[HN Gopher] Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts
___________________________________________________________________
Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts
Author : Kye
Score : 88 points
Date : 2024-09-23 20:24 UTC (1 days 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _except in the exceedingly common instances where
| someone is the target of harassment_
|
| Super low-effort harassment, where the harasser can't
| bother creating a new Twitter account.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| It's an additional barrier. It also provides the blocking
| user the ability to block the new account. This isn't
| very difficult to think through. And if it's so easy, why
| the need for this new "feature" to begin with?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _also provides the blocking user the ability to block
| the new account. This isn't very difficult to think
| through_
|
| The harasser can view from their new accounts and respond
| on their main account. Unless someone is very tightly
| curating their follower list, at which point it doesn't
| make sense for them to be publicly tweeting, there would
| be no indication which account was responsible.
|
| The problem in harassment is the harassment. Not the
| harasser's access to the public domain.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Again, then why the need for this feature if it is so
| easy to get around a block? A harasser can do many
| things, but removing a barrier for the person being
| harassed to mitigate it because... reasons feels very odd
| to me. Can you explain what this new feature provides
| legitimate users that doesn't already exist?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Can you explain what this new feature provides
| legitimate users that doesn't already exist?_
|
| In America we have case law that prohibits public
| officials from blocking their constituents from their
| official accounts [1]. Not every country does.
|
| Also, that ruling doesn't cover material edge cases.
| Should a public figure be able to block journalists they
| don't like? Oil companies anyone with an environmental
| leaning to avoid tipping them off on something they
| weren't searching for?
|
| We have a media-bubble problem in America that is
| increasingly defined by partisan lines. From a social
| utility position, clarifying that public means public
| strikes me as more important than edge-case harassment
| concerns. Particularly when the stakes are so low on both
| sides of the scale (due to the ease with which blocks can
| be circumvented and the fact that we're dealing with
| content the speaker has explicilty chosen to make
| public).
|
| [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-611_ap
| 6c.pdf
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > In America we have case law that prohibits public
| officials from blocking their constituents from their
| official accounts [1].
|
| Can't they just make a new account to see the posts? Are
| you stating that you think this is the reason this is
| being implemented? As for the rest of your post, your
| whole argument is undermined by the arguments you've
| already made in this thread.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Can't they just make a new account to see the posts?_
|
| Sure. But they may not know they've been blocked.
|
| > _you think this is the reason this is being implented?_
|
| No. I think it's being done to increase engagement.
| Engagement scales with outrage, and a pretty simple way
| to boost outrage would be by showing people stuff they've
| been blocked from.
|
| > _your whole argument is undermined by the arguments
| you've already made in this argument_
|
| Not really. Blocking users from seeing your public
| content degrades weak relationships. My interest in what
| my state Senator is doing is a weak relationship; I don't
| think I'd be able to tell if they stopped e-mailing me
| for at least a full election cycle. Harassment, on the
| other hand, is a strong relationship. That provides
| circumvention motivation.
|
| My argument is that there appear to be marginal benefits
| to this policy. If the cost is making unmotivated
| harassers' jobs a little easier, inasmuch as it pertains
| to them viewing (not responding to) public content, that
| seems to be worth it.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| There isn't a legitimate need for this feature, that's
| the point.
| bensecure wrote:
| > In that case "make your profile private if you don't
| want to be harassed/stalked" is not really that
| palatable.
|
| If someone is harassing you on twitter, then blocking
| them still stops that, modulo them making a new account.
| Stalking, in the sense of looking at your public posts,
| can't be stopped, because it's trivial for them to open
| your posts in a private window, or create a new account
| just for stalking (which of course they wouldn't tell you
| about, hence you couldn't block it). So in fact the only
| option you have to avoid such stalking is to make your
| account private, period.
| 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.
| nailer wrote:
| Not being able to see someone else's tweets until you made a
| different account was always security theatre.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| >The things I say to a room or to people at a table are not
| meant for everyone at the event.
|
| Not what Twitter was or is? You have misunderstood the site
| like a Facebook timeline boomer poster. "uuoooh people can
| see this!!!" Yes. Twitter is not your own IRC server. But
| seeing as it started with MacBook Starbucks hipsters, I am
| not surprised they just made something up in their minds and
| rolled with it.
| 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.
