Elon Musk is removing blocking people from 𝕏

[Drazil100]

Summary

Elon Musk said today on 𝕏 that he is removing the ability to block people (aside from DMs) and that you will only be able to mute people.

 

Quotes

 

Quote

According to Musk, muting will be the sole way to filter content on Twitter in the future, though there will still be a blocking feature for direct messages. Removing block will allow spam accounts and harassers to interact with people that would have otherwise blocked them as muting is far less restrictive.

 

My thoughts

Part of me wonders if ANY good can come of this. On the one hand we are going to see a LOT more spam and harassment. I don't believe muting someone prevents other people from seeing their reactions to your content and there are going to be a LOT of people who were previously blocked from harassment who will suddenly be able to leave garbage quality posts. On the other hand though, maybe this prevents people from blocking out legitimate criticism to hide the fact that they are scummy?

Either way I don't like it. It's not broken so why is he messing with it?

 

Sources

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/08/18/twitter-block-option-may-be-removed/

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Drazil100 said:

Summary

Elon Musk said today on 𝕏 that he is removing the ability to block people (aside from DMs) and that you will only be able to mute people.

 

Quotes

 

 

My thoughts

Part of me wonders if ANY good can come of this. On the one hand we are going to see a LOT more spam and harassment. I don't believe muting someone prevents other people from seeing their reactions to your content and there are going to be a LOT of people who were previously blocked from harassment who will suddenly be able to leave garbage quality posts. On the other hand though, maybe this prevents people from blocking out legitimate criticism to hide the fact that they are scummy?

Either way I don't like it. It's not broken so why is he messing with it?

 

Sources

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/08/18/twitter-block-option-may-be-removed/

 

Maybe they'll just delete spammer accounts. Better than blocking. 

[Drazil100]

Additional context that the embed of Elon's post(?) provided:

It is against both Google and Apple's policy to not allow people to block others on apps with user generated content. Does muting count as blocking?

Google:

Quote

• Provides an in-app system for blocking UGC and users;

Apple: 

Quote

• The ability to block abusive users from the service

Sources

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9876937

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

[lafrente]

That's the MOST EMOTIONAL reader context I've ever seen.

[Middcore]

I welcome this, it would accelerate the exodus of any well-adjusted person from the platform until only the shitlords remain. 

[Quackers101]

they want to ID people too, not sure if for all accounts.
a lot of sh*t they will start doing. also they just encourage other types of spam currently.

[StDragon]

9 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

they want to ID people too, not sure if for all accounts.
a lot of sh*t they will start doing. also they just encourage other types of spam currently.

The "Information Apocalypse" is already underway.

The signal to noise ratio will only get worse once you have AI blasting spam out. At best, humans will be outnumbered thousands to one with most not being aware of it. At worst, it acts like a landscape of Furbys talking openly in the void; mindless incoherent babble (relatively speaking worse than it already is).

I see social media being more of a read-only platform with only a select club members having full interactive access. While not freely open, at least it's manageable via a vetted member list. And no, I will not be using a real government issued ID. It's pseudonyms or bust.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, StDragon said:

The "Information Apocalypse" is already underway.

The signal to noise ratio will only get worse once you have AI blasting spam out. At best, humans will be outnumbered thousands to one with most not being aware of it. At worst, it acts like a landscape of Furbys talking openly in the void; mindless incoherent babble (relatively speaking worse than it already is).

I see social media being more of a read-only platform with only a select club members having full interactive access. While not freely open, at least it's manageable via a vetted member list. And no, I will not be using a real government issued ID. It's pseudonyms or bust.

Ai generating spam and Ai fighting spam. If it becomes read only might as well go back to newspapers. 

[Taf the Ghost]

15 minutes ago, StDragon said:

The "Information Apocalypse" is already underway.

The signal to noise ratio will only get worse once you have AI blasting spam out. At best, humans will be outnumbered thousands to one with most not being aware of it. At worst, it acts like a landscape of Furbys talking openly in the void; mindless incoherent babble (relatively speaking worse than it already is).

I see social media being more of a read-only platform with only a select club members having full interactive access. While not freely open, at least it's manageable via a vetted member list. And no, I will not be using a real government issued ID. It's pseudonyms or bust.

Only useful spaces online are pay walled or highly moderated. Normal social media is basically dead for that.

