• X has begun rolling out a change that will allow blocked accounts to still view content from those who have blocked them.
• Despite several users citing safety concerns, X has decided to make the change official.
• X detailed the change in September this year.

This week X (formerly Twitter) has begun rolling out a change to blocked accounts it announced in September this year.

At the time, replying to another user on the platform, X owner Elon Musk noted that, “The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post.”

Now the change is taking effect, which is interesting given that the 2024 US Presidential Elections take place tomorrow, which is a political event that Musk has a particular vested interest in.

Whether there is a correlation is unclear at this stage, but regardless, should you block another account on X and your posts are set to public, they will still be able to see your posts. This is the key aspect of the change to blocked accounts that the social media platform has made, with it previously not being the case.

However, those that blocked accounts still cannot, “engage (like, reply, repost, etc.) with your posts.”

X explained that blocked accounts also cannot do the following:

• “Follow you,
• Send Direct Messages to you,
• Add your X account to their lists,
• Tag you in a photo.”

“Blocking an account you are currently following will cause you to unfollow that account (and them to unfollow you). If you decide to unblock that account, you will have to follow that account again,” X added in a blog post.

“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),” it added.

As TechCrunch has pointed out, some users on the platform have cited problems with the change, specifically when it comes to accounts that stalk others or steal content.

While legitimate concerns have been raised, especially when it comes to cyberstalking and privacy, it seems that X and its owner do not share the same concerns. Either way, it will be interesting to see how this latest change will impact the active community on X, and whether some will choose to move to other platforms like Bluesky.

[Image – Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash]