Elon Musk appears to be moving full steam ahead with his previously announced plans to remove “blocking,” as the X feature is known. The X Engineering team posted today that this change is coming soon. and reveal details on how it will be implemented.
Basically, if you have blocked someone and your post is public, other people can still see it. However, you cannot like, reply, or repost. According to the @XEng account, this change is aimed at increasing transparency, allowing users to see if others are trying to hide or share harmful or personal information about them.
Blocks other than DM will be removed as “features”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023
Blocking with X used to be easy. If you block an account, that account will no longer be able to see or interact with your posts. This new change loosens the blocking restrictions.
As expected, this upcoming change has received mixed feedback from X users. Some people object to this. They say this is like removing a very important privacy feature that allows you to control who can see your posts. Additionally, some believe this change could lead to an increase in harassment.
On the other hand, some believe that for public accounts, if someone who has been blocked wants to see your posts, they can circumvent the restriction by creating another account, making the blocking feature useless.
A post by the @XEng account notifying you that changes to the block are coming soon. | X Post Credits Screenshot — PhoneArena
We don’t yet know how this change will affect users. Some people may find it helpful, while others may find it annoying. Personally, I am not happy with many of the changes that have been made to the platform since the ownership change, and as a result I have spent less time on the platform. That may have been a good thing in my case, but I don’t think that was the intended outcome. However, only time will tell how this change will affect the platform and whether more incidents of harassment will occur.
