Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 506 posts

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

#21

Post by JohnMakin »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19
JohnMakin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe caprice except in the exceedingly common instances where someone is the target of harassment. I mean this is the obvious example, there are others. In that case "make your profile private if you dont want to be harassed/stalked" is not really that palatable.

> except in the exceedingly common instances where someone is the target of harassment Super low-effort harassment, where the harasser can't bother creating a new Twitter account.

It’s an additional barrier. It also provides the blocking user the ability to block the new account. This isn’t very difficult to think through. And if it’s so easy, why the need for this new “feature” to begin with?

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

#22

Post by greatgib »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20
greatgib wrote: post #18

With that kind of decisions, always assume that there is a hidden agenda. In that case, i could imagine for example that this can be something done to ease a further AI feature. it is almost impossible to train an AI for content with individual customization. So if Y is blocked to see your content, that is impossible to have AI trained on your tweets and still be sure that Y can't get the content of your tweets.

> With that kind of decisions, always assume that there is a hidden agenda What kind of decisions? Why? The motivation seems simple: increase engagement by broadening the amount of content someone can see / be shown.

Honestly I don't think that the few "blocked" tweets where you still can't interact with is making a real difference in term of ad monetizable engagement.

You will see what will come next and it will be clear.

If not for AI indexation, another hypothesis is something like removing the paywall needing an account to access user content or something like that.

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

#23

Post by JumpCrisscross »

JohnMakin wrote: post #21
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except in the exceedingly common instances where someone is the target of harassment Super low-effort harassment, where the harasser can't bother creating a new Twitter account.

It’s an additional barrier. It also provides the blocking user the ability to block the new account. This isn’t very difficult to think through. And if it’s so easy, why the need for this new “feature” to begin with?

> also provides the blocking user the ability to block the new account. This isn’t very difficult to think through

The harasser can view from their new accounts and respond on their main account. Unless someone is very tightly curating their follower list, at which point it doesn't make sense for them to be publicly tweeting, there would be no indication which account was responsible.

The problem in harassment is the harassment. Not the harasser's access to the public domain.

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

#24

Post by JumpCrisscross »

greatgib wrote: post #22
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With that kind of decisions, always assume that there is a hidden agenda What kind of decisions? Why? The motivation seems simple: increase engagement by broadening the amount of content someone can see / be shown.

Honestly I don't think that the few "blocked" tweets where you still can't interact with is making a real difference in term of ad monetizable engagement. You will see what will come next and it will be clear. If not for AI indexation, another hypothesis is something like removing the paywall needing an account to access user content or something like that.

> don't think that the few "blocked" tweets where you still can't interact with is making a real difference in term of ad monetizable engagement

Engagement scales with outrage. If there is a singular marker of outrage, it's in blocking.

> not for AI indexation

Why would Twitter want to help third parties train their AI on its data? Musk already has an AI venture. If there were a secret agenda around AI, it would be in reducing visibility. Not increasing it.

> removing the paywall needing an account to access user content

What paywall? The sign-in wall? Again, why would Twitter have a hidden agenda to undermine something Twitter is doing to boost user numbers?

These hypotheses are incoherent because they don't stem from any observations, but are trying to work backwards to justify the existence of a hidden agenda.

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

#25

Post by rogerrogerr »

tadfisher wrote: post #11
rogerrogerr wrote: post #2

Musk is right on this one. It wasn’t serving any real purpose to let me selectively block other people from _seeing_ my posts (but _interacting_ does make sense). If I genuinely don’t want someone to see my posts, I just can’t put it on Twitter/X unless I have a private profile (is that still a thing?). Otherwise, it’s a public platform, in that anyone can register with little more than an email address and see my po…

How can I keep Musk's posts from showing up in my feed if blocking doesn't hide them? I think that's the real motivation, actually.

The change here is that blocking Musk no longer makes it so _he_ can’t see _your_ posts while he’s logged in.

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

#26

Post by JohnMakin »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23
JohnMakin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an additional barrier. It also provides the blocking user the ability to block the new account. This isn’t very difficult to think through. And if it’s so easy, why the need for this new “feature” to begin with?

> also provides the blocking user the ability to block the new account. This isn’t very difficult to think through The harasser can view from their new accounts and respond on their main account. Unless someone is very tightly curating their follower list, at which point it doesn't make sense for them to be publicly tweeting, there would be no indication which account was responsible. The problem in harassment is the…

Again, then why the need for this feature if it is so easy to get around a block? A harasser can do many things, but removing a barrier for the person being harassed to mitigate it because… reasons feels very odd to me. Can you explain what this new feature provides legitimate users that doesn’t already exist?

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

#27

Post by silisili »

greatgib wrote: post #18

With that kind of decisions, always assume that there is a hidden agenda. In that case, i could imagine for example that this can be something done to ease a further AI feature. it is almost impossible to train an AI for content with individual customization. So if Y is blocked to see your content, that is impossible to have AI trained on your tweets and still be sure that Y can't get the content of your tweets.

If the previous Elon/X rumors are true(a big if, perhaps), I feel like the hidden agenda here is more likely that someone blocked Musk and Musk is upset that he can no longer see the posts.

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

#28

Post by JumpCrisscross »

JohnMakin wrote: post #26
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> also provides the blocking user the ability to block the new account. This isn’t very difficult to think through The harasser can view from their new accounts and respond on their main account. Unless someone is very tightly curating their follower list, at which point it doesn't make sense for them to be publicly tweeting, there would be no indication which account was responsible. The problem in harassment is the…

Again, then why the need for this feature if it is so easy to get around a block? A harasser can do many things, but removing a barrier for the person being harassed to mitigate it because… reasons feels very odd to me. Can you explain what this new feature provides legitimate users that doesn’t already exist?

> Can you explain what this new feature provides legitimate users that doesn’t already exist?

In America we have case law that prohibits public officials from blocking their constituents from their official accounts [1]. Not every country does.

Also, that ruling doesn't cover material edge cases. Should a public figure be able to block journalists they don't like? Oil companies anyone with an environmental leaning to avoid tipping them off on something they weren't searching for?

We have a media-bubble problem in America that is increasingly defined by partisan lines. From a social utility position, clarifying that public means public strikes me as more important than edge-case harassment concerns. Particularly when the stakes are so low on both sides of the scale (due to the ease with which blocks can be circumvented and the fact that we're dealing with content the speaker has explicilty chosen to make public).

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-611_ap6c.pdf

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

#29

Post by scarlehoff »

moralestapia wrote: post #8

Every change breaks someone's workflow ... The only effective way I've found to stop seeing stuff from people I dgaf in my feed was to block them. I was even considering creating a Github repo. with all the usernames I've been selecting out for years, so that people could easily de-shittify their Twitter feed. The set includes (excludes?): * the most prominent accounts that post political content; no partisan bias, t…

You will still not see them.

If I understood correctly, the change here is that now those hundreds of e-whores and Ian Miles Cheong will be able to see your posts. So blocking is still the right strategy for what you want (for now).

Post reply on HN