Harassment on X Just Got a Lot Worse

Issue #282 | Oct. 17, 2024

This week, X confirmed that major changes are coming to the block feature, leading many content creators and large accounts to question their use of the platform. These changes were previously announced by Elon Musk.

Beginning “soon,” blocking someone on X will no longer actually block them from seeing your posts. Blocked users will now be able to read and consume posts from users who have blocked them, though they’re prevented from directly engaging. They can, however, respond to other people’s comments in the replies. Previously, when a user was blocked it prevented them from even seeing tweets from the person who blocked them.

Despite Musk posting that he “will do whatever it takes for X to be the best platform for creators!” this change will harm those with large audiences by endangering their safety, giving them less control over their online experience, and exposing them to more hate and harassment.

Many women online who have dealt with stalking and harassment posted that they planned to set their accounts to private in order to protect themselves, thereby forcibly limiting their reach on the platform.

“It makes me not want to be as active on Twitter. I’ve started posting more on Threads,” Stanzi Potenza, a comedic content creator with over 4 million followers on TikTok, told Passionfruit. “I feel like Twitter has become kind of like an increasingly unsafe platform.”

Qasim Rashid, a lawyer, content creator and podcaster with over 343,000 followers on Twitter said, “As someone who regularly gets death threats on Twitter, and as someone who has had to testify in federal court to help convict someone who threatened to kill me on Twitter… I think this is a dangerous and terrible idea.”

Hassan Khadair, a comedy and commentary YouTuber with nearly 3 million subscribers, said this change could be the thing that finally gets him and other creators to abandon X. Khadair said he was recently involved in a controversy with another big creator, which has resulted in a massive swarm of hate.

“When people are saying things that are just abjectly abhorrent and disgusting and horrible, I want to block them, and I want them to be as far away from me and my community as possible,” he said.

These changes X is making to the block feature will only make it hard for larger creators to engage on the app. “This is going to give [trolls and bad actors] new ways to create posts about you and to create their own avenues to sow discourse and deceit about you,” Khadair said. “I think I will probably deactivate my Twitter account following this.”

– Taylor Lorenz, Passionfruit Contributor

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IN THE BIZ

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