[nicexe]

I always thought this was a stupid restriction. You can't view the post while authenticated but you can view the post while unauthenticated.

[viraptor]

It provides friction for further misbehaving. Imagine you blocked someone who has serious issues with people who #foobar. It's better for you if they can't easily find you and repost your content to their community who also hate #foobar. It's not perfect, but the friction helps prevent drive-by bad behaviour.

[Nuzzerino]

No it doesn't. The people who are malicious about it will be using multiple accounts. The block button doesn't stop them. If anything, it provides them ammunition to go "See, this person is a sensitive one, let's add them to the list".

Either your posts are public or they're not. There's a pretty clear distinction between the two, and anyone who thinks otherwise is sorely mistaken. The risk of people re-posting your content is a natural consequence of your aspirations to be popular on social media, and we shouldn't be giving people a false sense of security.

[JumpCrisscross]

> repost your content to their community who also hate #foobar

This is valid. I don't think it rises to the level of preventing them from seeing my public content. But perhaps a brake on their ability to repost it would be courteous.

[trompetenaccoun]

It's the opposite. People with serious issues (i.e. stalkers, trolls etc.) will continue following on a second account or proxy. Meanwhile regular accounts with legitimate criticisms (for example pointing out misinformation, calling out bias, and so on) get blocked by bad actors and those will not find them anymore and repost because they don't invest time in it.

Blocking mainly prevents regular normal users from seeing tweets. Best example is Lex Fridman who's blocked a million people for no apparent reason. Say something he doesn't like: You're blocked. Never even interacted with him but commented on a topic he doesn't approve of: Blocked. You under-cook fish: Believe it or not, he blocks you.

[steinuil]

To be fair, you can barely view any post while unauthenticated these days. Sometimes I click on a link to a tweet on my work laptop (where I'm not authenticated) and I get immediately assaulted by several pop-ups and cookie bars and redirected to the landing page when try to dismiss them.

[pbreit]

You can create a new account. It's a poorly designed feature that degrades the user experience semi-permanently and with no recourse.

[teruakohatu]

I have given up trying to view content unauthenticated, I used to be able to close the popups but now I get redirected to a login when I do.

[avree]

Reddit's implementation is even worse. It breaks all sorts of commenting/replying even down the comment chain, if anyone in the parent is blocked. And, the mobile app shows no usable errors. But, you can log out, or even make a second account, and see everything.

[CydeWeys]

I block people on Twitter all the time, but I can't even remember the last time I had to block anyone on reddit (it was years ago). This speaks to the different models between the two -- on reddit I'm only interacting on specific subreddits, which because I've chosen them, have much nicer and more reasonable people than "all of Twitter". Twitter is always just nonstop fighting and yelling.

[latexr]

> You can't view the post while authenticated but you can view the post while unauthenticated.

As per the article (emphasis mine):

> While a source at X told The Verge that the platform is making this change because people can already view posts from users who’ve blocked them when using another account or when logged out, several of us at The Verge (myself included) have noticed that X actually prevents you from viewing someone’s profile if you’re logged out.

For my part, I can see some accounts but not others, though the “rule” is not clear. Even then, on the accounts I can see they only show a dumb disjointed list of tweets ordered by popularity regardless of post date.

[bluescrn]

AFAIK, you can't view any tweets unless logged in these days. But the sort of user being frequently blocked likely has multiple accounts anyway.

[jdminhbg]

> AFAIK, you can't view any tweets unless logged in these days

You can view a single tweet, but it won't display a thread for you unless you log in.

[jfengel]

In theory you can't see any tweets at all, because they're now just "posts".

But everybody still calls them "tweets" because it was an amazing bit of branding.

[maxglute]

I thought so too, but also fun to see people posting they've been blocked by person they're debating... well arguing with, whether the blocked deserved it because they're being an ass, or whether the blocker was simply thin skinned. I think the latter, seeing people rage quit because they can't rationalize their position, is actually pretty useful signal.

[ihuman]

The old blocking also stopped your posts from appearing in their "for you" timeline. The new blocking doesn't.

[modeless]

This is pure speculation. It's not implemented yet and there is no detailed explanation of how it will work. It could easily still prevent your posts from being algorithmically recommended.

[thaumasiotes]

The restriction isn't on them seeing your posts. It's on you seeing their posts. If you don't want them to see your posts, Twitter provides that functionality too. It just isn't called "blocking".

[fwip]

What's Twitter call it?

[thih9]

But the point is you can’t see these posts from a particular account. It makes interaction between the two accounts a bit more difficult and so a bit less likely.

[Hamuko]

But interaction between accounts is still not possible?

[boo-ga-ga]

It might look like this, but thinking about it, I guess it's still useful in reducing unwanted interactions. People are lazy, and thus adding even a little friction can help a lot in preventing them from doing stalkering, spreading hate etc.

I.e. of course it's possible to login with another user, find the one who blocked you, make a screenshot or something and then quote it or perform any other interaction in your main account. But it's obviously not very easy.

So I'm sure it worked as a solution to reduce negative interactions on the platform. However, Musk doesn't want reducing these, his goal is spreading chaos and forcing his narratives, so the decision totally makes sense for him.

[JumpCrisscross]

> his goal is spreading chaos and forcing his narratives

It may be as simple as revealing blocked content is a short path to increasing outrage and thus engagement. Like, I could see Facebook doing this on Threads.

[johnnyanmac]

They should have had an "ignore" feature from the start, as well as block. They can post all the vile they want, I just don't want to read it.

But IME, the kind of people I want to block are the exact kinds of people that would go through all that effort to keep trying to cause drama.

[felipeerias]

Isn't it a bit weird that a person can share a screenshot of a tweet by an account that has blocked them?

It shouldn't be that hard to check if an image looks like a tweet and, if it does, find out the exact match.

[bluedino]

Reddit works the same way. Blocking is so stupid anyway.

[kristopolous]

A well behaved blocked person will honor the restriction but this only antagonizes the unhinged who usually have multiple accounts.

Something that less aggravates people prone to bad behavior is the right move.

[pbreit]

One of the dumber features on the internet. It permanently degrades the user experience and with no recourse.

[jonathrg]

It only degrades the user experience if you're trying to interact with someone who blocked you. Which is the point.