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.
> 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.
I can never tell to what extent people believe things like this when they say them... Do they genuinely model people they dislike as wanting to maximize evil or are they simply trying to signal their dislike?
I am actually very sure that Elon is an extremely smart person. I can also see that he amplifies and posts disinformation posts that spread hateful narratives. That's why I make a conclusion that his intentions are reaching his goals in this, quite evil and harmful for the society way.
Even if I liked him, this still would had hold true.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
>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.
> 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.)
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
I always thought this was a stupid restriction. You can't view the post while authenticated but you can view the post while unauthenticated.
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.
> 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.
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.
Very much agree euth your first paragraph.
> his goal is spreading chaos
I can never tell to what extent people believe things like this when they say them... Do they genuinely model people they dislike as wanting to maximize evil or are they simply trying to signal their dislike?
I am actually very sure that Elon is an extremely smart person. I can also see that he amplifies and posts disinformation posts that spread hateful narratives. That's why I make a conclusion that his intentions are reaching his goals in this, quite evil and harmful for the society way. Even if I liked him, this still would had hold true.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But interaction between accounts is still not possible?
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
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).
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.
This is technically the better option as it doesn’t indicate via sidechannel that someone has blocked you.
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.
Logging out doesn’t work anymore. They would need to make an alt account.
You still can't interact with them, do you know you're blocked.
Isn't there always a sidechannel in a social network?
Even if it doesn't fully block, it makes stalking etc. more annoying.
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.
You can see public posts if you just use a private window, that's why they are public.
That was always the case until they started requiring to be logged in to see anything
If anything, it highlights that public posts are just that, public.
It makes sense. Hiding info that is available when you log in as someone else doesn't
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.
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.
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.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41630094
@lexfridman had it coming.
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).
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.
The YouTube comment section is non-toxic because only the “wow, this is amazing” comments are shown. Anything critical gets buried.
"Somehow overnight" was when the videomaker become responsible for anything that was written under his rubric.
Last time I remember, YouTube comments were full of spam bots talking about vile things to get attention
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.
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?
> I've actually started exploring other sane places of community gathering like Reddit
What sane subreddits have you found?
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.
from what I have seen, there is definitely a lot of bot/automated content. It feels totally un-moderated at times.
> all that noise was an attempt to get a discount
Was he complaining about bots before he signed? Genuinely can't remember.
>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.
> 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.)
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
>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.
"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.
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.
>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.
[dead]
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)