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| The change here is that blocking Musk no longer makes it so
| _he_ can't see _your_ posts while he's logged in.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| You can still mute his account. That has always been an
| option, and that is not changing with this.
| 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.
| willy_k wrote:
| It doesn't mean that, it means all the bullshit that people
| have blocked can now see their tweets.
| scarlehoff wrote:
| You will still not see them.
|
| If I understood correctly, the change here is that now those
| hundreds of e-whores and Ian Miles Cheong will be able to see
| your posts. So blocking is still the right strategy for what
| you want (for now).
| 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.
| vfclists wrote:
| I can't edit the original response, but I meant you shouldn't
| be able to make replies to threads of their retweeted posts.
| 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.
| greatgib wrote:
| With that kind of decisions, always assume that there is a hidden
| agenda.
|
| In that case, i could imagine for example that this can be
| something done to ease a further AI feature. it is almost
| impossible to train an AI for content with individual
| customization. So if Y is blocked to see your content, that is
| impossible to have AI trained on your tweets and still be sure
| that Y can't get the content of your tweets.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _With that kind of decisions, always assume that there is a
| hidden agenda_
|
| What kind of decisions? Why?
|
| The motivation seems simple: increase engagement by broadening
| the amount of content someone can see / be shown.
| greatgib wrote:
| Honestly I don't think that the few "blocked" tweets where
| you still can't interact with is making a real difference in
| term of ad monetizable engagement.
|
| You will see what will come next and it will be clear.
|
| If not for AI indexation, another hypothesis is something
| like removing the paywall needing an account to access user
| content or something like that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don 't think that the few "blocked" tweets where you
| still can't interact with is making a real difference in
| term of ad monetizable engagement_
|
| Engagement scales with outrage. If there is a singular
| marker of outrage, it's in blocking.
|
| > _not for AI indexation_
|
| Why would Twitter want to help third parties train their AI
| on its data? Musk already has an AI venture. If there were
| a secret agenda around AI, it would be in _reducing_
| visibility. Not increasing it.
|
| > _removing the paywall needing an account to access user
| content_
|
| What paywall? The sign-in wall? Again, why would Twitter
| have a hidden agenda to undermine something Twitter is
| doing to boost user numbers?
|
| These hypotheses are incoherent because they don't stem
| from any observations, but are trying to work backwards to
| justify the existence of a hidden agenda.
| greatgib wrote:
| For the AI indexation I didn't mean to help third parties
| read messages, more that for Musk own AI agent to be
| usable by the Public and able to use or reference tweets,
| he wouldn't need a shit storm where you use Groq to
| browse content that is normally blocked to you.
|
| Regarding the other hypothesis related to the "sign in"
| wall, based on number it looks like that this wall is not
| working anymore to boost users as the number of users is
| collapsing. So there might be a plan to enlarge "page
| views" and so user engagement by reopening the Public
| view of tweets.
| silisili wrote:
| If the previous Elon/X rumors are true(a big if, perhaps), I
| feel like the hidden agenda here is more likely that someone
| blocked Musk and Musk is upset that he can no longer see the
| posts.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| It's quite foolish to assume that they couldn't quietly code
| up a "God mode" for Elon's account, or assume that isn't
| already in place, and instead had to create a feature to roll
| out to 350M users where Elon had an account no different than
| the unwashed masses.
|
| It's his site, they would code up whatever he asked, X is no
| longer design by committee. Remember when the Reddit
| CEO/owner/whatever was hand editing the database to alter
| users' comments to make it look like they posted something
| they hadn't?
| dangerwill wrote:
| Idk he has at least three alts (the weird baby role play one,
| Adrian Dittmann, DogeDesigner). Though maybe the people who
| have blocked him who he wants to see also know to block those
| to be fair
| mwfogleman wrote:
| More simply: people are increasingly blocking advertisers to
| hide their advertisements. This would prevent you from
| shielding yourself from ads.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Really valid use case too. Very very common in recovery to
| block alcohol or gambling companies to avoid their ads.
| CincinnatiMan wrote:
| I'm not on Twitter but in its current form, wouldn't a blocked
| user be able to see the blocker's posts just by using an
| incognito window or logging in as a different account?
| amenhotep wrote:
| Yes. It's always been a stupid, petulant implementation, and
| its widespread acceptance is confusing.
| Jordrok wrote:
| The point of blocking is to prevent harassment, no? Hiding
| the blocker's posts from the blockee puts up an additional
| barrier to interaction. Even if it can be circumvented, it
| still requires some effort and may dissuade the person from
| continuing the harassment. There is a reason why this is the
| standard implementation for almost every social media site,
| and petulance has nothing to do with it.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I would say that the point of blocking is to prevent
| someone from contacting you. Not to prevent harassment.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Different account, yes, incognito window, no. You can only see
| direct links without being logged in.
| rkagerer wrote:
| I just wish they would let me see anyone's posts [without logging
| in].
| sureglymop wrote:
| We regret to have to inform you that you are not part of the
| free speech in-group.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Good. They can see them anyways by logging out. I can understand
| blocking their ability to post on your post but I think they
| should be able to see your posts and quote them on their own
| profile.
| ycombinatrix wrote:
| how many years did this take?
| timonoko wrote:
| @lexfridman had it coming.
| pavlov wrote:
| I have no idea who that is, but Twitter/X increasingly sounds
| like it's degenerated into a schoolyard (where the richest kid
| asked his dad to buy the land next to the school building and
| put up a private playground for him).
