[HN Gopher] Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts
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       Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts
        
       Author : Kye
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2024-09-23 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
        
       | rogerrogerr wrote:
       | Musk is right on this one. It wasn't serving any real purpose to
       | let me selectively block other people from _seeing_ my posts (but
       | _interacting_ does make sense).
       | 
       | If I genuinely don't want someone to see my posts, I just can't
       | put it on Twitter/X unless I have a private profile (is that
       | still a thing?).
       | 
       | Otherwise, it's a public platform, in that anyone can register
       | with little more than an email address and see my posts. Claiming
       | to block someone from seeing them seems like it provides a false
       | sense of security to users.
        
         | Kye wrote:
         | Twitter itself recognized there are levels of public early on.
         | The original site was _every post_ in one timeline.
         | 
         | The things I say to a room or to people at a table are not
         | meant for everyone at the event. The phrase context collapse
         | came about and persists for a reason. A blocked person has been
         | kicked out of the public local to the poster and their
         | followers. It doesn't make sense for them to be able to
         | continue to act like they're in the space, but just not
         | speaking.
         | 
         | The fact that someone can violate the rules and norms of a
         | space doesn't mean you don't have rules and norms.
        
           | bensecure wrote:
           | "Can be seen by anyone in the world except for tom because
           | fuck tom" isn't a different "level of public", it's just
           | caprice. As the GP mentioned, if you want to restrict who can
           | see your tweets, set your account to private.
        
             | JohnMakin wrote:
             | Maybe caprice except in the exceedingly common instances
             | where someone is the target of harassment. I mean this is
             | the obvious example, there are others. In that case "make
             | your profile private if you dont want to be
             | harassed/stalked" is not really that palatable.
        
           | bgirard wrote:
           | I agree if getting a seat at the table requires some vetting,
           | but if something is being shouted publicly into a megaphone
           | your analogy doesn't work. If something is so public that a
           | logged out user can see it, it's weird of a logged in account
           | to not see it.
        
           | ChocolateGod wrote:
           | > The things I say to a room or to people at a table are not
           | meant for everyone at the event.
           | 
           | But that's not what Twitter/X is, it's more akin to standing
           | in an open access field with a megaphone. You have no right
           | to say who should be in the field or not, and if you don't
           | want someone to hear something, the best thing to do is not
           | say it in the field in the first place.
        
           | Arnt wrote:
           | It's bad UX. Telling people that blocked users can't see your
           | posts mislead them, because all that's needed for as blocked
           | user is to open a window in incognito mode.
           | 
           | Good user interfaces don't tell users things that are far
           | from true. Even if we all wish the things could be true.
        
         | tadfisher wrote:
         | How can I keep Musk's posts from showing up in my feed if
         | blocking doesn't hide them?
         | 
         | I think that's the real motivation, actually.
        
       | moralestapia wrote:
       | Every change breaks someone's workflow ...
       | 
       | The only effective way I've found to stop seeing stuff from
       | people I dgaf in my feed was to block them.
       | 
       | I was even considering creating a Github repo. with all the
       | usernames I've been selecting out for years, so that people could
       | easily de-shittify their Twitter feed.
       | 
       | The set includes (excludes?):
       | 
       | * the most prominent accounts that post political content; no
       | partisan bias, they're all gone for me
       | 
       | * most major news accounts, including anyone that regularly posts
       | any kind of content related to any side of any war, ever
       | 
       | * "science influencers" where the "science" are actually ads or
       | some deranged guy screaming while wearing a lab coat
       | 
       | * Ian Miles Cheong and the Krassenstein Brothers
       | 
       | * hundreds of e-whores
       | 
       | * hundreds of "I made 1 million dollars last week" accounts
       | 
       | * ... and many more
       | 
       | gg to that
        
         | barbazoo wrote:
         | > The only effective way I've found to stop seeing stuff from
         | people I dgaf in my feed was to block them.
         | 
         | Do you see people's posts even if you don't follow them?
        
           | moralestapia wrote:
           | Yes. All the time.
           | 
           | My "For you" page is ~95% the things described above and only
           | ~5% things related to the accounts I follow.
        
           | add-sub-mul-div wrote:
           | Much of the worsening of Twitter is centered around them
           | deciding what you should see in order to maximize outrage,
           | engagement, revenue.
           | 
           | This means that in the replies to a tweet, for example, they
           | can now rank highly all the spam and culture war bullshit
           | that people have previously blocked.
        
       | vfclists wrote:
       | That should be OK so long as they don't get to respond to those
       | posts or link to them, and that should include posts they are
       | referenced in or embedded in.
        
         | DoesntMatter22 wrote:
         | Referenced in? That is waaaay too far. That means if the person
         | blocked you, you essentially can't talk about them.
        
       | DoesntMatter22 wrote:
       | That's fantastic, Jason Calacanis blocked me, idk why, I think I
       | said I didn't like one of the All In Podcasts and he didn't like
       | that. But it's annoying because I like to see his posts.
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-23 23:01 UTC)