Elon Musks Triggers Backlash After Plans To Remove Twitter’s Block Button

By Mayowa Oladeji On Aug 18, 2023

Elon Musk announced Friday that Twitter will soon remove the “block” option for everything except direct messages, igniting intense debate on the social media platform.

Musk paid $44 billion to acquire Twitter last year and has since made significant changes to the platform, including changing its iconic name to “X.”

The news came in response to a tweet from the Telsa Owners Silicon Valley account, which asked if there was ever a reason to block someone instead of using the mute feature. When someone is blocked, they can’t read your tweets. When muted, they can still see your tweets, but their tweets won’t show up in your feed.

Block is going to be deleted as a “feature”, except for DMs

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023

Removing the “block” option on Twitter will leave users with only the option to mute harmful content, meaning trolls and online bullies could still comment on users’ posts for all to see; several Twitter users quickly made their disapproval of the new policy known.

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey added his support to removing the block feature in favor of just letting users mute other accounts if desired. “Mute only,” Dorsey replied, along with the “100” emoji signaling approval.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/1692583743884509668?t=XcUHuCcIcodavB6WL9NMpw&s=19

However, Dorsey was in the minority. By and large, Twitter users have pushed back against Musk’s plan—even users who have typically supported him in the past. Detractors believe that removing the feature will cause harm to users who rely on it to keep abusive tweets from hitting their feeds.