Elon Musk turns X’s block button into a “glorified mute button”

X, previously Twitter, is now letting blocked customers see posts made by the individuals who blocked them.

“We’re beginning to launch the block perform replace,” X’s engineering group wrote yesterday. X beforehand said that after the change, “In case your posts are set to public, accounts you’ve got blocked will be capable to view them, however they will be unable to interact (like, reply, repost, and so on.).”

To justify the change, X mentioned the block performance might beforehand be “utilized by customers to share and conceal dangerous or non-public details about these they’ve blocked.” The change will enable people who find themselves blocked “to see if such habits happens… permitting for higher transparency,” X mentioned.

X proprietor Elon Musk argued last year that “blocking public posts is senseless. It must be deprecated in favor of a stronger type of mute.”

There have been many offended responses to the change, each yesterday and beforehand, when X mentioned it might be coming quickly. Whereas some customers could solely use blocking to keep away from seeing accounts which might be annoying, some X customers mentioned the coverage could possibly be dangerous for individuals who use blocking as a security measure.

The brand new coverage might assist stalkers and different dangerous actors, some mentioned. Blocked accounts might view, screenshot, and share content material posted by the one that blocked them, some folks identified. The block button is now “a glorified mute button,” one person said.

Blocked customers can view and seek for posts

Earlier than the change, X’s support page on blocking accounts mentioned blocked accounts can’t “view your posts when logged in on X (except they report you, and your posts point out them,” “discover your posts in search when logged in on X,” or “view a Second you have created when logged in on X.”