- Elon Musk says the block characteristic will likely be “deleted” from X, previously Twitter.
- Musk’s posts recommend X customers will solely be capable of block others from direct messaging them.
- Musk, who has talked about eradicating the characteristic earlier than, says the mute button will stay.
Block lists might quickly change into out of date for customers of X, previously referred to as Twitter.
The platform’s proprietor, Elon Musk, introduced plans to cast off X’s block characteristic in a collection of posts on Friday. The proprietor mentioned blocking “makes no sense.”
Block goes to be deleted as a “characteristic”, apart from DMs
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023
Within the submit, he famous that capabilities of the characteristic will likely be stripped all the way down to solely having the ability to block one other person from sending direct messages. Because it stands, person can block each other from seeing one another’s posts and profiles.
Musk has notably had a rocky relationship with the block button up to now. After buying Twitter in October 2022, he shortly made a collection of adjustments to the social networking website. Because the takeover, sweeping adjustments at X — together with its new identify — have not been well-received by some customers.
In November 2022, among the platform’s customers who as soon as had Musk blocked or muted alleged that the billionaire’s posts mysteriously started showing on their feeds once more, Bloomberg reported. They claimed that the measures they took to limit Musk had been now not in place once they checked his account, suggesting Musk had made a change to unblock himself from customers’ feeds.
Months later, in February, Musk mentioned he selected to unblock everybody he’d personally blocked through the years. Forbes contributor Matt Novak, who mentioned he had been blocked by the Tesla CEO in 2019, reported that Musk’s tweets had been now not hidden from his account.
Musk’s posts on Friday aren’t the primary time the billionaire has expressed his distaste for the block characteristic — he mentioned one thing related in June.
“Blocking public posts is unnecessary,” Musk wrote at the time. “It must be deprecated in favor of a stronger type of mute.”
In one other Friday submit in regards to the adjustments to blocking, Musk clarified that the mute characteristic — which lets you conceal tweets from a selected person or people who include particular phrases in your timeline with out having to unfollow or block — will stay.
You’ll nonetheless be capable of mute accounts and block customers for DMs
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023
It is unclear when this alteration will go into impact at X. Insider’s request for remark from X was met with an automatic response.