‘It makes no sense’: Soon you won’t be able to ‘block’ on X

If your X experience is a peaceful one, free of haters or bots, beware it could soon change.

X boss Elon Musk has confirmed plans to remove the block feature from the social media network, claiming ‘it makes no sense”.

Musk has made several changes to the service since taking it over last year. Among the changes are a subscription tier and a change from Twitter to X.

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Musk said the service is far from the ideal network he has planned, and part of the features to be left on the cutting room floor will be the block feature.

Responding to a debate over blocking or muting, Musk revealed “block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’ except for DMs.

“It makes no sense,” he added.

His comments drew sharp reaction, with some claiming they would leave the service when it happens “to maintain their sanity”.

But Musk’s plans got the thumbs up from former Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey,

“100%. Mute only”.

Musk responded to fears around the changes, saying there is “mayhem over nothing”, and agreed some were wearing blocks as a badge of honour.

Mute vs Block

X explains blocking as a feature helping “people in restricting specific accounts from contacting them, seeing their Tweets, and following them”.

“Accounts you have blocked cannot follow you, and you cannot follow an account you have blocked. You will not receive notifications from accounts you block, or accounts that you do not follow who mention you in conversations started by accounts that you block

“Blocked accounts do not receive a notification alerting them that their account has been blocked. However, if a blocked account visits the profile of an account that has blocked them, they will see they have been blocked (unlike mute, which is invisible to muted accounts)”.

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If you have muted an account, it can still follow you and you can still follow it.

“Muting an account does not impact the account’s ability to send you a direct message, and you will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from any muted account”.

X software engineer Aqueel Miqdad said the company could “make mutes stronger”.

“I am seeing a lot of users concerned about removing blocks. We can make mutes stronger, like not allow people you mute to reply or quote you. We can also transfer you block list to mute list”.

Miqdad said blocking an account from seeing your posts does not work in practice.

“Anyone with any intent can find out what you post by simply creating another account or logging out”.

X off the App Store

According to the BBC, removing a blocking feature could possibly violate the terms and conditions of Apple’s App Store and Google Play which demand social media apps allow users to filter harmful content.

If mute does not serve this function, X could be removed from the stores.