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Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts
- golergka 2y agoMakes perfect sense. If the blocked person would still see the post if they logged out, then it's not a real data protection, so why bother?
- nixosbestos 2y ago[flagged]
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- jdminhbg 2y agoLots 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 2y agoThat 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 2y agoThis 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.
- XorNot 2y agoWell hang on I mean we're also excluding option 3 here: they just straight up broke the service which provided that feature somewhere between haphazardly decommissioning a data center without planning, and the mass layoffs based on code commit printouts, and now no one knows how to fix it.
- swiftcoder 2y agoOn the flip side of this, they turned on the (at least at first, fictitious) view counts for the opposite reason - despite being costly to calculate accurately, they provide an ego boost.
- gkoberger 2y agoThe 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 2y agoThat simple answer is wrong, because the changes don't make it so that people who blocked Elon see Elon's posts now.
- a0123 2y agoHave 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.
- the_clarence 2y agoIMO it was a product decision, and a great product decision at that (as much as I hate Elon)
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- dangerwill 2y agoMy 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 2y agoBased 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.
- brianmurphy 2y agoElon is not getting an artificial boost. The people reporting about Elon's posts being artificially boosted either don't know how X's features work or they are engagement-farming for clicks. X has two user feeds controlled by tabs at the top of the screen. The "For You" feed is the algorithm recommending high engagement posts to you. This is mostly accounts you follow but it's also highly interacted with posts. Love him or hate him, Elon's posts get massive engagement so naturally it gets recommended a lot. Even if you have never personally engaged Elon's account, if the algorithm sees the people you follow have engaged with a post, it will be put into your "For You" feed. Same is true of posts from any user. This is not something specific to Elon. The other feed, the "Following" tab contains content from only the people you follow. The "Following" feed is also chronological which is super nice and a rarity in today's algorithm driven social media world. So if you're seeing random posts, chances are you're reading the algorithm feed, not your Following feed.
- xzjis 2y agoThat's false, Elon Musk is a "topic of interest" on Twitter, and he is added by default to all Twitter accounts. To remove the tweets boosted by Elon Musk's algorithm, I had to click "Not interested" and then "Not interested in the topic Elon Musk," knowing that the other topics are all much more general (politics, technology, sports, news, entertainment...).
- cameldrv 2y agoMakes 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.
- diob 2y agoYeah, I know some folks who would try to bully folks, so they blocked them. Then they would just try and get other folks to get pictures of tweets. Sigh.
- MavisBacon 2y agoGoing to have to agree with this. A semi-related anecdote- I spend an embarrassing amount of time on a music message board with a probably ~97% American user base. It's dedicated to a specific American band but is bizarrely active considering there has not been a UI update of note for maybe 20 years. Parts of the UI have always been frustrating but the culture within the community was palpable and a lot of people grew daily posting habits. With the 2016 election came a ton of division. Trolls were allowed to run wild. This never really ended. Through the pandemic, insurrection and everything that's followed it's been utter and absolute chaos. Trolls with multiple handles everywhere trying to flood this clearly left-leaning board with far right ideals or purely create chaos. The owner wasn't hearing the frustration expressed by users though, just the increased ad revenue from engagement largely driven by emotion and anger. Thus why he has let it fester. Twitter seems an extreme variation of this to me, and I foolishly thought Twitter with Elon would do something better with moderation initially
- aucisson_masque 2y agoModeration is a double edged sword, I get Musk stance, he is just pro freedom. Of course bots and state's funded campaigns on internet are to be hunted because they prevent everyone's freedom but beside that people should be free to say the dumbest possible things. Whatever it hurts someone else, that's the only way to make people change their mind.
- homefree 2y agoI'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 2y agoYou blocked 50k people? Don't you have to block people one by one? How did you even do this?
- rbanffy 2y agoYou could upload blocklists.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoSounds like people weren’t content with how bubble it was and needed extra double bubble.
- schmorptron 2y agoblocking anyone who pays for the premium subscription contiunes to be a solid enough heuristic
- rbanffy 2y agoBut you still can’t block them with lists.
- homefree 2y agoThere were API endpoints that worked at some point, made it easy to do.
