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Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

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Re: Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

#191
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all issues as well, but brigading is absolutely a thing.

Blocking doesn't really fix the brigading problem, regardless of whether people need to log out or not. Most X users will just post a screenshot of the tweet, breaking accessibility in the process and disassociating the original author from the thread against their will. This isn't always a good thing, as it leads to people being surprised by crowds of strangers suddenly screaming at them and not being able to see th…

> Most X users will just post a screenshot of the tweet, breaking accessibility in the process and disassociating the original author from the thread against their will.

But that means the blocking worked. Another person will now have to go to the extra effort of either finding that tweet or going directly to the profile to interact with them. And those extra steps were exactly the feature the blocking provided. It changes "click reply, type 'kill yourself you '" into "login into non-blocked account, retype part of the text from the screenshot, search, find the matching tweet, reply, type". And that's a lot of work for a quick response.

Sure, it won't stop everyone. It reduces the effects though.

Re: Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 see…

Not to mention people attempting to slander others behind a block (so the person being slandered has no idea until the damage is already done), or temporarily unblocking to say something to someone, and then blocking again.

If it's one tweet that's blocked, is there really much damage/slander? If people actually start talking about it then the affected person will get notified anyway from one of the non-blocked accounts responding.

Re: Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I will always call it twitter & always call them tweets.

Re: Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

#195
post #168
post #46

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

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.

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.

Re: Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it still blocks actions when someone tries to interact with the user, so the fact that they're blocked isn't a secret. It seems like more of a convenience feature for the person who got blocked (since they would otherwise need to log out), which is an odd direction to push a product.

Logging out doesn’t work anymore. They would need to make an alt account.

you guys are acting like the incognito window doesnt exist? literally one click away

Re: Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

#198
post #90

Hiding your posts from abusers is a legitimate use case because most people (emphasis on most) won't bother to go on private browsing every day just to be annoying.

Private browsing doesn't work because Twitter basically requires users to be logged in to see anything. So it really requires having a separate burner Twitter account you'd use to follow people who've blocked you on your main. It's a decent bit of extra effort that also requires a second phone number at this point.

Re: Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

#199
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logging out doesn’t work anymore. They would need to make an alt account.

you guys are acting like the incognito window doesnt exist? literally one click away

It literally doesn't work. You need to be logged into Twitter to see basically anything. Twitter logged out experience is basically just a login page.

Re: Twitter/X will let people you've blocked see your posts

#200
post #46

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

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