Support NeoGAF

[DragoonKain]

They announced today they're changing how the block function works. This has been known for a while though it just hasn't been rolled out until it appears starting very soon. When you block someone going forward they can still see your stuff, but they can't interact with you.

People are freaking out about this, because some people block crazy people or stalkers, etc. But blocking someone never prevented someone from reading their stuff. All they need to do is logout or create an alt account. The only true way to prevent specific people from seeing anything you put out there was and remains to make your account private.

So this doesn't change very much. But I think it does do two things that could be a positive.

Would allow people who have been blocked to get important information from accounts like politicians, law enforcement, etc, in the case of emergencies or important events in time.

Would also allow you to be able to see threads of someone who blocked you who's accusing you of something you didn't do, and allow you to report these tweets/threads. You couldn't do that if logged out. I've seen people complain before that some nutter who blocked them was going on some tangent about them, but they couldn't read the full thread or report it.

But overall I don't think it changes much. But people who follow news accounts who've been blocked and have to log out to see if they post breaking news, are the biggest winners here.

 

[Keylime]

Pretty sure the entire block feature change is just so Elon can force everyone to read his bullshit since I imagine he is the most blocked user on the platform.

 

[DragoonKain]

You're thinking of it backwards. This rule would allow people who Elon blocked to still see his stuff. Or Elon to read the stuff of people who blocked him. I don't think it would force people who blocked Elon to see his stuff.

I think the motivation is he wants to go all-in on the "circulation of information" position.

 

[Keylime]

Ah, I see you're right...at least that's the stated way it's supposed to work.

I still submit that somehow Elon's going to fuck with the feature in some way to show up on everyone's feed again.

 

[Hotel Security]

Let us all swear now together to never call it "X." 14-year olds are done thinking that is edgy, Elon.

 

[YCoCg]

Another change is that you can no longer opt out of AI training, it's now a requirement to use the site.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Whole lot of artists about to bail on the site, and the people who follow them.

 

[tamago84]

kinda funny…att dtv acquistion in 2015 was about 48billion to then recently sold at 7.6billion

 

[ManaByte]

Musk is a huge fucking tool and I hope he continues to burn Twitter to the ground.

The blocking change will kill it. Aside from the mass exodus it’s causing now (nearly 2 million to Bsky in the last 24 hours), it’ll get the app delisted by Apple and Google.

 

[ManaByte]

I think the motivation is he wants to go all-in on the "circulation of information" position.

The motivation is people were blocking the accounts spamming ads in their comments.

 

[IntentionalPun]

The blocking change will kill it. Aside from the mass exodus it’s causing now (nearly 2 million to Bsky in the last 24 hours), it’ll get the app delisted by Apple and Google.

Doubtful. Unless you think Discord will get pulled.

Public posts are easily read anyways even without the change. Just… copy paste a link and log out, or log into an alt account.

Plenty of services don’t do the 2 way block thing where you literally can’t see people’s otherwise public stuff, that’s not a rule of any App Store.

The App Store rules concerning this are about the service itself’s ability to block or remove content, not users.

 

[Generic]

They announced today they're changing how the block function works. This has been known for a while though it just hasn't been rolled out until it appears starting very soon. When you block someone going forward they can still see your stuff, but they can't interact with you.

People are freaking out about this, because some people block crazy people or stalkers, etc. But blocking someone never prevented someone from reading their stuff. All they need to do is logout or create an alt account. The only true way to prevent specific people from seeing anything you put out there was and remains to make your account private.

So this doesn't change very much. But I think it does do two things that could be a positive.

Would allow people who have been blocked to get important information from accounts like politicians, law enforcement, etc, in the case of emergencies or important events in time.

Would also allow you to be able to see threads of someone who blocked you who's accusing you of something you didn't do, and allow you to report these tweets/threads. You couldn't do that if logged out. I've seen people complain before that some nutter who blocked them was going on some tangent about them, but they couldn't read the full thread or report it.

