X (formerly Twitter) is working towards rolling out its major changes to the platform’s blocking feature soon. The change means the people you block will still be able to read your posts without the ability to interact with the posts.
Currently, X’s blocking feature prevents both the ability to see and interact with a blocker’s posts. The new change will see half the power of blocking gone. Given the reaction of many users on X, this move seems to be a massive gamble on the tech giant’s side.
What’s the Gamble?
According to Mr Elon Musk, the blocking feature as it is “makes no sense” given that people could still get around blocks in different ways. However, his view has elicited reactions, with a vast number of people raising concerns that Musk will give bullies, stalkers and trolls free reign on the X platform.
If the backlash against this change is strong enough, Musk could take a huge hit. There’s been a surge in the number of X’s rival Bluesky’s users recently and it may have something to do with the blocking changes.
Over half a million dissatisfied X users joined Bluesky in a span of 24 hours last week. Only time will tell whether the migration will dent X at all. It’s not the first time X users have attempted to ditch the platform for another.
Last year, X users thronged Threads by Meta, but it didn’t do much damage given how inefficient the latter turned out to be.
The main argument against the new blocking policy is the fact that if you block someone, they could still screenshot your viewable posts and use them as points of attacking or harassing you. Despite this concern, Musk was still adamant that it was “high time” to get rid of the traditional blocking system.
We’ll just have to wait and see whether X will backtrack or push on with the seemingly unpopular change and how it will affect interactions on the platform.
