Elon Musk Says Twitter Is Going To Get Rid Of The Block Feature, Enabling Greater Harassment
from the screams-in-trust-and-safety dept
One of the most important tools for trust and safety efforts is the “block” feature, allowing a user to entirely block someone else from following them. Yes, on Twitter you can get around this by going into incognito mode, but overall, the feature is a very useful tool for those being harassed to limit access to their abusers. Indeed, one of the biggest criticisms early on of the (still in invite-only beta) Bluesky social media app was that it opened its doors to thousands of users before they had implemented a “block” feature (that has since been added). Lots of people argued that launching social media today without the “block” feature is malpractice.
Elon Musk, however, seems to be going in the other direction.
On Wednesday, in reply to someone on Twitter complaining about being blocked, Elon said that “blocking public posts makes no sense” and saying that “it needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of mute.”
This also comes just weeks after Twitter’s adjusted API policy effectively killed one of the most useful 3rd party tools for users on Twitter to avoid harassment: BlockParty.
Block Party’s anti-harassment tools for Twitter will be on indefinite hiatus as of May 31. It’s been a privilege to help you set your boundaries for the last four years. Together, we blocked and muted millions of trolls.
We’re heartbroken that we won’t be able to help protect you from harassers and spammers on the platform, at least for now; we fought very hard to stay, and we’re so sorry that we couldn’t make it happen.
And, of course, all of this comes right after Twitter’s trust & safety boss (who wasn’t particularly experienced with trust & safety work) resigned. So it seems that, yet again, Musk is winging it, and making decisions based on what the worst of his fans want, rather than what actually is best for the ecosystem he manages.
The underlying assumption here from Musk is that the only reason to use “block” is if you don’t want to hear from someone. But that’s wrong. That’s what the mute button is for. Block is an anti-harassment tool to help people avoid having stalkers, abusers, harassers, and the like being able to follow your every word without at least some level of friction.
Considering that Musk himself was so concerned with “doxing” of his public information, you’d hope he’d recognize that, but again Musk seems to view the safety of everyone on Twitter as if it’s identical to his own experience, and his own threat model.
Of course, there’s also the simple fact that the block feature is costly in terms of Twitter compute power:
So, even though he was, himself, an aggressive blocker for a while, more recently he’s urged people to stop using the block feature, and removed everyone from his own block list a few months back. Of course, it appears that even he went back on that promise, because there are reports of him blocking new people since his grand unblocking.
Separately, there’s the fact that there was the infamous “BlockTheBlue” campaign that sought to get Twitter users to block anyone who was subscribed to Twitter Blue, which has really pissed off Musk. Perhaps to the point that this is also a reason he wants to get rid of the block button?
Either way, this is yet another example of a situation where there’s a lot of actual expertise out there, but Musk ignores it all based on (1) his own gut instincts, (2) the requests of the terribly disingenuous people he follows, and (3) a desire to decrease Twitter server costs.
And all while making the website significantly less safe for a large segment of users.
Filed Under: block, elon musk, harassment, trust & safety
Companies: twitter
Comments on “Elon Musk Says Twitter Is Going To Get Rid Of The Block Feature, Enabling Greater Harassment”
new CEO already MIA?
where is Yaccarino?
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Literally no one else there matters. Why should she be making an announcement?
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Apologizing to her marketing contacts about not being able to help them advertise their wares.
/s
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“where is Yaccarino?”
“Twitter to be ‘most accurate real-time info source’, Yaccarino says”
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65886509
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Double M is just but+hurt that Elon doesn’t care about his and his degenerate friends’ alleged expertise!
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Erm, Musk has considered disabling the block button. If you’re okay with that, that means you’re a
-bully
-harasser
-stalker
-rapist
or any combination of the above, because you want to force yourself onto others. I would ask how any rational person be okay with this, but clearly you (nor Elon) are not rational.
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Re: Re:
Mute still works. Is it harassment to post something that won’t ever be seen by the person?
I’ve never liked when someone says something really stupid and then blocks as a parting shot. You can see the tweet in your notification page but not in context, and can’t reply to it to rebut it to anyone else following the thread.
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Yes, especially where it can be seen by and influence the decision of other people with respect to the person being harassed, for instance causing an employer or landlord to refuse them a job or housing.
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Mute still lets them see your posts. That’s not good enough. By blocking, you not only remove them from your line of vision, but you remove yourself from their crosshairs. Without blocking, Twitter is unmanageable for people in the crosshairs every minute: LGBTQ+, POC, women, Jews, atheists, Muslims, and everybody else who isn’t a Musk fanboi.
