X starts the rollout of update that renders blocking near-pointless

Back in September, Elon Musk announced upcoming changes to the blocking feature of X. Once fully implemented, the change means that when an X user blocks someone, that blocked user will still be able to see all of the content posted by the blocker, although no interaction will be possible.

The precise reasons for changing the functionality of blocking in this way is not really clear, but it is something that has sparked concern. In addition to risks to privacy, there are also worries about what the changes could mean for victims of cyber-stalking.

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The change means that blocking a user no longer does what most people would expect it to do. Of course, even when the blocking function worked as expected, there was nothing to stop a blocked user from using another account to view the posts of someone who had blocked them. But even this minor speed bump offered a degree of protection thanks to the (slight) inconvenience.

This safeguard, however small, is being stripped away. Musk said several weeks ago that it was “high time this happened”, clarifying that “the block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public posts”.

As per a post from the X engineering team, this change to functionality is now in the process of rolling out:

There is no information about how long the rollout will take, or how it is being approached. Whether the changes are being introduced country by country or in some other way is not clear, but we do know that the block function has already become less useful for many people, and this will soon be the case for all users of X.

Image credit: L9871456 / Dreamstime.com