- nashashmi 2y agoShould you be able to repost something from someone who blocked you? The other feature was mute. I guess that is not necessary anymore.
- rbanffy 2y agoI 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 2y agoContent moderation and visibility is a much more interesting question and space in BlueSky/ATmosphere. It's hard to care about the Twitter nonsense now.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wnevets 2y ago[flagged]
- DaoVeles 2y agoI suspect eventually Elon is going to sell Twitter to Tesla under the guise of combining their AI research. Cue Obama awarding Obama a medal meme. Just a shoot from the hip theory based on him stooping to new lows.
- dathinab 2y agoMusk 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 2y agoI 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.
- daveguy 2y agoThat particular phrase is related to the separation of immigrant children from their families during the Trump administration. Previously children were only put in custody if they were unaccompanied. The Trump admin did it to all families crossing. In separating kids from parents they were also unable to reunite hundreds of families.
- dwoldrich 2y agoI only brought up the "Kids in Cages" meme thing because it was one of those stories my news feed did not feature at all. So I was interested in where people get those sorts of charged news items from because I'd like to learn how these operations unfold. My reaction once I understood the issue was, "what if the 'family members' of the kids were human traffickers? Maybe that was the reason for the policy change to allow border control to try and identify if they were really family?" That was extremely triggering and rage-inducing to my friend. I concluded there was more conditioning to that psyop that I wasn't privy to that I was tripping all over. Things are 10x worse for kids at the border today, but my friend is oblivious to it since Biden came to power. I've been patiently waiting for the rage and concern to resurface. Similarly the escape to Mastadon was like a herd thing that I had no exposure to, and I was interested in what influencer or subreddit got that ball rolling. I'd like to lurk and learn, and I feel like not knowing is a huge blind spot for me.
- daveguy 2y agoThe point is they separated all kids from all families and did not track the families. Crossers suspected of human trafficking were always separated. This policy was based on the racist garbage assumption that most of the people filing through were criminals. Which is proven false. It was a humanitarian crisis in itself.
- gsich 2y agoHow it should be.
- stusmall 2y agoIn this thread you can really tell who gets blocked on twitter a lot and are upset about it.
- droopyEyelids 2y ago#1 has to be elon himself
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- m3kw9 2y agoI think this keeps things open because if they can see your stuff but cannot comment or repost it served the purpose, in fact it will lessen the chance that person needs to switch accounts because they can already do half the things(see post) without switching. If they have to switch accounts to look at your posts, they will also surely be easy to comment and repost your tweets to their mobs. This is overall plus
- yieldcrv 2y agoI think with X’s current audience it makes sense Since it’s only ragebait accounts now, sometimes they falsely post that someone has deleted their account in response to the ragebaiters post about them Its just a UX problem, rage baiters actually believe it because X makes it look like the account is gone Just inaccurate UX
- slowhadoken 2y agoI just want them to stem the flow of OnlyFans thots. It’s either aggressive fishing or some sad psy-op mission.
- sunaookami 2y agoAt least Community Notes help a bit by exposing their scams.
- slowhadoken 2y agoYeah it’s still weird how normalized digital pimps are.
- smeej 2y agoPeople like X because they can just start shouting into the void and people who care what they have to say might hear it and actually start listening to them on purpose. But then they complain that some such people might say negative things about the thing they've shouted into the void. Not csay negative things to them. That can already be prevented. Say negative things to other people. If you're going to say something publicly, you don't get to complain about who can hear/read/see it. If you want to control your audience, speak privately.
- dev1ycan 2y agoif I have to read Elon's posted in my timeline when I went out of my way to block his grifting *s, I will 100% quit twitter
- chii 2y agoThis is not what's being talked about. If you blocked elon's twitter, you will not see his tweets in your timeline. But elon can still see your tweets.
- jprd 2y agoI haven't seen any official reasoning for this. Does anyone have a link to the explanation for this change occurring to begin with? I would like if there was some technical or biz reasoning behind it, maybe I've just not seen it?