Re: Re: Re:2
Of course he already knew this. He’s just trolling on behalf of harassers.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Well, the sick, disgusting, degenerate groomers could simply stop publicly advocating for the mutilation and sterilization of vulnerable children and young people…Poof! – problem solved!
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Re: Re: Re:3
The paradigm shift is coming. The purity of your straight gene pool will be shortly dealt with. It is no longer compatible with the progressive needs of a multi-faceted non-binary future.
Re: Re: Re:4 straight gene pool
You really don’t understand reproduction if you think there is a gay gene pool….
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Re: Re: Re:5
You really don’t understand evolutionary biology if you think there isn’t.
Re: Re: Re:5
Some species of lizards evolved their way out of a male population. Others evolved the ability to reproduce asexually with the males receiving no benefit in return.
Hell, some of my enby friends know with all their heart that we are collectively the cure for overpopulation. You can’t overpopulate a planet if the men and women won’t fuck.
Re: Re:
In other words, a free speech absolutist.
Re: Re: Re:
Free speech absolutist indeed. By Musk’s own words he is pathologically devoted to free speech.
At least he is for right wing posters and trolls in democracies. For free speech under dictatorships he doesn’t care at all, he only has concern for his business interests and the approval of the dictator.
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Since TechDirt doesn’t care if people write “butthurt”, I’d say this is a pretty good sign that you’re a stupid asshole on other sites as well.
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Throat the boot harder. It’s telling you guys never have reasons for why any of this shit Elon is doing is actually good, just attacks on Mike for reporting it.
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Re: Re:
Personally, I think it’s great that Mr. Musk is considering removing barriers to site-wide interaction on Twitter between users.
There are many on Twitter (including government officials and journalists) who are advocates for the for-profit mutilation and sterilization of vulnerable children and young people yet are unwilling to hear criticism of their satanic stance. Ensuring that this evil scum couldn’t hide as easily from noble folks who want to call for their liquidation can only be a good thing for society.
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Fuck off, Hyman.
Re: Re: Re:2
That’s some position he’s staked out. Removing block is good because that will make it easier for people to call for the death of those with whom they disagree.
Re: Re: Re:3
Well, Hyman is the harassment-happy troll who openly admitted to being “pro-death”, so…yeah…
Re: Re: Re:3
It’s called a “report for harassment” button. That’s what you do when there’s no block button.
YOU HAVE NO ARGUMENT
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Re: Re: Re:2
As usual, you are hallucinating versions of me who say what you want them to say. (For one thing, I am unlikely to ever call anything “satanic” except as a compliment.) If you would like to not be confused about which things I have said and which things are being said by other people, I suggest that you have the site owner rescind his useless policy of sending my posts to moderation so that I can post as signed-in.
As far as blocking, I oppose policies where someone can prevent their public posts from being seen by selected people, but it’s up to the owners of the platforms to decide whether to allow this or not.
Re: Re: Re:2
As I stated before, this is unlikely to be Hyman.
Re: Re: Re:
Your obsession with genitalia of others should be considered Satanic.
Re: Re: Re:
yea, really don’t think you have the high ground of that argument given circumcision was popularized in the US by overly religious doctors that wanted to stop people from masturbating (it didn’t). Or that they tried (and failed) to popularize female genital mutilation for the same reason.
Re: Re: Re:
I’m sure you removed the locks to your house since it’s so great to remove barriers to community-wide interaction with you.
Re: Re: Re:
Hey Herman what’s your drag queen name?
Re: Re: Re:2
Rachel Tensions?
Re: Re: Re:2
Chava Nagilla
Re: Re: Re:3 Pffttht
Have a nargilla?
No, thanks. I don’t smoke.
Re: Re: Re:2
Hyman Rosen
Re: Re: Re:3
“Hymen Rosen” would be funnier. Maybe with sobriquet “The Virgin Drag Queen”?
Re: Re: Re:
As a literal card-carrying Satanist (TST) I can assure you that we Are all under your bed and we Are all out to get you-
Wait, hold on, I’m getting an update from satanic forces… turns out Satanists don’t advocate for your creepy ideas about for-profit mutilation or sterilizing anyone at all, even you.
Remember Tenet 1: One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
Re: Re: Re:2
Weird, I thought Satanists were basically objectivists in Goth makeup.
Re: Re: Re:3
Depends on the group.
The Satanic Temple has a not-insignificant comparison page on their website, but I think I can give a tl;dr short version.
