You may have blocked someone on X but now they can see your public posts anyway

Elon Musk’s X has been modified in order that accounts you’ve blocked on the social media platform can nonetheless see your public posts.

X up to date its Assist Heart web page over the weekend to clarify how blocking now works on the positioning. When you can nonetheless block accounts, these accounts will now be capable of see your posts until you have got made your account personal. They will not, nonetheless, be capable of reply to them or repost them. Blocked accounts additionally will not be capable of comply with you and you will not be capable of comply with them, as has been the case earlier than the coverage change.

As well as, if the proprietor of an account you blocked visits your profile on X, they’ll be capable of be taught that you’ve got blocked them.

X indicated that the change was geared toward defending customers who’ve been blocked.

In a submit on its Engineering account on the service, X stated the blocking characteristic “can be utilized by customers to share and conceal dangerous or personal details about these they’ve blocked. Customers will be capable of see if such conduct happens with this replace, permitting for larger transparency.”

However critics say the modifications may hurt victims and survivors of abuse, as an illustration. Thomas Ristenpart, professor of pc safety at Cornell Tech and co-founder of the Clinic to Finish Tech Abuse, stated it may be essential for the protection of survivors of intimate-partner violence to have the ability to management who sees their posts.

“We frequently hear experiences about posts to social media enabling abusers to stalk them or triggering additional harassment,” he stated. “Eradicating customers’ means to dam problematic people can be an enormous step backwards for survivor security.”

Since he took over the previous Twitter in 2022, Musk has loosened insurance policies the platform had put in place to clamp down on hate and harassment. In strikes usually stated to be made within the title of free speech, he dismantled the corporate’s Belief and Security advisory group and restored accounts that have been beforehand banned for hate speech, harassment and spreading misinformation. When a nonprofit analysis group documented an increase of hate speech on the platform, X sued them. The lawsuit was dismissed.