| animex wrote:
| This whole X debacle has fragmented the microblogging
| universe which is actually a good thing. TruthSocial and X
| have become right-wing staples. Threads seems to be full of
| positivity right now. Mastodon for the techies and niche
| communities. I've actually started exploring other sane
| places of community gathering like Reddit and oddly enough
| YouTube comments. As Karpathy recently commented, the YouTube
| comments section somehow became non-toxic overnight.
| nojs wrote:
| The YouTube comment section is non-toxic because only the
| "wow, this is amazing" comments are shown. Anything
| critical gets buried.
| ksp-atlas wrote:
| Last time I remember, YouTube comments were full of spam
| bots talking about vile things to get attention
| watt wrote:
| And would you care to document for posterity when was
| that last time? I think the change in YouTube comments
| happened some 7-8 years ago, so 2017 or so.
| recursivecaveat wrote:
| Ironically the current spam trend is for bots to post
| very vague and effusive positive comments "Wow, you're
| such an inspiration" to try to get clicks on their
| profiles. I think the only real hateful bot trend was
| lengthy religious screeds maybe 2-3 years ago. Nowadays
| the religious spam is either more positive or apocalyptic
| I would say. There's plenty of people who post lots of
| hateful material, but since it's generally at least
| germane I assume it's at most trivially automated?
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| For me, the last time I saw it was last week. Prior to
| that, probably the week before. It's definitely gotten
| better over the last 2-3 years, but it's certainly not
| perfect.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I see "this video is awful, check out my channel" or "I
| did X awful thing, check my channel!" style spam comments
| on YouTube daily.
| concordDance wrote:
| > I've actually started exploring other sane places of
| community gathering like Reddit
|
| What sane subreddits have you found?
| timonoko wrote:
| "Somehow overnight" was when the videomaker become
| responsible for anything that was written under his rubric.
| Palmik wrote:
| YouTube is clearly boosting "positive" comments. I am not
| sure it's a good solution if you care about other people's
| opinions.
| malshe wrote:
| I think most people commenting on YT have realized that
| only positivity gets visibility. Pick any video that has
| decent view count and you will see the first few comments
| saying "I just want to say, this video is so amazing" or
| "Wow you have put in so much work in making this video".
| Then the creator would like those comments and they stay at
| the top.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| I have really come to understand that some Twitter users
| see Twitter as their own private garden somehow and do not
| realize that anyone can see your posts... So somehow it
| becomes uncomfortable when they are reminded of this fact.
|
| You seem like one of these people.
|
| You ONYL used twitter? You didnt use Reddit or Youtube? I
| am baffled but this makes the upset people make a bit more
| sense. Twitter was "theirs" so nobody else dare come in.
| They are the ones complaining about gatekeeping etc but
| treat Twitter like a chatroom and become offended when
| someone calls them out.
|
| For the record, I do not have a Twitter account/phone
| banned. I am not in the USA. If I could vote in your
| elections I would vote Kamala. Just to be clear and to calm
| your blood pressue.
|
| >Threads seems to be full of positivity right now.
|
| Toxic positivity sure. _ YOU GO QUEEN!! SLAY!!! _
| nicexe wrote:
| I always thought this was a stupid restriction. You can't view
| the post while authenticated but you can view the post while
| unauthenticated.
| boo-ga-ga wrote:
| It might look like this, but thinking about it, I guess it's
| still useful in reducing unwanted interactions. People are
| lazy, and thus adding even a little friction can help a lot in
| preventing them from doing stalkering, spreading hate etc.
|
| I.e. of course it's possible to login with another user, find
| the one who blocked you, make a screenshot or something and
| then quote it or perform any other interaction in your main
| account. But it's obviously not very easy.
|
| So I'm sure it worked as a solution to reduce negative
| interactions on the platform. However, Musk doesn't want
| reducing these, his goal is spreading chaos and forcing his
| narratives, so the decision totally makes sense for him.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _his goal is spreading chaos and forcing his narratives_
|
| It may be as simple as revealing blocked content is a short
| path to increasing outrage and thus engagement. Like, I could
| see Facebook doing this on Threads.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| They should have had an "ignore" feature from the start, as
| well as block. They can post all the vile they want, I just
| don't want to read it.
|
| But IME, the kind of people I want to block are the exact
| kinds of people that would go through all that effort to keep
| trying to cause drama.
| viraptor wrote:
| It provides friction for further misbehaving. Imagine you
| blocked someone who has serious issues with people who #foobar.
| It's better for you if they can't easily find you and repost
| your content to their community who also hate #foobar. It's not
| perfect, but the friction helps prevent drive-by bad behaviour.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _repost your content to their community who also hate
| #foobar_
|
| This is valid. I don't think it rises to the level of
| preventing them from seeing my public content. But perhaps a
| brake on their ability to repost it would be courteous.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| It's the opposite. People with serious issues (i.e. stalkers,
| trolls etc.) will continue following on a second account or
| proxy. Meanwhile regular accounts with legitimate criticisms
| (for example pointing out misinformation, calling out bias,
| and so on) get blocked by bad actors and those will not find
| them anymore and repost because they don't invest time in it.