- setgree 2y agoMy totally unspported hypothesis is that many, many people have blocked Elon -- I have -- and he knows that and hates it. We know that Elon once demanded, on superbowl Sunday, "demanded that his engineers find out why" a tweet of his was underperforming relative to a tweet from Biden, and then had the algorithm modified to boost his content [0]. Would unblocking the (presumably) most blocked person on twitter be such a leap? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/20/opinion/trump-elon-musk-twitter-x.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/20/opinion/trump-elon-musk-t...
- navane 2y agoBut with the change, you still wouldn't see Elon's tweets right? But now he can see yours, I doubt that's what he's after.
- nerdix 2y agoHe may not care about the average Twitter user who blocks him. But there are likely many influential people who have blocked him (but may also be tweeting about him) and he may want to see their posts. He may also want the ability to reply to things they tweet without being accused of giving himself special access.
- sedatk 2y agoI started blocking advertisers on Twitter whenever I saw an ad since Musk took over. They gradually made the blocking experience related to advertiser accounts harder. First, they started showing “upgrade to ad-free” popups when you blocked an advertiser through an ad’s context menu. Then, they removed block option from the context menu of tweets. (They later put it back under a sub menu). And finally now, they’re getting rid of the feature. I think they are trying to address the concerns of advertisers about constantly getting blocked causing their reach to diminish. Twitter revenue has gone down 80+% since Musk’s takeover. I don’t know, maybe, not saying “go fuck yourselves” to the advertisers might have helped more, but he do him.
- stkdump 2y agoTesla is struggling and its CEO is stuck on social media.
- riffic 2y agoyou could have always signed out to view the posts so?
- angry_octet 2y agoNo, you can't browse posts without being logged in.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nsxwolf 2y agoI've always fundamentally disagreed with the idea of being able to block individuals from seeing the things you broadcast to the world. Imagine if TV or radio or newspapers could do this because they didn't like something you said or did. This is touched on in the Black Mirror episode "White Christmas". It's just creepy and an abuse of technology. If you want to communicate privately, then do so.
- Nathanba 2y agoI also thought that it was weird but I still remain neutral about it. Pros could be that it helps to psychologically dislodge toxic people from you if you can make them unable to read your replies. It also moves the power a bit more to the content writer versus the reader, suddenly the reader has an extra incentive not to spam or annoy the writer. On the other hand it seems like a lot of people used this feature mostly just on people they personally disagree with and this might have been a huge reason why people became so isolated in their social bubbles. We do have a real problem in our society which is that we increasingly have differing morals and ignoring those differences isn't really a good thing, it's more like a ceasefire situation.
- zzo38computer 2y agoI do not use The X Formerly Known As Twitter, but if I write a message that is intended to be public (regardless of what service it is on), I would intend that people I had blocked are still able to see the message (and make copies of it) if they wish; I would block them because I don't want to see their messages and I do not want to allow them to send messages to me. I would also not want the number of users who blocked someone to have an effect on moderation; if something is enough abuse to be reported that should be done separately than blocking, I think.
- GenerocUsername 2y agoThis. There is no such thing as blocked on a public platform. Everyone has always known viewing the site incognito allows you to see blocked content.
- mise_en_place 2y agoI've never once needed to block anyone on X, even when I had a bunch of mentally ill groypers reply to everything I posted. That being said, the shadow pool is a lot more effective at soft banning people than the block feature. I chuckle when people complain about toxicity on Twitter. You're in the shadow pool buddy.
- hurleybird 2y agoI think it's getting lost that this isn't a one-way street. For trolls, putting additional barriers in their way is a good thing. But not all blockees are trolls, and not all blockers are using the block to fight trolls. Some may even be using it as a form of trolling themselves. There isn't an easy way to differentiate an abusive blockee from an abusive blocker. If there were, it would make sense to provide additional incentivize against both anti-social behaviors. But there isn't. Invisible posts are not a good thing for the health of the platform. It's not just blocker and blockee—everything is connected. Say you have a very large account that blocks on a whim, accumulating many thousands of blocks, and regularly interacts with posts from other large accounts. That account has hurt the capacity to have meaningful interactions, not with it but with other accounts it interacts with, by eliding chunks of context from conversations for some portion of the community that was blocked on a whim. Obviously, if that sort of attitude were to spread wide enough, then eventually having posts hidden would make the platform become noticeably worse. It seems that some of the most vocal opponents of post visibility for blockees are precisely from accounts that block maliciously. Worth mentioning that having a hair trigger is not necessarily malicious. But if a hair trigger blocker really cares that their posts are hidden, then they are most likely a malicious actor—Why else would they care if their posts are visible to the non-trolls they've blocked?