The Church of Satan, which is likely what most people who hear the term ‘satanist’ and flip out does seem to fit the bill of what you describe as ‘objectivists in goth makeup’, with it’s founder Anton LaVay apparently describing it as “just Ayn Rand’s philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.”
The Satanic Temple on the other hand are what I like to call ‘humanists in halloween costumes’, with their ‘seven tenants’ ranging from the aforementioned compassion and empathy, bodily autonomy, respecting the rights of others, admitting when you screw up and working to resolve any resulting harms and basing your beliefs on the best scientific knowledge available.
Re: Re: Re:4
Aside from some people flipping out at the word “satanic”, not an insignificant amount of people also goes completely nutters at the “basing your beliefs on the best scientific knowledge available”.
Re: Re: Re:5
Yeah, though someone throwing a fit over the idea of basing your beliefs on demonstrable facts is really only making themselves look bad.
Re: Re: Re:4
Not that I believe in anything supernatural, but the satanists just seem to be the same as the godists, namely doing whatever they want and saying it’s the will of their deity.
Re: Re: Re:5
… except they don’t? Pretty sure neither of them believes there’s a ‘real’ Satan to have a will that they would be following, as as far as I know both of them just treat the character as fictional for symbological purposes, much like someone might point to characters of jedi and sith as symbols of ‘selflessness’ and ‘selfishness’ respectively.
Re: Re: Re:6
I dunno about the Church of Satan, but the Satanic Temple has this on its FAQ page:
So yeah, the “humanists in Halloween costumes” remark has a layer of truth backing it.
Mark my words: This is going to turn into only certain accounts will be allowed to block.
I’m sure that it will be a coincidence that not many of those will be on the EM’s block list. /s
Jokes on him. I just blocked everyone by deleting my twitter client.
Re: On Uber eats too
Deleted Twatter once the price sheet for the API came out and I removed that functionality from the software.
Got tired of Uber resetting “Don’t bother me boy!” so deleted both uber and uber eats. Fuck ’em if they can’t take “STOP FUCKING BOTHERING ME GOD DAMN IT!” for an answer.
Re: Re:
Uber’s bad about annoying people who never use it as well. They don’t confirm e-mail addresses, so if someone enters your address by mistake, you’ll get emails every time they use Uber. Uber won’t do a damn thing to fix it either, insisting only the person with the phone number on the account can do so. While you can log into the website, you can’t actually change anything without confirming in the app on the phone.
However, I discovered I could get the website to send messages & call alerts to the phone. So I just did a dozen of those, six of each, from 3am – 5am. My goal was to make the guy think the app was glitching and waking him up. It worked, I never heard from Uber again.
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Monetized
I bet he could add the block feature for those who pay the $8/mo.
The harassers and trolls are now able to follow whoever they want, so their next demand will be removal of the Mute capabilities so that they tweet to whomever they want.
He's making progress..
So far, Elmo has managed to piss away 66% of Twitter’s value, but 90% is his stretch number and smart money believes he’ll make it.
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Personally, I think it’s great that Mr. Musk is considering removing barriers to site-wide interaction on Twitter between users.
There are many on Twitter (including government officials and journalists) who are advocates for the for-profit mutilat!on and ster!lization of vulnerable children and young people yet are unwilling to hear criticism of their satan!c stance. Ensuring that this ev!l s<um couldn’t hide as easily from noble folks who want to call for their l!quidation can only be a good thing for society!
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Hail Satan!
'You can listen to me voluntarily or not, but you'll still listen.'
No, that makes a perfect if twisted sort of sense, of course someone who can’t grasp the idea that anyone wouldn’t’ want to listen to him or the people he likes would be onboard with removing the ability for people to not do that.
The Musk Effect is real
It takes a special kind of genius to take a $45B investment and turn it into a $15B liability.
It takes a special kind of genius to fail to learn from any of the last six months and continue to “double down on stupid.”
The Musk Effect is just a tribute to what kind of an utter dysfunctional narcissist Elon Musk is.
I’d say he’s way off the spectrum, but I don’t want to insult people who work hard to overcome the difficulties of life while being on the spectrum.
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“I could’ve made it a $30B liability in half the time!” — Donald Trump, probably
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It is not unfortunately not a special kind of stupid seeing all the; How do you get [insert fortune size here]? Start by having a [insert bigger fortune size here] and go into [insert business type here] jokes.
It is just that due to the combination of the type of business that Twitter is and Musks personality that the meltdown is (a lot) more public then most.
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It takes an extra special genius to look at that a still want Elmo to fuck them.
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There is the possibility that dumping Twitter’s value in this way will represent a financial loss for Musk, which he can then use to evade more taxes. “Tax-loss harvesting is a strategy to lower current federal taxes by deliberately incurring capital losses to offset taxes owed on capital gains—or even taxes owed on personal income.”
Well, Elon sure has shown he’s a block head.
Welcome to USENET redux!
Uh, whaaaat? Who the hell wrote that code? Has nobody over there heard of hashtables or sets? If the blocklist contains user IDs, it could literally be a hashset of unsigned integers. Or if it’s a list of strings, well, hashset of strings. Practically instantaneous lookup of anything in the set, automatic deduplication for little cost…. These data structures have been used in computers for decades. It wouldn’t cost Twitter shit. You could look through a hundred million blocklists and I doubt it’d even be a blip on the CPU monitor. Unless, of course, some idiot over there said “Hey, let’s write our own set implementation” and it was horribly inefficient (like O(n^3) for each insert/lookup).
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I would be surprised if those lists were kept in memory.
Yeah, that’ll happen! For the past two months Twatter has been telling me my full account access will be restored “in seven days”, all for apparently being a little TOO offensive to Ted Cruz. Insert it where the sun don’t shine, Elon!
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Off hand, I’d say it is an impossibility to be too offensive to Rafael.
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Trump insulted Cruz’s wife and Ted still kissed the ring. Dude can’t claim to be offended by anything after that.
So this is how how he’s going to get rid of any remaining marginalized folks still hanging around. Twitter is unusable without blocks — unless you enjoy being harassed by genuine Nazis and other trolls who delight in causing discord and distress.
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And after he succeeds in that, the “genuine Nazis and other trolls who delight in causing discord and distress” will get bored, because there’s no one left to harass, and start using Twitter less and less. It’s why none of the right-wing alternatives to Twitter succeeded, being in the right-wing echo chamber is boring without people in there to harass.
His CEO is probably tearing out her hairs
What is the effect on advertising revenue if you cannot block people? A net loss on people interested in staying on the platform. That includes the harrassers who lose their targets terminally when those leave the platform, and cannot then reattack them after an identity change.
Trump’s goal of making “Truth Social” equivalent to Twitter is making good progress, but it clearly is Elon Musk who has to be thanked for this rather than Devin Nunes.
Also if you click the install app button by accident it bypasses the play store and installs an app without safety checks. Musk needs to go to jail he will not learn
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Might not be a bad idea.
Lots of people like to use block after replying so the target can’t see their reply but other people can. Effectively giving them the last word. If you are that worried about harassment, leave or grow a thicker skin. I grew up in the infancy of messaging apps and spent most of my time on IRC so yeah I know what real harassment is. Deal with it, it makes you a better person.
Re: Telling priorities there
Having the other person block you so they get the last word? Heinous crime, must be stopped.
Being constantly harassed? Suck it up or leave.
Yeah, I’m sure you know all about ‘real harassment’, what I don’t believe is which side you want people to think you were on.
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It’s hilarious how bent out of shape the trolls get at someone doing that. Sucks being insulted with no ability to fight back, doesn’t it?
Of course they learn nothing from the experience.
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You’re telling on yourself when, in an argument about harassment, you take the side of the harassers.
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That’s funny…
I, too grew up in the age of Instant Messaging apps, spent a fair bit of time on IRC and also know what actual harassment is…
And why moderation exists.
And no, harassment does not make you a better person.
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I see you’re in favor of the heckler’s veto… or would that be the harassers’ veto in this case? And are you familiar with stalkers?
He’ll also have to disable the lock feature, because people will use that to keep non-followers from stalking them. That’s what I’m going to do if he eliminates blocking.
once again, it's so simple
Simple solution: track users who inspire a lot of blocking and then give them the boot.
Twitter is ad-based which means they can figure out the value of every user to advertisers. To make it a viable business, find the users who have the most value, say Stephen King, who attracts eyeballs that the advertisers then monetize. Do whatever is needed to keep them happy. In some cases, paying them a stipend might be warranted.
Similarly, find the users with negative value, such as some Nazi asshat who gets blocked/drives users away, then boot them. You might offer to keep them around if they pay enough to bring their value up to an acceptable level. A really toxic jerk might have a bill of $1000/month. If he doesn’t want to pay, then no great loss.
The users are all just products, don’t be shy about culling the herd, Elon. But then that would mean he has to finally comprehend what business he’s in and he still seems a fair distance from doing that.
