3 ms·

I think the point is that if Alice hopes to hide her tweets from Eve by blocking Eve, then Eve can always log out of Twitter to see those tweets again. Conclus

I think the point is that if Alice hopes to hide her tweets from Eve by blocking Eve, then Eve can always log out of Twitter to see those tweets again. Conclusion: Blocking users cannot ever be a privacy feature. You cannot prevent a specific user from seeing your tweets without preventing every un-logged-in person from seeing your tweets. Edit: Though admittedly, that's a bit of a black-and-white perspective. I suppose blocking a user from seeing your tweets could work in the same way that hell-banning works: If Eve never logs out to check whether you blocked her, she won't find out. It's a bit of security through obscurity: far from ideal, but it might work for some practical problems.

silencio 13y ago
After reading lots of discussion about this yesterday, I think the change being negative hinged on one big thing. Nobody truly believed that the old(current) block on Twitter was actually blocking anyone from reading your posts if they were public, but not being able to follow someone had the (imo) underrated benefit of not letting someone directly interact with your tweets. That added layer of friction meant it was just a little more difficult for group harassment (e.g. retweet someone you don't like, laugh at them, have a group of your followers send harassing tweets even though they're not individually blocked). The only way to do so would be to open Incognito mode or log into another account and then manually RT or find another way to harass someone (like a forum or chat). The suggested new functionality meant that there was more security through obscurity (well not quite, apparently you couldn't add people that blocked you to lists) but reduced that friction in the harasser's favor. Personally I'm hoping Twitter keeps the old block forever, but then adds something like the attempted new block functionality under the less-of-a-misnomer-name "mute" - both have their strengths and weaknesses and I don't think one can really replace the other.

silencio 13y ago

After reading lots of discussion about this yesterday, I think the change being negative hinged on one big thing. Nobody truly believed that the old(current) block on Twitter was actually blocking anyone from reading your posts if they were public, but not being able to follow someone had the (imo) underrated benefit of not letting someone directly interact with your tweets. That added layer of friction meant it was just a little more difficult for group harassment (e.g. retweet someone you don't like, laugh at them, have a group of your followers send harassing tweets even though they're not individually blocked). The only way to do so would be to open Incognito mode or log into another account and then manually RT or find another way to harass someone (like a forum or chat). The suggested new functionality meant that there was more security through obscurity (well not quite, apparently you couldn't add people that blocked you to lists) but reduced that friction in the harasser's favor. Personally I'm hoping Twitter keeps the old block forever, but then adds something like the attempted new block functionality under the less-of-a-misnomer-name "mute" - both have their strengths and weaknesses and I don't think one can really replace the other.