- MeetingsBrowser 2y agoWhat on earth is “malicious blocking”? I cannot think of a case where an entity decides they don’t want someone to see their tweets “maliciously”. The ability to control who does and does not see your content seems like the bare minimum for a social media platform.
- hurleybird 2y agoYou can precisely control "your content" with subscriptions. Otherwise, "your content" is intermingled with everyone else's. Content is probably the wrong word. Conversation is a better one. Malicious blocking is blocking a non-troll as an anti-social form of aggression. It could be: "I block people who disagree with me because I know it makes them angry." or "I block people because I get a lot of interaction, and not being able to see my posts in those interactions so that they are missing context or are forced to log into an alt will worsen people's experience, and knowing that makes me happy." Imagine how terrible X could become if Musk had the motivation above. He would be able to significantly impact not just your interactions with him, but with a large chunk of the largest and most important accounts—because all roads lead to Musk. Just blocking with a hair trigger, even blocking non-trolls, is not necessarily malicious. It's malicious if harm is the point of the block and not just a side-effect.
- the_clarence 2y agoThis is great. Some people blocked me for whatever reason but keep commenting on my posts or to responses to my post. It's so annoying to have missing messages in the middle. This and the fact that your likes are now hidden are great product changes IMO.
- deafpolygon 2y agoFor those who say it (doesn't) make(s) sense; in either case, bear in mind that if you log out or use a different account - you can see those Twitter posts anyways.
- kristiandupont 2y agoAll I see is a login screen?
- deafpolygon 2y agoDepends on region know or how it’s linked. Having another account works regardless.
- CobrastanJorji 2y agoBluesky's Twitter account is appropriately crowing about their superior blocking features: https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1838292181909672312 https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1838292181909672312: > damn that's crazy. Anyway on bluesky, users have named the blocking function "the nuclear block" because it's such a powerful tool to reduce harassment and dogpiling. You should have control over your experience online.
- renewiltord 2y agoBluesky is fortunately a honeypot where crazy people all flocked to so that they could post predictions on when Twitter would collapse (highest option: 2 weeks). I think the most effective tool on bluesky is being on bluesky so no one can read what one says because you’re constantly blocking each other even though everyone’s got the same views.
- sph 2y agoBluesky is the weirdest echo chamber of white liberal queer Americans, it feels like entering a museum or a theme park where everyone is the same, posts the same things, and agrees with each other to demonise the same things. With Twitter being the cesspool of humanity—but with a ton of variety and opinions—I don't know which is worse, so I use neither.
- CobrastanJorji 2y agoThat's a little unfair of a description. It comes down to who you're following, I guess. For example, something like 70% of Bluesky's content is in Portuguese.
- IntelMiner 2y agoSome kind of "brilliant" billionaire had put his clown shoe down and blocked Twitter's 5th largest, and conveniently predominantly Portuguese speaking population
- slg 2y agoIt says a lot about the HN community that the overwhelming majority of people here seemingly emphasize with the person being blocked rather than the person doing the blocking.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bugtodiffer 2y agoI do not side with the person who has been blocked, but it is very obvious to me that nothing in the world would prevent them from seeing my public posts
- isodev 2y agoWhy? For me it's the opposite. "Public" is a label for a specific type of audience - everyone with access to my feed/timeline (as opposed to a subset like friends, followers etc). If I block someone, they no longer have access to my timeline.
- franciscop 2y agoIn twitter "public" is not a label for a specific type of audience, it's the name of common use of a work being public/generally shared with the world. The feed/timeline you are referring sounds awfully similar to Facebook/Instagram/etc which are notorious for being walled gardens where what you say it's true.
