reply to X’s announcement.
Another wrote: ‘The whole point of the block button is I don’t want them to even know that I exist’.
Supporters pointed out that blocking was already weakened by the ability to create alternative accounts.
‘The X app already makes it trivially easy to switch to an alt account to get around a block. You are not losing any security with this change,’ one said.
The changes are heavily watered down from Elon Musk’s original plan to ‘delete’ the ability to block people except for in X’s direct messaging platform.
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