It’s happening…
Yes, X is currently in the process of rolling out its widely unpopular update to how account blocking works in the app, which will mean that profiles that you’ve blocked will now be able to read your posts once again.
They just won’t be able to reply. But they can screenshot your posts and criticize you to their audience without you knowing. And they can keep tabs on what you’re saying.
Which, according to Elon and Co., is a better system, because they could already do this anyway, by simply switching to another account. So why complicate things by, you know, adding a level of friction between those who you want to keep distant, if they don’t actually want to be held to your restrictions?
Yeah, it’s pretty weird logic, because really, any restriction of this type is effective. Because in many cases, people won’t actually go to the effort of creating another account and checking out your content from some other profile. Because they’re not that dedicated to annoying you, but for people who already have several fake profiles (a.k.a. Elon himself), this is super easy to negate.
Which is why he personally doesn’t see the current block system as being effective.
Though, also, Elon is one of the most blocked people on the platform, and he likely wants to dilute the power of blocking to ensure that more people continue to see his posts.
Indeed, early on in his time at X, Musk pointed to “giant block lists” being a major problem for the platform, as they restricted the reach of many profiles through coordinated means.
Given that Musk wants to use X as a political influence machine, it makes sense that he wants to get more of these posts seen, though I remain confused as to how this update could possibly pass the app store viability check.
According to both the App Store and Google Play Store rules, all social apps must provide a blocking option.
Though the wording is a little unclear.
On the App Store, the rule is:
“Apps with user-generated content must include the ability to block abusive users from the service.”
Does that relate to users being able to block other users, or users being banned from the app? This also doesn’t specify what “block” means in this context, so maybe, X is still operating within the rules?
It doesn’t seem like this change is within the spirit of this guideline, but maybe…
The Google Play store rule is a bit clearer:
“Apps that provide access to publicly accessible UGC, such as social networking apps and blogger apps, must implement in-app functionality to report users and content, and to block users.”
Though again, what “block” means exactly is not specified. So maybe, being able to block users only means that you need to be able to stop them from engaging with your posts?
I don’t know, but I don’t think X’s changes should qualify under these rules, and it’ll be interesting to see if either platform decides to push X on this.
Because it’s going ahead, and making this the norm for X users.
Which has already prompted many X users to switch to other apps. But Elon remains determined that this is the best way forward for the platform.