- isodev 2y agoI wasn't thinking of Meta's products, just how social networks are supposed to work. Leon trying to tweak things is just not acceptable (not to mention dangerous... blocking is there for a reason).
- franciscop 2y agoWho is Leon? Twitter was from the beginning a "micro-publishing platform", more akin to a newspapper with subscribers than to other social networks like Facebook.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sschueller 2y agoThis is a bit like people complaining that creeps are looking at them at the gym while they are filming for their public IG. Either it's public or it's not.
- smcl 2y agoI have literally never encountered this. If people (plural) are calling you a creep for what you do in the gym you might want to do some reflection on whether you're actually the one in the wrong
- bagels 2y agoIt's this whole weird tiktok meme. The tiktokers are the bad guys. They just go in the gym record themselves posing and to complain about anyone walking in to their shot.
- whamlastxmas 2y agoA lot of this is fake and scripted
- bagels 2y agoThat doesn't make them not the bad guy.
- smcl 2y agoI mean if sschueler wants to chime in to clarify they can. But idk if it's worth taking seriously something that is obviously some social media bait. It sounded to me like they were genuinely aggrieved by getting accused of "looking at" someone but ok.
- aucisson_masque 2y ago> He also threatened to stop letting users block people on the platform completely, except for direct messages. It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so many bots.
- ID1452319 2y agoThis already kind of happens. There is a right wing commentator who blocked me as I kept fact checking his posts. However, if I create a list and someone on that list retweets the blocker's post, I can see it. Clearly Twitter can't be bothered to implement blocking properly, so they've taken this step to "unblock" all content. At least it is consistent.
- bugtodiffer 2y agoObviously. One can create a new account anyways. So it's never been hidden from them... It's just a feature to reduce interactions, not keep things secret
- canata 2y agoHe's 100% right about this. - Someone that I violate my rights, attack me can block me too. - I need to sue them to stop this. - Yet I can't see the tweets that violate my rights. If the "public" can see something, no one should be able to block some people personally.
- naitgacem 2y agoI think this sounds reasonable. This is based on an anecdotal where my university page blocked me on Facebook. And for some reason everything is posted there, schedules, announcements, exam schedules, important sign-up procedures... I rely solely on accessing the page without logging in in incognito mode. Or people screenshot/forwarding relevant links and announcements.
- pjc50 2y agoHow did you get into that state, and how did negotiating with the university resolve it?
- naitgacem 2y agoI commented asking them politely to rephrase in better English since it was uncomprehensible, or at least append what they intended to say in their preferred language. They didn't like it...
- arisAlexis 2y agoTalking to you, Lex
- prokopton 2y agoIf you sign out and view a user you can see their posts so I never saw the point of hiding them from logged in but blocked users.
- diogolsq 2y agoA bit of friction and not being visible diminishes a specific behavior (in this case, interaction between blocked parties).
- Lewton 2y ago>If you sign out and view a user you can see their posts Only for prolific twitter users and only a random mishmash of 2+ year old tweets. Usually it just asks you to sign up
- nkmnz 2y agoThen only reason this is happening is the fact that I've written a script which blocks every single advertiser I encounter lol
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- maxlin 2y agoAbout time. It was always the weirdest "block" considering you could just log out and see the posts, even giving the wrong image of the posts being publicly hidden because no other platform did that
- smsm42 2y agoI was always surprised why it isn't the case. I mean, if I can see the messages without login, why "blocking" would suddenly hide them with the login? That makes zero sense.
- 6r17 2y agoIt might be good idea for the reason that any stalker / harmful actor can already do such "espionage" - and that will more clearly align with what is physically possible to do - hence pushing the users to be more careful about their actions rather than hiding behind the tool that is only able to supposedly hide them. On the other hand there are options that allow users to force the `follow` to see user's posts. Which would re-allow verification from user's perspective.
- rogerrogerr 2y agoMusk 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 2y agoTwitter 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.
- heraldgeezer 2y ago>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.
- bensecure 2y ago"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 2y ago
- moralestapia 2y agoEvery 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 2y ago> 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 2y agoYes. 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 2y agoMuch 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 2y agoIt doesn’t mean that, it means all the bullshit that people have blocked can now see their tweets.
