X reportedly plans to change its blocking feature in the near future, which will allow users to see the public posts of whoever has blocked them.
The news was announced on Monday afternoon by a web developer named Nima Owji.
“BREAKING: X is about to remove the current block button, meaning that if an account is public, their posts will be visible to the blocked users as well!” Owji wrote.
X owner Elon Musk seemingly confirmed the news in a reply to Owji, where he wrote approvingly about the feature change.
“High time this happened,” the Tesla, Inc. CEO said. “The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post[s].”
Musk’s post was met with mostly negative reactions. Responding to Musk, Owji said that he thought the decision was a “good move.”
“The block button for public accounts was a stupid feature since everyone could view the posts from their browsers’ incognito mode,” he reasoned.
Hundreds of X users expressed their concerns with the move, with a majority of commenters pointing to the issue of harassment on the platform.
“Eh, I am not a fan of this to say the least,” Jeremy Clark, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, wrote. “Too easy for bad actors to simply take a screenshot and urge their non-blocked followers to harass an account.”
“With respect, I think this is a bad idea,” rapper Zuby replied. “There are many reasons somebody may not want certain individuals from easily seeing all their public posts. There are some REALLY bad actors on social media, sadly.”
