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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

#321

Post by zerocrates »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99
simion314 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Was he complaining about bots before he signed? Genuinely can't remember. I can't google it for you, so from my memory , he complained that he was tricked by Twitter because a large number of users are bots , and then he promised that he will fix this issue after he get's the control. Probably bots and trolls are good for business since other social media like reddit are also making super easy to create tons of bot/…

> he complained that he was tricked by Twitter because a large number of users are bots , and then he promised that he will fix this issue after he get's the control How making a noise about it after the price is agreed be “an attempt to get a discount”? If anything, it was an attempt to get out of the deal. (And if I remember correctly, the argument failed because he had been complaining about bots prior to signing.…

Well, during that time he was trying to pull out of the deal, when he was citing the bots as an argument of why he should be able to, he was using that as leverage to try to get Twitter to agree to give him a discount: the idea being "I might be able to get out of this deal completely, but let me buy at a 20-30% discount instead and I'll go quietly." So it was kind of both an attempt to get out and an attempt to get a discount.

The bot stuff was pretty transparently not a good faith argument from Musk; the real issue likely being more that the markets had gone down since the offer and what was already an overpay on day 1 was now a big overpay. The same dynamic made Twitter determined to keep the original offer: shareholders had basically demanded to take the offer to begin with, and with the down market (not to mention Musk himself publicly running the company down during his efforts to escape the deal) it was just that much more of a better deal than they could otherwise hope to get.

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

#322

Post by vasco »

WA wrote: post #317
MintPaw wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the case a few years ago, now there's an AI system that decides if you're allowed to view it or if you have to sign in.

"AI system"? I think it’s if Referer != ''

"AI supported by expertly crafted heuristics for the edge cases" would be the slide title for the investor pitch deck about this if condition.

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

#323

Post by Jare »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #293
zzo38computer wrote: post #278

I do not use The X Formerly Known As Twitter, but if I write a message that is intended to be public (regardless of what service it is on), I would intend that people I had blocked are still able to see the message (and make copies of it) if they wish; I would block them because I don't want to see their messages and I do not want to allow them to send messages to me. I would also not want the number of users who blo…

This. There is no such thing as blocked on a public platform. Everyone has always known viewing the site incognito allows you to see blocked content.

If something remains possible but with a little friction, a lot (not all, but a lot) of it actually stops happening.

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

#324

Post by Mashimo »

zzo38computer wrote: post #278

I do not use The X Formerly Known As Twitter, but if I write a message that is intended to be public (regardless of what service it is on), I would intend that people I had blocked are still able to see the message (and make copies of it) if they wish; I would block them because I don't want to see their messages and I do not want to allow them to send messages to me. I would also not want the number of users who blo…

Reddit does it similar. When someone blocks you, you can't see their comments. You can't even respond to other people who wrote on your threads.

For example if you would block someone, they could not reply on this/my post here, because it's based on yours.

Helps things from escalating I guess.

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

#325

Post by pjerem »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #177
Jordrok wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of blocking is to prevent harassment, no? Hiding the blocker's posts from the blockee puts up an additional barrier to interaction. Even if it can be circumvented, it still requires some effort and may dissuade the person from continuing the harassment. There is a reason why this is the standard implementation for almost every social media site, and petulance has nothing to do with it.

I would say that the point of blocking is to prevent someone from contacting you. Not to prevent harassment.

The point is that contacting you isn’t always needed to harass you if the opponent have enough influence (or bots under his control) to harass you with its minions.

Of course it could be bypassed but it requires effort and most harassers are in fact pretty stupid people who just happen to have an influence over a group of people as stupid as them.

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

#326

Post by renewiltord »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #314

Bluesky's Twitter account is appropriately crowing about their superior blocking features: https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1838292181909672312 : > damn that's crazy. Anyway on bluesky, users have named the blocking function "the nuclear block" because it's such a powerful tool to reduce harassment and dogpiling. You should have control over your experience online.

Bluesky is fortunately a honeypot where crazy people all flocked to so that they could post predictions on when Twitter would collapse (highest option: 2 weeks). I think the most effective tool on bluesky is being on bluesky so no one can read what one says because you’re constantly blocking each other even though everyone’s got the same views.

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

#327

Post by dwoldrich »

daveguy wrote: post #234
dwoldrich wrote: post #189

I wonder how long until X is profitable, and I worry my Elon-hating friend will lose his mind when it happens. The hatred for Elon and Twitter/X, etc took me completely off guard the same way "Kids in Cages" did. I thought, "Where is all this spitting rage for Elon coming from? I thought he was the green energy guy, SpaceX is so cool." I'd love to know where the "Kids in Cages" OP got started and where the evacuate t…

That particular phrase is related to the separation of immigrant children from their families during the Trump administration. Previously children were only put in custody if they were unaccompanied. The Trump admin did it to all families crossing. In separating kids from parents they were also unable to reunite hundreds of families.

I only brought up the "Kids in Cages" meme thing because it was one of those stories my news feed did not feature at all. So I was interested in where people get those sorts of charged news items from because I'd like to learn how these operations unfold. My reaction once I understood the issue was, "what if the 'family members' of the kids were human traffickers? Maybe that was the reason for the policy change to allow border control to try and identify if they were really family?" That was extremely triggering and rage-inducing to my friend. I concluded there was more conditioning to that psyop that I wasn't privy to that I was tripping all over.

Things are 10x worse for kids at the border today, but my friend is oblivious to it since Biden came to power. I've been patiently waiting for the rage and concern to resurface.

Similarly the escape to Mastadon was like a herd thing that I had no exposure to, and I was interested in what influencer or subreddit got that ball rolling. I'd like to lurk and learn, and I feel like not knowing is a huge blind spot for me.

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

#328

Post by brianmurphy »

dangerwill wrote: post #138

My bet for the real reason for this is that it has been widely reported that Twitter artificially boosts Elon's account specifically. Many people noticed when they did this that his posts showed up in their feeds despite them not following his account. I bet this led to a massive wave of people blocking his account (it's as easy to block as it is to mute). And this population of users eventually got big enough for hi…

Elon is not getting an artificial boost. The people reporting about Elon's posts being artificially boosted either don't know how X's features work or they are engagement-farming for clicks.

X has two user feeds controlled by tabs at the top of the screen. The "For You" feed is the algorithm recommending high engagement posts to you. This is mostly accounts you follow but it's also highly interacted with posts. Love him or hate him, Elon's posts get massive engagement so naturally it gets recommended a lot.

Even if you have never personally engaged Elon's account, if the algorithm sees the people you follow have engaged with a post, it will be put into your "For You" feed. Same is true of posts from any user. This is not something specific to Elon.

The other feed, the "Following" tab contains content from only the people you follow. The "Following" feed is also chronological which is super nice and a rarity in today's algorithm driven social media world.

So if you're seeing random posts, chances are you're reading the algorithm feed, not your Following feed.

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

#329

Post by bitcharmer »

h1fra wrote: 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.

I don't understand. Having someone blocked prevents them from interacting with you, no?

So what harassment are you referring to?

Also, most of the time blocking is being done by people who spew hateful or misinforming content and then immediately go private the moment they get called out. This happens every day.

This is a good change

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