- 2y ago
- vfclists 2y agoThat 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 2y agoReferenced in? That is waaaay too far. That means if the person blocked you, you essentially can't talk about them.
- vfclists 2y agoI can't edit the original response, but I meant you shouldn't be able to make replies to threads of their retweeted posts.
- DoesntMatter22 2y agoRetweeted posts also seems too far. That person could be agreeing or criticizing them, but you can't comment on it? That means any dissenters can just not comment on your posts.
- DoesntMatter22 2y agoThat'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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- greatgib 2y agoWith 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.
- mwfogleman 2y agoMore simply: people are increasingly blocking advertisers to hide their advertisements. This would prevent you from shielding yourself from ads.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoReally valid use case too. Very very common in recovery to block alcohol or gambling companies to avoid their ads.
- nokcha 2y agoIt's the other way around: with the new change, the blockee will be able to see (but not reply to) the blocker's posts, but the blockee's posts will still be hidden from the blocker.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> 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 2y agoHonestly 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.
- CincinnatiMan 2y agoI'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?
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoDifferent account, yes, incognito window, no. You can only see direct links without being logged in.
- zerocrates 2y agoWith Twitter you would have been able to just do incognito mode. In the "X" era, following someone's posts when not logged in is pretty difficult as the profiles don't actually show their current tweets but rather a sort of random pile, maybe popular ones?, and that's only when you don't just get directed to sign in. You can see a particular message if you have a direct link to it, but you can't see or follow any threads, etc... Using a different account would work, sure, though that of course evades the block entirely, in both directions. The point was probably moreso that the posts wouldn't show up in the blocked person's feed, they'd have to actively seek them out. That probably does make a real difference.
- amenhotep 2y agoYes. It's always been a stupid, petulant implementation, and its widespread acceptance is confusing.
- angry_octet 2y agoNo, they changed that ages ago.
- Jordrok 2y agoThe 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rkagerer 2y agoI just wish they would let me see anyone's posts [without logging in].
- sureglymop 2y agoWe regret to have to inform you that you are not part of the free speech in-group.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoGood. 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.
- xeyownt 2y agoNo you don't.
- ycombinatrix 2y agohow many years did this take?
- timonoko 2y ago@lexfridman had it coming.
- pavlov 2y agoI 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 2y agoThis 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.
- malshe 2y agoI 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.
- sionisrecur 2y agoA lot of the time those look like bot comments that don't really say anything and could work for any video. Still much better than the bots that just copy a comment from someone else.
- heraldgeezer 2y agoI 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 2y agoI always thought this was a stupid restriction. You can't view the post while authenticated but you can view the post while unauthenticated.
- ihuman 2y agoThe old blocking also stopped your posts from appearing in their "for you" timeline. The new blocking doesn't.
- modeless 2y agoThis is pure speculation. It's not implemented yet and there is no detailed explanation of how it will work. It could easily still prevent your posts from being algorithmically recommended.
- avree 2y agoReddit'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.
- CydeWeys 2y agoI block people on Twitter all the time, but I can't even remember the last time I had to block anyone on reddit (it was years ago). This speaks to the different models between the two -- on reddit I'm only interacting on specific subreddits, which because I've chosen them, have much nicer and more reasonable people than "all of Twitter". Twitter is always just nonstop fighting and yelling.
- saagarjha 2y agoReddit has a lot more people who block because they want to get in the last word and prevent you from replying.
- klntsky 2y agoIt makes sense. Hiding info that is available when you log in as someone else doesn't
- autoexec 2y agoSure 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- drivingmenuts 2y agoIt'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 2y agoWhat 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.
- TMWNN 2y ago>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.
- krisboyz781 2y ago[dead]
- qiqitori 2y ago> 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.
- buildbot 2y agoThis is technically the better option as it doesn’t indicate via sidechannel that someone has blocked you.
- omoikane 2y agoAn alternative is 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.
- viraptor 2y agoYou still can't interact with them, do you know you're blocked.
- sionisrecur 2y agoOnce upon a time, you could interact with someone using "@nickname ..." or retweet them using "RE: @nickname: ...".
- robertclaus 2y agoI 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.