|
| Blocking mainly prevents regular normal users from seeing
| tweets. Best example is Lex Fridman who's blocked a million
| people for no apparent reason. Say something he doesn't like:
| You're blocked. Never even interacted with him but commented
| on a topic he doesn't approve of: Blocked. You under-cook
| fish: Believe it or not, he blocks you.
| bragr wrote:
| Those are all issues as well, but brigading is absolutely a
| thing.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Just to be clear they still won't be able to interact
| with you after they're blocked. The only change is they
| can keep seeing your tweets directly in their account, as
| opposed to having to log out.
| orwin wrote:
| This I think is good. I don't really care about what is
| shown, because in my opinion, twitter discussions are
| rarely worth anything, but I get the point of 'more
| visibility = good'. I just dislike brigading. And I don't
| follow anything political on Twitter, I used to follow
| cybersec and US sports, still there you had brigading
| (and sometimes attacks got _really_ personal, like a
| bunch of people making dogwhistle comments about someone
| who criticized their favorite basketball player because
| he looks ashkenaz. I think he's a tv personality now
| btw).
| miki123211 wrote:
| Blocking doesn't really fix the brigading problem,
| regardless of whether people need to log out or not.
|
| Most X users will just post a screenshot of the tweet,
| breaking accessibility in the process and disassociating
| the original author from the thread against their will.
|
| This isn't always a good thing, as it leads to people
| being surprised by crowds of strangers suddenly screaming
| at them and not being able to see the source of their
| anger.
|
| Some people do this as a "preventative measure", so that
| their post still makes sense when the original tweet is
| deleted.
| raydev wrote:
| > Blocking doesn't really fix the brigading problem
|
| Automated blocking absolutely solved most of the problem.
| In the late 2010s it was common for political accounts to
| use scripts that went through follower graphs for their
| worst repliers and blocked everyone, or went through the
| list of people liking a certain tweet and blocked all
| those accounts.
|
| They were quite fond of that approach and were happy with
| the outcome pre-Elon. Even if someone in the "bad group"
| screenshotted a tweet from their target to make fun of
| it, the target didn't really get bothered by it because
| they walled themselves well enough. The screenshotter is
| incentivized to not interact with their target so they
| don't get blocked again, and no one excited by all the
| dunking cared enough to go harass the target anyway.
|
| Now as someone who found themselves in a few blockchains
| during peak Bernie-mania, I like the proposed change.
| I've been blocked by several popular accounts because of
| who I followed, and I will enjoy being able to reliably
| read someone's content even if I'm not allowed to
| interact.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Not to mention people attempting to slander others behind a
| block (so the person being slandered has no idea until the
| damage is already done), or temporarily unblocking to say
| something to someone, and then blocking again.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Not to mention people attempting to slander others
| behind a block (so the person being slandered has no idea
| until the damage is already done)
|
| I saw someone once post about their outrage over the
| practice of criticizing someone on Twitter without
| tagging the person you're criticizing in your tweet.
| ("Subtweeting.") Apparently the thinking goes that if
| anyone anywhere says something about you, you have the
| right to be notified.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I'd argue that it really depends on the kind of
| criticism. What I had in mind was more along the lines of
| accusing someone of wrongdoing rather than just
| criticizing them.
|
| I think tagging someone when you're accusing them of
| wrongdoing is the fair thing to do, considering how
| quickly that sort of thing can whip others into a frenzy.
| I see a lot of this sort of thing, where someone will
| accuse someone of heinous things like pedophilia from
| behind a block, and by the time the person being accused
| understands what's going on, they're being hounded by
| people who get off to drama about why they haven't denied
| the accusations yet.
|
| On the other hand, tagging when simply criticizing
| someone often feels like attention-seeking to me. I see
| this a lot with space stuff, where someone will offer
| (often completely ignorant) criticism, while pinging
| Musk, Bezos and/or other figures in the space discussion
| community.
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| No it doesn't. The people who are malicious about it will be
| using multiple accounts. The block button doesn't stop them.
| If anything, it provides them ammunition to go "See, this
| person is a sensitive one, let's add them to the list".
|
| Either your posts are public or they're not. There's a pretty
| clear distinction between the two, and anyone who thinks
| otherwise is sorely mistaken. The risk of people re-posting
| your content is a natural consequence of your aspirations to
| be popular on social media, and we shouldn't be giving people
| a false sense of security.
| chomp wrote:
| Yes it does and I can tell that you have never been piled
| on by followers of large accounts. Blocks aren't perfect
| but they make a huge difference.
| dtjb wrote:
| Blocks are (were) an easy line of defense for most of the
| lazy trolling. People could get around it but few bothered.
|
| It might have not been ideologically consistent but it was
| effective.
| viraptor wrote:
| > The block button doesn't stop them.
|
| No and nobody claimed it does. Making it just a bit harder
| and making the other party jump through an extra hoop
| reduces it though. The extra friction has been implemented
| on many platforms and it works. Instagram adds friction in
| a different way, but also claims it has a positive result:
| https://builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/key-
| be...
