[Update on December 13, 2013: Due to public backlash, Twitters has reversed its decision on the blocking feature. Click here to read more.]
Twitter has been making plenty of adjustments recently, attempting to polish itself up into a monetization machine. And while the micro-blogging service is doing a fine job attracting advertisers, one of the recent changes does nothing positive for users: Twitter changed its blocking feature to make it easier for harassment and other bad behavior to keep occurring.
Previously, blocking someone on Twitter would put up a barrier so they couldn’t see your tweets; if they went to your page, they’d get a notice saying, “sampleuser hasn’t tweeted yet.” But that’s no longer the case. For people who have public Twitter profiles, blocking someone no longer stops them from following their profile, reading all of their tweets, and even replying to or re-tweeting their tweets. The user would have to lock their account to properly prohibit the other user from accessing their stream of tweets.
This is a very weird move on Twitter’s part. Not surprisingly, people on Twitter aren’t happy about it:
Hey @twitter. having us go into protected mode to actually enable the block… is BLAMING THE VICTIM… the harasser has nothing to fear.
— Baronesa (@Baronesa1980) December 12, 2013
Twitter’s block button is hella annoying. If I block you I don’t wanna see your tweets and I don’t want you to be able to see mine @twitter
— natalie (@TheBieberCare) December 12, 2013
What alarms me most with the twitter block change is that bigots I blocked can now RT me. It’s like being able to throw me to wolves.
— Sophia Banks (@sophiaphotos) December 12, 2013
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