- pbreit 2y agoUnless they allow the reply but hide it from others (ie, shadowban).
- ImPostingOnHN 2y ago> I assume it still blocks actions when someone tries to interact with the user That would be weird, the block is there so you don't see their posts & replies, but your block shouldn't affect what they can do. Maybe other people want to see their replies, why should a third party block them from this? It would be like if IRC's /ignore function prevented someone from sending messages containing your name – weird. You should be able to block yourself off from anybody you wish, but not to control their public speech.
- ElonChrist 2y ago[dead]
- Ekaros 2y agoSounds 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.
- heraldgeezer 2y ago>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.
- maxerickson 2y agoWhy does it have to be "expectation that other party cannot see your stuff"? Why not just "expectation that it's less convenient for other party to see your stuff"? Are you just being ironic for the feels?
- johnnyanmac 2y ago>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 2y ago> 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 2y agoOh 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.
- simion314 2y agoI 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.
- jabroni_salad 2y agobotters seemed to take everything as a challenge. The only thing that has changed is that legitimate operators are paying more.
- faizmokh 2y agoNah. There's way more porn bots now.
- brianmurphy 2y agoI don't know what kind of content these other people are curating with their X accounts, but I never see bots. I primarily follow entrepreneurial & fitness accounts. Honestly X, youtube and HN satisfy just about everything I need for user generated content.
- mdhb 2y agoYou’re seriously trying to tell someone with a straight face that Twitter isn’t completely overrun with bots? That’s some of the most disingenuous shit I’ve seen in a while. Maybe you don’t realise they are bots?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> all that noise was an attempt to get a discount Was he complaining about bots before he signed? Genuinely can't remember.
- seadan83 2y agoIIRC he tried to back out of the deal under the premise that twitter over-represented its value by under-reporting bots. He stated something like he wanted proof of non-bot users before proceeding. When taken to court, the judge ruled he could get more info from twitter. I don't remember what came next, I think elon quietly dropped the point and the next set of rulings held him to the already signed purchase agreement. Citations: "Elon Musk says Twitter deal 'cannot move forward' until he has clarity on fake account numbers" [1] "Musk was seeking information on essentially all of Twitter's account reviews and actions. Judge McCormick dubbed that request "absurdly broad," noting Twitter has already agreed to produce a "tremendous amount information.""[2] [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/05/17/elon-musk-says-twitter-deal-cannot-move-forward-until-he-has-clarity-on-bot-numbers.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/05/17/elo... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-scores-half-win-absurdly-broad-twitter-legal-request-2022-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-scores-half-win-ab...
- xiphias2 2y agoIt 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 2y agoGood. 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 2y ago> 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 2y agoHiding 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.
- jdminhbg 2y agoThey still have to go on private browsing to be annoying, because blocking still prevents interacting with you.
- CydeWeys 2y agoPrivate browsing doesn't work because Twitter basically requires users to be logged in to see anything. So it really requires having a separate burner Twitter account you'd use to follow people who've blocked you on your main. It's a decent bit of extra effort that also requires a second phone number at this point.
- hakanderyal 2y agoYou can open more than 1 account with a single phone number.
- JoshTriplett 2y agoIdeally blocking an account should block every account sharing that phone number (though it shouldn't tell you about the other accounts being blocked, since that would deanonymize which accounts share a phone number).
- bitcharmer 2y agoI don't understand. Having someone blocked prevents them from interacting with you, no? So what harassment are you referring to? Also, most of the time blocking is being done by people who spew hateful or misinforming content and then immediately go private the moment they get called out. This happens every day. This is a good change
- bitshiftfaced 2y ago
- autoexec 2y agoThis 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 2y ago>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 2y agoAre you seriously asking why you shouldn't make users uncomfortable with your product?
- Nathanba 2y agothey can use block
- heraldgeezer 2y agoYou can still block, and it will work like any other social media product. Only the twitter crazies have their panties in a twist over this.
- pbreit 2y agoNope, Twitter blocking is a poorly designed feature that permanently degrades the user experience.
- malfist 2y agoHow can you say that? Especially given that this is a big news item, clearly people find it useful.