 

As for what Elon is doing, eh, Mute is still a Block. And I can see why they're doing this. Because someone could always just open an Incognito tab to see your content, and the "block chains" that some sections of Twitter have historical used causes a lot of monkey wrenches in the information flow.  

 

Or, everyone has to be in the Thunderdome, but you can ignore people.

[wanderingfool2]

9 hours ago, Drazil100 said:

Either way I don't like it. It's not broken so why is he messing with it?

Depends how you look at it I guess.

 

If they removed the mute feature, I think there would be an issue...it's a bit of a hit or miss thing.  There's one person who has bypassed the safety features on FSD, not needing to touch the wheel while driving, and what he does is block all accounts who bring it up.  That prevents the responsible people from actually pointing out that he's cheating the system.  [I'm blocked from his account].

 

If lets say it's someone harassing you, it was already super easy to create a new account to bypass a block.  At a certain point, what purpose does a block allow; aside from preventing followers from also seeing something (but even then if you block them, the previous post would still have remained)

[Taf the Ghost]

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Depends how you look at it I guess.

 

If they removed the mute feature, I think there would be an issue...it's a bit of a hit or miss thing.  There's one person who has bypassed the safety features on FSD, not needing to touch the wheel while driving, and what he does is block all accounts who bring it up.  That prevents the responsible people from actually pointing out that he's cheating the system.  [I'm blocked from his account].

 

If lets say it's someone harassing you, it was already super easy to create a new account to bypass a block.  At a certain point, what purpose does a block allow; aside from preventing followers from also seeing something (but even then if you block them, the previous post would still have remained)

There's a few chunks of Twitter that shared these Blocklist systems. So if you liked a random Tweet, you could actually find yourself blocked because section A of a sphere of Twitter doesn't like people in section B.  (The one I've seen personally is "Comics Twitter", but there's plenty of others.) It walled off chunks of the platform fairly significantly, which is really what they're removing.

 

Twitter went really down hill when Tumblr banned adult content.  The Tumblr-types need their "hugbox" to stay on a platform, which they replicated on Twitter after the mass migration. This could be viewed as a move to drive away the Terminally on Twitter types, especially since they're the ones highly unlikely to pay for Blue.  I wouldn't put that as a primary reason, but I could definitely see Twitter corporate viewing it as a solid way to remove user that don't help them. They might literally be trying to get them to go to Threads, which would be hilarious.

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

13 hours ago, Drazil100 said:

Part of me wonders if ANY good can come of this.

[Doobeedoo]

I'm so scared.

[TetraSky]

"it makes no sense"
Right, how dare people not want to see what some idiots have to say under their posts.

Ah wait, I forgot. These idiots are paying to be showcased at the top, while the ones who don't pay are at the bottom anyway. Elon doesn't care as long as he gets paid.

 

If "muting" doesn't go away as well, at least there will still be that. But considering this guy, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes away as well sooner or later.

[SolarNova]

I've never used old twitter/or current 'X', so im not sure if this is 100% correct but..

 

If one cant block someone anymore that would mean u can no longer stop them from seeing your content right ...so thats a good thing. I've seen far to many example of certain types of individuals blocking others in an attempt to stop journalistic investigation.

The whole " i dont like what this outlet/person is saying about what i've said or done so im going to make it difficult for them to see said actions"

 

The ability to mute a person, so you cant see their 'oh so hurtful' comments is understandable, which is staying right.

If u can not see what they're saying ..thats no different than blocking them ...so all u really want with the ability to block them, is to hide your interactions from them ...which begs the question ...what and why are u hiding it from them ?

 

I cant see how this is a big deal if im understanding the way the features of 'X' work. Blocking and muting results in the same thing from the 'blockers' perspective. it only changes the other persons (those who would have been blocked) abilities. E.G going from not being able to see posts ..to being able to see them and interact with other people, who in turn can 'mute' said person if they dont want to see their comments.

 

Frankly this seems similar to the whole..

" I not only dont want to hear you talk ..i dont want u able to talk aswell"

One is acceptable, fingers in ears ..walk away ..turn of the TV/radio whatever..,

The other is not, ur removing a persons right to speak, to have an opinion etc due to ur personal opinion, perhaps only ur opinion ..or only a small group of peoples opinion.