|
| You can also see people migrating to other platforms who
| raise the lack of search / being easily found as a feature.
| It's not black and white and it's not public or not.
| There's a whole range of how accessible your content is to
| parties who will attack you.
| thih9 wrote:
| But the point is you can't see these posts from a particular
| account. It makes interaction between the two accounts a bit
| more difficult and so a bit less likely.
| Hamuko wrote:
| But interaction between accounts is still not possible?
| thih9 wrote:
| Yes, the article says "engagements are still not allowed
| under blocks". Then again, interaction in the general sense
| can still happen (you can always take a screenshot and post
| that).
| michaelteter wrote:
| The blocked person can obviously create a new account and
| bypass that block to some degree, but as other have
| mentioned it will prevent them from reposting on their main
| account
| rbanffy wrote:
| Unless they do a screenshot. Not a big deterrent.
| kristopolous wrote:
| A well behaved blocked person will honor the restriction but
| this only antagonizes the unhinged who usually have multiple
| accounts.
|
| Something that less aggravates people prone to bad behavior is
| the right move.
| steinuil wrote:
| To be fair, you can barely view any post while unauthenticated
| these days. Sometimes I click on a link to a tweet on my work
| laptop (where I'm not authenticated) and I get immediately
| assaulted by several pop-ups and cookie bars and redirected to
| the landing page when try to dismiss them.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| I have given up trying to view content unauthenticated, I
| used to be able to close the popups but now I get redirected
| to a login when I do.
| sionisrecur wrote:
| You can insert "cancel" between "x" and ".com"
| bluescrn wrote:
| AFAIK, you can't view any tweets unless logged in these days.
| But the sort of user being frequently blocked likely has
| multiple accounts anyway.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > AFAIK, you can't view any tweets unless logged in these
| days
|
| You can view a single tweet, but it won't display a thread
| for you unless you log in.
| wepple wrote:
| There does seem to be an exception for public outlets.
|
| I clicked a link to NYPDs twitter and didn't have to AuthN.
| Makes sense too; every org who wanted their content to be
| fully available to anyone would leave if twitter mandated
| login
|
| (Although they still use Facebook)
| hypeatei wrote:
| > every org who wanted their content to be fully
| available...
|
| Every single public account I've visited still has the
| feed in non-chronological order which instantly makes it
| useless to me. I don't care about a post from my city
| government in 2019.
| jfengel wrote:
| In theory you can't see any tweets at all, because they're
| now just "posts".
|
| But everybody still calls them "tweets" because it was an
| amazing bit of branding.
| maxglute wrote:
| I thought so too, but also fun to see people posting they've
| been blocked by person they're debating... well arguing with,
| whether the blocked deserved it because they're being an ass,
| or whether the blocker was simply thin skinned. I think the
| latter, seeing people rage quit because they can't rationalize
| their position, is actually pretty useful signal.
| ihuman wrote:
| The old blocking also stopped your posts from appearing in
| their "for you" timeline. The new blocking doesn't.
| avree wrote:
| Reddit's implementation is even worse. It breaks all sorts of
| commenting/replying even down the comment chain, if anyone in
| the parent is blocked. And, the mobile app shows no usable
| errors. But, you can log out, or even make a second account,
| and see everything.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| The restriction isn't on them seeing your posts. It's on you
| seeing their posts. If you don't want them to see your posts,
| Twitter provides that functionality too. It just isn't called
| "blocking".
| klntsky wrote:
| It makes sense. Hiding info that is available when you log in as
| someone else doesn't
| autoexec wrote:
| Sure it does. Very few people are going to obsessively look
| over every person's twitter account using multiple logins to
| check and see if that account maybe posted something that is
| being hidden from them.
| buildbot wrote:
| This is technically the better option as it doesn't indicate via
| sidechannel that someone has blocked you.
| viraptor wrote:
| You still can't interact with them, do you know you're blocked.
| sionisrecur wrote:
| Once upon a time, you could interact with someone using
| "@nickname ..." or retweet them using "RE: @nickname: ...".
| robertclaus wrote:
| I assume it still blocks actions when someone tries to interact
| with the user, so the fact that they're blocked isn't a secret.
| It seems like more of a convenience feature for the person who
| got blocked (since they would otherwise need to log out), which
| is an odd direction to push a product.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Logging out doesn't work anymore. They would need to make an
| alt account.
| danudey wrote:
| So since abusers, stalkers, and harassers can't just log
| out to view the blocker's posts, X is making it so that
| they can view those posts without logging out or changing
| to an alt account. That makes it a lot more convenient for
| people who were already blocked for bad behavior to get mad
| at what someone posted.
|
| Sounds like they're catering to the kinds of people who
| would normally have gotten around blocks by using private
| browsing.
| adastra22 wrote:
| It defeats the whole point of blocking as a safety mechanism
| against stalking, harassment, and mob dog piling behavior.
