According to changes on X's website spotted by independent app researcher Nima Ouji, X will soon change how its block button works so that when a user blocks an account, that user's public posts will still be viewable. Elon Musk confirmed the change on Monday, saying that blocked accounts will still be unable to interact with the user who blocked them, but that the user's posts will be viewable shortly.
“The block feature blocks the account from engaging, but does not block viewing. [a] “This is a public post,” Musk said in a tweet on Monday.
Owji told TechCrunch via DM (Direct Messages with X) that you may no longer see the “You've been blocked…” message when visiting a blocked user's account. Instead, blocked users will be able to see the account's public posts just like any other user. There will likely remain restrictions on reposting, quoting, replying, or interacting with blocked accounts. At this time, it's unclear when the change will take place.
“It was about time,” Musk said in a tweet on Monday. Previously, if a public account blocked a user, the user could simply log out and still view the public account's tweets. There was an easy workaround to get around this, but now it appears X is removing the feature entirely.
Nearly a decade ago, when Twitter was still called Twitter, the platform made a similar change to its blocking feature, but it was quickly reverted. In 2013, Twitter updated its policies to allow blocked users to view, follow, and even interact with the blocked user's content. The blocked account cannot see these interactions, but other accounts can. At the time, Twitter reportedly called an emergency meeting following backlash over its blocking updates and quickly reverted its policies to maintain the stronger blocks.
Today's update to X doesn't go that far — Musk said engagement while blocked is still not allowed — but some people might not be too happy about the change. Social media users often use the block feature to distance themselves from harassers, abusers, and stalkers, and this new change to the block feature should ease that barrier.