Drive it into the ground and let me take over, Elon! I’ll have a ton of fun targeting the trolls and slapping a troll toll on them (apologizes to IASIP). I’ll maintain a public running list, the Wall of Shame, with the total fees each troll would need to pay to get their ban lifted. Maybe some of the idiots would even pay up. Then I’ll just make sure to start adding surcharges and other BS a la cable to see what point they’ll finally throw in the towel. Either way, I win.
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Good idea in principle. Bad idea in practice since it will hand a weapon to the harassers. Because they will organize campaigns to spam block someone they don’t like and thus giving them a net negative value.
Block
Musk doesn’t want you to be able to block advertisers.
Called it at Super Bowl, when Mr. Musk changed the algo to specifically put his tweets as top priority: The next step was going to be making his account unblockable.
Looks like I was right.
Twitter owner Elon Musk on Saturday suggested uploading a video to the site that was just banned as “hate speech” by YouTube, saying in a reply that his platform “believes in free speech.”
Here come the US Copyright lawyers… 😆
Re: I just wish the dogs would stop freaking out when people say it
It’s so weird how often ‘I’m a believer in real free speech’ turns out to be code for ‘I’m all for bigotry/harassment/being a toxic individual without consequences’…
Fucking finally. I need to show my conservative grandparents all the Rule 34 I found of boys kissing boys while docking each other. They need a reminder that this is fucking Pride Month, bitches.
Re: Docking
I’ve docked a boat once or twice. One good knot deserves another.
E
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I had an uncle who boasted about roughing it in the wilderness and going after bears. His face contorted in the fucking funniest way when I told him that bears were manly and gay. Every animal is a secret codeword for a gay trope and it’s fucking amazing.
“Elon Musk Says Twitter Is Going To Get Rid Of The Block Feature, Enabling Greater Harassment”
At this point, harassment is the only thing twitter is capable of.
Harder Better Faster Stronger
I can’t think of a stronger form of “mute” than “I don’t want to ever see anything this person posts”.
It’s stronk.
I have never blocked anyone on social media ever after the age of 15.
It was one time on Instagram when I found out a friend of mine really really hates mixed race people so I got scared and blocked him. I regret that, I could have changed his opinion.
That was the only time I ever blocked anyone, when I was 15 and didn’t know any better.
I’m not joking.
One time on Reddit I was spammed with gay porn in my dms. They thought I was closeted, I said I wasn’t’t, they kept pushing. I didn’t like it and left the site for a week, and by then he was done.
Most often, when I’ve been “harassed”, I’ve enjoyed it because I get to read entertaining and ludicrous expressions of rage. It’s very nice.
Sometimes when I’ve got spam, I’ve reported it for spam. No fucking blocking necessary.
Besides that, if you really can’t handle harassment, you can report someone for harassment. Right? Every site has an option to report harassment.
Did you just BLOCK that fucking memory? Hello?
The only reason anyone blocks anyone is because they’re not being harassed but are being intimidated. They’d rather suck their bitch ass thumb instead of face reality.
I have always found every single person who has ever blocked anyone to be less patient, interesting, and pain tolerant than myself. That isn’t’t an insult, but it is a negative attribution. Lots of people I actually like, lots of people I am friends with, block people.
“Think of the children”
Yeah, I’m definitely thinking of the children. Removing the block button will make kids go to social media less.
If every website got rid of the block button, the world would be an awesome fucking place to live and I’d like some convincing otherwise, please. Please convince me WHY blocking on ANY SOCIAL MEDIA is a good idea.
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Nice of you to show that you are a person of privilege and too dimwitted to recognize your privilege. You’ve clearly never been the victim of stalking, or domestic abuse, or a real harassment campaign.
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You know what? You’re right. But the fact that I don’t have experience in the subject doesn’t change the fact that you don’t have a serious argument. I’ve considered not replying because I don’t know if you would try to engage in a discussion or simply continue to come up with reasons for why I don’t know what I’m talking about. However, eventually, I came back to this article and decided to be optimistic.
Does blocking a harraser actually help if they can be reported for abusive behavior rather than blocked?
Blocking, to me, is just an excuse to mute and dehumanize people you don’t like whenever they aren’t actually being abusive, illicit, scary, or otherwise against TOS. Dehumanize is what I find to, paradoxically, be the best term to describe “blocking”. Imagine getting blocked by a famous person who then insults and derides you, without being able to talk to them, causing complete strangers brainwashed by this “blocking is ok” mentality to block you too, then throwing you into a memory hole to never see you again.