Twitter Reverts to Old Blocking Policy
Wel lthat was not long till Twitter changed its mind and reversed the new blocking rules. Twitter had blown up in disgust over the changes, and a change.org petition had poped up within ours.
“We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users — we never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe. Any blocks you had previously instituted are still in effect,” Twitter said in a company blog post.
In reverting this change to the block function, users will once again be able to tell that they’ve been blocked. We believe this is not ideal, largely due to the retaliation against blocking users by blocked users (and sometimes their friends) that often occurs. Some users worry just as much about post-blocking retaliation as they do about pre-blocking abuse. Moving forward, we will continue to explore features designed to protect users from abuse and prevent retaliation.
The revised policy stated that blocking another user from a public account “does not prevent that user from following you, interacting with your Tweets, or receiving your updates in their timeline.” Everyone had been using the example of a stalker looking at everything they tweeted. The critics of the change appear to have one for the time being, and will get to prevent people from viewing their tweets with one easy button push. Are you glad Twitter reverse the policy? Tell us in the comments below!