 

In this instance a person like this is saying "im going to say/do something in this digital public square (not in DMs) ..oh but you there i dont lke you, i dont want to hear ur opinion  ..infact i dont want you to have the ability to have one either..u cant be here ..in this public digital square".

 

So yea, assuming i understand how this all works ...I dont see this as a problem with this change.

[Avocado Diaboli]

@SolarNova all of what you describe has been standard practice for social media for a long time at this point. Think back to Facebook (yeah, long time, I know), where you can set who gets to search for your profile and who gets to see or interact with your content. Also, you conjure up a false equivalence between a public square and a privately held online platform. The fact that it's privately held by definition precludes it from being a public square. Muting (basically shadow banning) is neat in that it allows people continue screaming into the void while you don't have to hear it, but blocking them also robs them from the ability see your speech. If you want to present this as a free speech issue (using the wrong definition of what freedom of speech is, no less) then this doesn't apply, because your right to speak does not automatically include a right to hear what I say.

[SolarNova]

2 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

The fact that it's privately held by definition precludes it from being a public square

I seem to recall Mr Musk stating he considers, and wants, 'X' to be a public square.

Hence my standpoint.

[Avocado Diaboli]

2 hours ago, SolarNova said:

I seem to recall Mr Musk stating he considers, and wants, 'X' to be a public square.

Hence my standpoint.

A lot of stuff Musk wants are pretty stupid, this one included. If he really wanted it to be a public square, he'd hand it over to the government to be properly managed, policed and subject to the same guardrails public institutions have to follow, not just pay lip-service to free speech and ignore everything else that comes with being a public service.

[SolarNova]

5 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

government to be properly managed, policed

err ....riiight

 

lets agree to disagree shall we

[demonix00]

18 hours ago, billorwill said:

Maybe they'll just delete spammer accounts. Better than blocking. 

I'm guessing it's just so that nobody can block him.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

@SolarNova all of what you describe has been standard practice for social media for a long time at this point. Think back to Facebook (yeah, long time, I know), where you can set who gets to search for your profile and who gets to see or interact with your content. Also, you conjure up a false equivalence between a public square and a privately held online platform. The fact that it's privately held by definition precludes it from being a public square. Muting (basically shadow banning) is neat in that it allows people continue screaming into the void while you don't have to hear it, but blocking them also robs them from the ability see your speech. If you want to present this as a free speech issue (using the wrong definition of what freedom of speech is, no less) then this doesn't apply, because your right to speak does not automatically include a right to hear what I say.

But in reality Twitter has never really worked like that.

 

Twitter of old: Block the account, to circumvent being able to see the tweets; simply click log out.  You now get to view all their tweets.

 

Things like Facebook, from the beginning it was slightly built around having some things visible to everything and some things visible to friends only; Twitter has always been more about for everyone to see (and respond)

 

What banning can do though is allowing for essentially accounts that are echo chambers.  See someone who is posting lets say corrections to what you said; ban them and now you can run your conspiracies without them.

 

If it's cases of harassment, you can report the tweets (and then they can get banned and if they are a subscriber banned hopefully for good...they could have a non-subscriber account but at that stage a newly created account posting on someones tweets will get the least priority)

[Avocado Diaboli]

13 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

But in reality Twitter has never really worked like that.

 

Twitter of old: Block the account, to circumvent being able to see the tweets; simply click log out.  You now get to view all their tweets.

 

Things like Facebook, from the beginning it was slightly built around having some things visible to everything and some things visible to friends only; Twitter has always been more about for everyone to see (and respond)

Twitter allows you to "protect" your account, which makes it possible only for people you approved to see your tweets. So no, they're not that different at all.

[wanderingfool2]

20 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Twitter allows you to "protect" your account, which makes it possible only for people you approved to see your tweets. So no, they're not that different at all.

There is a huge difference between locking off all your tweets, vs Facebook where you have fine grain controls over what and what isn't shared publicly vs friends/family

[BroliviaWilde]

It could be that blocking accounts that pay to have their tweets as promoted/Advert is making some impact?   

[Salv8 (sam)]

On 8/19/2023 at 6:53 AM, Middcore said:

I welcome this, it would accelerate the exodus of any well-adjusted person from the platform until only the shitlords remain. 

wtf are you on about?

it's twitter, there are no well-adjusted people on that site! (they left after twitter became what it is today)