|
| Once again, Elon utterly fails to understand the service he
| bought.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| If anything, it highlights that public posts are just that,
| public.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Given that I can't easily the post (and certainly can't
| follow a thread) without a login, is it really public? It's
| deliberately obfuscated at the very least.
| WithinReason wrote:
| You can see public posts if you just use a private window,
| that's why they are public.
| arielcostas wrote:
| That was always the case until they started requiring to be
| logged in to see anything
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Its not everything, just almost everything. You don't
| need to be logged in to view a tweet from a direct link.
| falcolas wrote:
| In some cases yes you do. It depends on how the account
| is flagged, I'm not sure what the flag is, but valid
| links can and do return a 404 if you're not logged in.
|
| You also can't view replies or context for individual
| tweets, which makes seeing one tweet next to useless.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Only if you create a different account and login with that.
| The point though is how would you even know to look?
| jdminhbg wrote:
| You know to look because you see a QT or reply and where
| the original tweet would be, there's a message about how
| you can't see the tweet. It's been like that forever.
| serial_dev wrote:
| Yeah, right... blocking has never helped with any of those.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| Isn't there always a sidechannel in a social network?
|
| Even if it doesn't fully block, it makes stalking etc. more
| annoying.
| omoikane wrote:
| An alternative to present a never ending loading screen to
| users who got blocked, making "access denied because someone
| blocked you" indistinguishable from regular infrastructure
| failures.
|
| Twitter may be doing something like that already, where some
| old links will result in "Hmm...this page doesn't exist. Try
| searching for something else.", even though the same link is
| visible via a Nitter proxy.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| It's starting to look like Xitter is asking itself "What would
| benefit users??" and then doing the exact opposite
|
| Or , they're trying to drive aways users.
|
| Or both.
|
| Elon has lost the thread.
| malikNF wrote:
| What thread has Elon lost really? When Elon bought twitter
| there was a huge wave of people and the media telling us it was
| over in 6 months, when Elon fired staff they told us X would go
| down forever in a few months.
|
| Under Elon imo X has gotten a lot better, I see more content
| that relates to me and has since found myself using X more than
| all the other social media platforms combined.
|
| Blocking content makes no sense on a platform like X, if you
| block me and I still want to read your posts all I have to do
| is to make another account and read them. This just gets rid of
| the friction. If I block someone I just don't want to interact
| with them, I still want them to see me and my friends have fun.
| qiqitori wrote:
| > I see more content that relates to me and has since found
| myself using X more than all the other social media platforms
| combined.
|
| You do know that you shouldn't be looking at stuff it's
| recommending to you, right? Think of something you'd like to
| know more about and then look it up yourself.
| recursive wrote:
| And why not? What's your authority on the subject? From
| here, it looks like more internet arguments. I mean, I
| don't use twitter at all. I've never understood the UI. But
| if you like what it's recommending, why should I believe
| your assertion that I "shouldn't" be looking at it?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >This just gets rid of the friction.
|
| that's the issue. Look at clickthrough rates and see how much
| one extra click can cut down on engagement. You want to de-
| escalate something, or at least try to.
|
| > If I block someone I just don't want to interact with them,
| I still want them to see me and my friends have fun.
|
| I agree they should have added an ignore feature as well as
| block. Different approaches for each individual.
| raducu wrote:
| > I see more content that relates to me
|
| Or stuff you interacted with in sort-of click bait way.
| That's why I'm using the block functionality so much on X. A
| couple of blocks a day keeps the rusobot content way. If only
| I could get rid of of OF girls following me or violent
| content in the same way, that would be great.
| daghamm wrote:
| "What thread has Elon lost really?"
|
| About $42B.
|
| I don't think X has gotten any better, if anything it is
| overrun by bots and crazy conspiracy theorists now. In
| addition, Elon has been engaging in soft-censoring people he
| doesn't like while amplifying those he likes.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >What thread has Elon lost really? When Elon bought twitter
| there was a huge wave of people and the media telling us it
| was over in 6 months, when Elon fired staff they told us X
| would go down forever in a few months.
|
| Indeed. According to the media and on Reddit, since Musk
| bought Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads have
| collectively gained 70 bazillion users on seventeen different
| occasions, and have caused Twitter to collapse and disappear
| eleven times.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Sounds entirely reasonable. You post something in public it is
| public. Blocking direct interaction is fine, but any expectation
| that other party cannot see your stuff is just insane. Only
| absolutely clueless or stupid should have believed that.
|
| If you don't want someone to point out your stupid takes don't
| make them in public.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >If you don't want someone to point out your stupid takes don't
| make them in public.
|
| It's usually the other way around for me. I'd rather not have
| every post about some game I like devolve into a culture war.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > I'd rather not have every post about some game I like
| devolve into a culture war.
|
| Then you should probably stop using X altogether.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Oh don't worry, I never commented on the platform. But when
| it's still the most popular place for indie devs to talk
| about their stuff I'm still reluctantly forced to at browse
| around.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| >You post something in public it is public
|
| I find that Twitter users somehow misunderstand this.
