The idea of blocking someone on social media is that regardless of who pulls the trigger against the other first, both will still not be able to see or engage with either’s posts. This looks to be changing in the near future for X, previously Twitter, according to a post by owner Elon Musk.
In a reply, Musk says that “the block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public posts”. Which feels pretty counterintuitive and defeats half the purpose of the block to begin with. That being said, it is pretty on brand for Musk, considering what he has said publicly before about the feature on X.
High time this happened.
The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 23, 2024
For context, Musk had said last year that he thought the idea of blocking people on social media makes no sense. It was also a feature that he was mulling putting on the chopping block, no pun intended, with DMs being the only exception. At the time, he also said that it would be replaced by a stronger form of muting.
Once this change to blocking takes effect, that’s effectively what blocking becomes – muting an account rather than a post or its threads. It’s not yet the complete removal of blocking as a feature, but it definitely sounds like one step closer.
(Source: Elon Musk / X)
