There is no implementation date, but Elon Musk has announced the intention that the function to block a user will disappear from X (formerly Twitter), except in direct messages. And to date, each and every one of the news that the owner of this social network has announced has become a reality after a very short time.
Musk added that X will retain the mute feature, which prevents a user from viewing specific accounts but, unlike blocking, does not alert the other account to the action.
According to Musk, blocking is a function that "doesn't make sense." And clearly that may be true for an ultra free speech advocate, which is how he has presented himself to the world since he bought X a year ago. But for the thousands of people who experience public harassment on this social network, being able to block their harassers was a relief. In fact, under the very decision to acquire the social network, the billionaire wielded that of promoting maximum freedom of expression within it.
But according to the Center to Counter Digital Hate (CCDH), hateful and anti-Semitic messages have flourished again on this platform since Musk took over it in the fall, which X – who has filed a complaint complaint against the CCDH – denies that it is true. Also some governments have criticized X for not doing enough to moderate their content.
Along the same lines, in response to a post by now anti-bullying activist Monica Lewinsky urging X to keep this "important tool to keep people safe," company CEO Linda Yaccarino defended the move. of Musk and hinted that the platform would be designing other systems to safeguard its users from inappropriate behavior, but without going into details. “The safety of our users at X is our number one priority. And we are building something better than the current block and silence,” said Yaccarino.
On the other hand, removing or limiting the blocking feature could put X in trouble with the rules that Apple's App Store and Alphabet's Google Play have recently set for an app to be on them.
In this sense, Apple says that applications with user-generated content should have the ability to block abusive users. For its part, the Google Play Store establishes that applications must provide a system, in the application itself, to block user-generated content. Depending on how you look at it, this possibility remains unchanged, since the platform itself can temporarily or permanently block a user.
Silencing and blocking weren't the only option users of X – or any other social network – have to protect themselves. There is always the option to report a user directly to X and trust that this network will take some disciplinary action if it believes that the reported user has violated the rules of use of the application.
The problem is that both the definition of what is acceptable and what is not in X, as well as the decision on whether or not a behavior conforms to that definition is in the hands of the social network itself, which at the moment is equivalent to saying which is in the hands of Elon Musk. And the tycoon has proven to be quite fickle in this regard.
The decision to allow, in December, the return of former president Donald Trump, banned from the platform at the beginning of 2021 for his role in the attack on the Capitol, is set against that of suspending, last fall, that of rapper Kayne West, who posted an image showing a swastika entwined with a Star of David.