| Especially small ones that only interact with themselves,
| posting misinformation. See a lot of the Palestine Twitter.
| Then a bigger account comes and comments/corrects or spreads
| their OWN PUBLIC POST. Then it's an "attack". Its baffling.
| simion314 wrote:
| I am not an X user, I remember Elon making a lot of noise about
| bots, did Elon fixed the bot issues? Or all that noise was an
| attempt to get a discount.
| leftcenterright wrote:
| from what I have seen, there is definitely a lot of
| bot/automated content. It feels totally un-moderated at times.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _all that noise was an attempt to get a discount_
|
| Was he complaining about bots before he signed? Genuinely can't
| remember.
| simion314 wrote:
| >Was he complaining about bots before he signed? Genuinely
| can't remember.
|
| I can't google it for you, so from my memory , he complained
| that he was tricked by Twitter because a large number of
| users are bots , and then he promised that he will fix this
| issue after he get's the control. Probably bots and trolls
| are good for business since other social media like reddit
| are also making super easy to create tons of bot/troll
| accounts and spam the network.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _he complained that he was tricked by Twitter because a
| large number of users are bots , and then he promised that
| he will fix this issue after he get 's the control_
|
| How making a noise about it after the price is agreed be
| "an attempt to get a discount"? If anything, it was an
| attempt to get out of the deal.
|
| (And if I remember correctly, the argument failed because
| he _had_ been complaining about bots prior to signing.
| Either way, has nothing to do with discounts.)
| simion314 wrote:
| As I said, it was from my memory, so do you think Elon
| wants more or less bots now?
| immibis wrote:
| The latter. Bots massively increased under Elon. I don't know
| why anyone wants to use this dumpster fire of a site. I don't.
|
| I guarantee this move is because too many people blocked Elon.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| botters seemed to take everything as a challenge. The only
| thing that has changed is that legitimate operators are paying
| more.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It looks like a reverse of a trend I have seen of people
| understading the details of selectively hiding information from
| others and using it for manipulation.
|
| ,,Show to group of people except X'' is manipulative behaviour
| (instead of kicking out the person from the group, or in this
| case not sharing publicly what's not public).
|
| On instagram I have seen a lot of these things, for example
| posts, stories, archived stories all have different very strange
| behaviours that only people to take the time to understand (more
| manipulative people) use, which makes people more manipulative in
| itself.
| Dwedit wrote:
| Good. Blocking is unidirectional, you prevent yourself from
| seeing the other person's posts. It should not be bidirectional,
| as this informs the other person that you have blocked them.
|
| Reddit implements blocking as bidirectional, and even tells you
| (using coded language such as "deleted" and "unavailable") that
| there is a post in the thread from a person who has blocked you,
| and includes a permalink to that post. The permalink can be
| loaded in private browsing mode, and you can see the post from
| the person who has blocked you. (Make sure you load the Reddit
| front page first, otherwise Reddit assumes you're an AI
| harvesting spider and auto-blocks you from the site)
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| > Blocking is unidirectional, you prevent yourself from seeing
| the other person's posts. It should not be bidirectional, as
| this informs the other person that you have blocked them.
|
| I agree, this is how Discord does it INSIDE SERVERS. Not sure
| why you are downvoted but like on Reddit and HN people just
| downvote what they do not like.
| h1fra wrote:
| Hiding your posts from abusers is a legitimate use case because
| most people (emphasis on most) won't bother to go on private
| browsing every day just to be annoying.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| There's an argument here that the previous blocking behavior
| might give users a false sense of security. In reality, you
| should not post any information publicly that you wouldn't want
| someone in particular to read, even if you've blocked that
| person.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| They still have to go on private browsing to be annoying,
| because blocking still prevents interacting with you.
| autoexec wrote:
| This is just one more example of Twitter going out of their way
| to work against the best interests of their users. As twitter
| continues to treat its userbase like a controlling/abusive spouse
| I hope more and more people realize that they deserve better and
| leave.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| >This is just one more example of Twitter going out of their
| way to work against the best interests of their users.
|
| Why does it matter?
|
| If I block people in a Discord server THEY can still see what I
| type. Why does it matter? I have really come to understand that
| some Twitter users see Twitter as their own private garden
| somehow and do not realize that anyone can see your posts... So
| somehow it becomes uncomfortable when they are reminded of this
| fact.
| yifanl wrote:
| Are you seriously asking why you shouldn't make users
| uncomfortable with your product?
| jdminhbg wrote:
| Lots of speculation about the motive in here, but isn't the
| simplest answer (not necessarily the correct one) that it saves
| billions of DB joins per day? I don't think Elon has made a
| Twitter decision yet that would have made it more rather than
| less expensive to run.
| dragonelite wrote:
| That was my speculation also on why he disabled seeing who also
| liked a post. Im sure it saves a lot in compute and bandwidth.
| gkoberger wrote:
| This wasn't about money either. This was him wanting users to
| be able to boost reprehensible content without having to put
| their names on it.
|
| He sees this as an antidote to cancel culture; he's allowing
| people to support things they agree with without society's
| repercussions.
| gkoberger wrote:
| The simplest answer is that Elon is blocked by a lot of people,
| as are many people whose voices he wants heard, and believes
| that it goes against his flavor of "free speech".
|
| He's been unblocking himself over the years, and this feels
| like the next logical step for him.
|
| I think its simple... a lot of people have blocked Elon, so
| Elon thinks blocking is bad.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| That simple answer is wrong, because the changes don't make
| it so that people who blocked Elon see Elon's posts now.
| a0123 wrote:
| Have you not paid attention to twitter since he bought it?
|
| The guy has been forcing his accounts and shit takes onto
| everyone's timelines.
|
| Accounts have mysteriously started following his account
| when they never manually did it.
|
| Muting his account hasn't properly worked since he bought
| twitter.
|
| It's literally what he's been doing it since day 1 of
| purchase.
|
| Sorry if that sounds a bit rude, but I'm just baffled by
| people literally denying reality when it smacks them in the
| face repeatedly.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| I'm sorry you're frustrated, but it has nothing to do
| with this change, which works in the opposite direction.
| dangerwill wrote:
| My bet for the real reason for this is that it has been widely
| reported that Twitter artificially boosts Elon's account
| specifically. Many people noticed when they did this that his
| posts showed up in their feeds despite them not following his
| account. I bet this led to a massive wave of people blocking his
| account (it's as easy to block as it is to mute). And this
| population of users eventually got big enough for him to notice,
| and he wants his posts in everyone's feeds again.
| johnnyo wrote:
| Based on my reading of the article, this change would not start
| showing you Elon's tweets if you have him blocked.
|
| What it would do is allow Elon's feed to show everyone, and not
| have holes in it from people who have blocked him.
| cameldrv wrote:
| Makes sense given the current financials. The way you make money
| in social media is to get people pissed off and arguing with each
| other. Preventing someone from seeing things that make them mad
| is just leaving money on the table that they can't afford
| anymore.
| fossuser wrote:
| I'd like to be able to unblock people. An unblock all would be
| nice to get back to baseline. A while back I blocked everyone
| that followed a specific user that kept appearing in my feed
| (this was prior to the musk acquisition where you can view
| accounts you follow explicitly which is nice).
|
| This was around 50k people (it did make a noticeable difference).
| The unblock is broken though - I was able to unblock maybe 1k,
| but now it lists nothing and it's impossible to unblock any
| others.
|
| As is I just do it occasionally when I see a blocked account
| appear in a reply.
| OrigamiPastrami wrote:
| You blocked 50k people? Don't you have to block people one by
| one? How did you even do this?
| rbanffy wrote:
| You could upload blocklists.
| fossuser wrote:
| There were API endpoints that worked at some point, made it
| easy to do.
| motohagiography wrote:
| when I used it instead of block lists I filtered based on
| emojis and that got rid of most of the noise. I left X because
| either I couldn't escape my filter bubble in spite of following
| some very diverse accounts, or people on it were really just
| that mid.
|
| it's optimized for engagement, so what you "like," and what
| keeps you there are probably not the same things. we complain
| about slop now, but the algos were the original slop, the
| future was here it just wasn't evenly distributed.
| fossuser wrote:
| I think X is still really great and it's even better now that
| you can finally pay to have no ads (and verified means
| verified instead of 'friends of a twitter employee'.
|
| It does require some effort to curate a worthwhile feed
| though (and you have to be mindful to not get sucked into
| junk/avoid the for you tab).
| nashashmi wrote:
| Should you be able to repost something from someone who blocked
| you?
|
| The other feature was mute. I guess that is not necessary
| anymore.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I guess Musk wants everyone to see the posts from people they
| blocked for their political views prior to the US election.
|
| Is there any scenario where this is a good idea?
| stevebmark wrote:
| Content moderation and visibility is a much more interesting
| question and space in BlueSky/ATmosphere. It's hard to care about
| the Twitter nonsense now.
| wnevets wrote:
| this move will surely regain the 80% of the value twitter has
| lost, masterful gambit sir!
| dathinab wrote:
| Musk hobby: 101 about how to make a toxic site even more toxic
| while bearly not breaking law and making law makers wonder if
| they should make stricter laws
| dwoldrich wrote:
| I wonder how long until X is profitable, and I worry my Elon-
| hating friend will lose his mind when it happens.
|
| The hatred for Elon and Twitter/X, etc took me completely off
| guard the same way "Kids in Cages" did. I thought, "Where is all
| this spitting rage for Elon coming from? I thought he was the
| green energy guy, SpaceX is so cool."
|
| I'd love to know where the "Kids in Cages" OP got started and
| where the evacuate to Mastadon movement was popularized. I feel
| like it's somewhere on Reddit.
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