But overall I don't think it changes much. But people who follow news accounts who've been blocked and have to log out to see if they post breaking news, are the biggest winners here.

This is so good, a plenty of people blocked me

 

[DragoonKain]

There's not going to be a mass exodus, everyone always says they will leave and no one ever does. The only person who ever did truly leave was Sam Harris and even he admitted on there that he still goes on under a burner to cultivate news for his columns and podcast.

All 29 people on Blue Sky aren't going to be enough to drive it to a thriving platform. No one uses it.

I don't see how the app would be delisted unless they eliminated block entirely. The only difference is literally it removes one step, which is logging out. That's the only difference.

Before the change: if you're blocked, you hit log out, go to the page of the person who blocked you, and you can view their content as much as you want. After the change: you go to their page and can view their content as much as you want. They just removed the logging out step, which is the click of one button that takes one second.

I really think people are making way too big of a deal about this. Either people don't realize that those blocked can still see their stuff by logging out... which I somehow doubt. People are more tech savvy today than ever. Or people don't like Elon because of his politics, and have Elon Derangement Syndrome and just bash every change he makes--which is what I think is really going on here. For the majority of people anyway. I'm not even an Elon apologist. I think he's an interesting guy who has interesting ideas about some things and nutty ideas about other things. I think some of the changes he's made have been good and some have been awful like the check mark system. But this one seems like outrage just for the sake of it. Elon could announce tomorrow that they're changing the post button from blue to green and people would freak out that it looks too much like vomit. People just hate him and want to bitch.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

The motivation is people were blocking the accounts spamming ads in their comments.

the blocking change has no impact on this; it's a change about how people you block can see your posts, but cannot engage with them. If you block someone spamming your comments, they indeed will still no longer be able to engage by commenting. They will only be able to read your posts.

 

[LegendOfKage]

The blocking change will kill it. Aside from the mass exodus it’s causing now (nearly 2 million to Bsky in the last 24 hours), it’ll get the app delisted by Apple and Google.

You really think a blocking change that can be circumvented by logging out, or going into incognito mode is going to get the app delisted? You act like the block function won't work anymore, when in reality it'll work just like it does on this website and countless others. If you block someone, you don't have to see their posts anymore. That's what a block function is supposed to do.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

 

[FunkMiller]

There's not going to be a mass exodus, everyone always says they will leave and no one ever does.

There will only ever be a mass exodus if enough major celebrities, influencers and other major platforms decide to leave it.

...which of course they won't any time soon, because that affects their bottom line. Elon's biggest asset is the greed of other people like him.

 

[HoodWinked]

block functionality has typically been this way where the blocker no longer sees that content, instead of the blockee being restricted.

the people that seemed to abuse the current block functionality was all the pronoun weirdos which reinforced the echo chambers. the problem is the current block functionality is a flawed approach it gives the user a sense of false privacy or protection. Twitter is a public posting site, users shouldn't expect their tweets to be semi private. It's better that users are more discerning about what they are posting publicly.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

It's better that users are more discerning about what they are posting publicly.

 

[WhamBamThankYouMaam]

this is a bit ridiculous; he's still CEO of SpaceX, for example. Every company has delegation structures, but to ignore Musk's track record, or pretend he isn't one of the handful of most influential businessman & tech entrepreneurs of the past century, love him or hate him, doesn't make you a serious person.

He buys concepts and pours money into them. I don’t praise the ceo of Microsoft for changes in the Windows OS either.

 

[YCoCg]

How many of those are bots though? It feels like we've all just sorta gave up and accepted the bots on Twitter now.

 

[GulfCoastZilla]

I mean….play stupid games win stupid prizes.

He can say all he wants about his coded “I did it for the toxic men of the world “ but end of the day he lost billions…..billions.

What a clown

 

[The Stig]

He buys concepts and pours money into them. I don’t praise the ceo of Microsoft for changes in the Windows OS either.

This. 100%

 

[DragoonKain]

block functionality has typically been this way where the blocker no longer sees that content, instead of the blockee being restricted.

the people that seemed to abuse the current block functionality was all the pronoun weirdos which reinforced the echo chambers. the problem is the current block functionality is a flawed approach it gives the user a sense of false privacy or protection. Twitter is a public posting site, users shouldn't expect their tweets to be semi private. It's better that users are more discerning about what they are posting publicly.

I'm sure there are people out there who are simply unaware of how easy it is to circumvent a block by logging out of making a burner. But I honestly do believe a lot of people are just butt hurt that they can no longer get the satisfaction of "Na na na-na-na, you can no longer read my stuff" anymore. All those dorks who used block lists to block like "Anyone who follows Elon Musk because they're bad by association so I must block them!" now have been nerfed. It's kind of funny, actually.

And aside from blocking doing nothing to prevent harassment, given the reason above, how many harassed people even post sensitive/private content publicly anyway?

Look, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I see this as a win. People who were blocked from being able to see news posted by important reporters, insiders, news agencies, etc because the user couldn't handle a modest criticism or some prepubescent intern who was running some news publication's Twitter page decided to block everyone who was critical of an article, now no longer get the satisfaction of being able to block all those people out of getting their content.

That's a win in my book.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

There will only ever be a mass exodus if enough major celebrities, influencers and other major platforms decide to leave it.

...which of course they won't any time soon, because that affects their bottom line. Elon's biggest asset is the greed of other people like him.

This. People are too hooked up on Twitter cocaine to consider anything else, a whole generation believing complex thoughts can be expressed in 140 characters.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Here's what Xitter told the courts:

https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202441/DMA_100041_631.pdf

First, X Holdings Corp. argues that X does not constitute an important gateway for business users to reach end users within the meaning of Article 3(2)(b) of Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 for the following reasons: (i) X is not part of a digital/platform ecosystem, (ii) X operates on a small, decreasing scale, and (iii) X's relative user engagement is low and declining. As regards X's scale, X Holdings Corp. provided data showing that X has fewer end users than any other online social networking CPS already designated under Regulation (EU) 2022/1925. As regards, X's user engagement, X Holdings Corp. submitted data showing that X fares worse than most online social networking services along a number of different engagement metrics ([…]). (2)

 

[Toons]

It's clear -- and was open in his statements about motivation from the beginning -- that making it a cash cow wasn't even one part of the reasoning. He took over Twitter to fight back against the absolutely soul crushing level of censorship and narrative control that it had grown into, coming from combined corporate and governmental sources.

Making it profitable would be a simpleton's game: do what was already being done, submit totally to corporate/regime interests, and the advertising money will flow. Thankfully, he isn't quite that level of simpleton, though I can't say the same for the opening post.

....he literally tried to back out of the deal lmfao

 

[dorkimoe]

spending 2 seconds on twitter and youd realize theyre bots.

I had been on twitter since the beginning, finally deleted the app. I was getting pushed insane stuff i didnt feel like seeing and the ads were just nonstop at this point. he can fuck off with what he did to it.

 

[Toons]

There will only ever be a mass exodus if enough major celebrities, influencers and other major platforms decide to leave it.

...which of course they won't any time soon, because that affects their bottom line. Elon's biggest asset is the greed of other people like him.

Yep. He surrounds himself with people just like him.. having no principles, nothing he won't stoop to, greedy, being ok with lies and misinformation if they benefit from it, etc. My opinion on his character has shifted dramatically since he bought the platform. Especially when he allowed Alex Jones back on the site after explicitly claiming that would never happen.

Eventually the persona of a needy guy who just wants to have fun without restrictions has eroded in the face of a ruthless businessman who plays with other people's lives, emotions, and time like putty in his hand.

 

[moxing]

This is probably gonna be an embarrassingly consumer-level take, but I used Twitter largely to aggregate porn and watch funny animal videos. As often as I could, I would mind my own business, suppress my poster's heart, and just scroll for amusement. But as of late, I find it entirely unusable. One tab uses an algorithm to show me things I might like, while another tab claims to show me the greatest hits of people I actually follow, when what I desperately want is a linear chronological feed of their posts in order, as those posts are made, so I can decide what's a greatest hit and what's not. And because I'm not gonna pay for a blue check on an account with like 180 followers where I don't even post, if I open up a funny animal video too close to the end, it won't loop, it'll shunt me into an ad. The first post in either feed is an ad. I encounter an ad every half-dozen posts or less trying to scroll any form of content delivery that Twitter has to offer right now.

It's such a user-hostile situation to be in that whether I'm a fascist chud or a scolding shitlib, if I haven't given Musk the price of admission I can't use the app for ten minutes without feeling my blood pressure tick up. I mean, for the record, I track closer to shitlib than chud, so if his plan to scare me off the app is what this is all about, I guess it's working? But I'm like the most baseline user ever, minimal interactions, no bans, I just hit like on tiddies and go. If that becomes easier on a different platform, there's nothing for me to do but pack my bags, right?

--Anyway my friends are finally joining Bluesky, so that whole 2 million user surge is something I've seen in action, and it's making the new blue microblogging website pretty fun to be on. I don't know what to make of Twitter anymore, but it doesn't surprise me at all that it's plummeting in value.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

This cannot be grounded in reality though. A social network becomes more valuable as its userbase increases.

If we accept the claim that the platform continues to grow, then it just doesn't make sense for the value of the company to drop so dramatically. That's without taking into account that Musk has cut costs since his take over.

I've seen his stewardship of twitter described as "an unprecedented vaporisation of wealth."

I'm not sure what the equivalent of "go woke, go broke" is, but I assume "go right wing, feel the sting" probably isn't going to take off. But, I wonder if losing $30Bn will be the biggest of these sorts of thing for a while.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

....he literally tried to back out of the deal lmfao

because it was overvalued dramatically -- an enormous portion of the user numbers and value quoted before his initial offer were found to be bots. And yet, despite not knowing any of this history, you decide to weigh in. If you'd spend more time on a realtime social network like Twitter/X you might actually have seen the entire sequence of events and not the simplified bit you're running on.

 

[Bashtee]

Fun fact, he played Elden Ring during the night before he decided to buy.

Decided? Wasn't he forced because of his shit posts on Twitter about buying them?

Pretty sure the entire block feature change is just so Elon can force everyone to read his bullshit since I imagine he is the most blocked user on the platform.

100%. He was the first person I had to block ever after the takeover, because every fucking post he made landed on my trending page. After the layoffs, clicking on some links or images opened a positive article about him on the iOS app. It was so stupid.

There's not going to be a mass exodus, everyone always says they will leave and no one ever does. [...] People just hate him and want to bitch.

Twitter is fucked. There are so many bot accounts and replies, it's insane. Adding ad revenue probably made it worse compared to other platforms. Between crypto scams and dropshipping ads, the quality dropped significantly.
And Elon Musk did everything he could to prove that he is a massive asshat who likes to fuck around. Literally.

 

[n0razi]

It's clear -- and was open in his statements about motivation from the beginning -- that making it a cash cow wasn't even one part of the reasoning. He took over Twitter to fight back against the absolutely soul crushing level of censorship and narrative control that it had grown into, coming from combined corporate and governmental sources.

Making it profitable would be a simpleton's game: do what was already being done, submit totally to corporate/regime interests, and the advertising money will flow. Thankfully, he isn't quite that level of simpleton, though I can't say the same for the opening post.

Gotta disagree... if anything its doing the opposite: showing how unfettered deregulation leads to an absolute shit show and kills any value.

 

[nkarafo]

He made it better though. That's what counts. I'm sure he still has enough money to live in luxury for his next 1000+ lives.

 

[nkarafo]

I don’t agree with him on everything (the verboten P word especially)

There are at least 5 "p-words". Which is the verboten one?

Sorry, i'm from Greece, i can't keep up with all the verboten English words.

 

[GeorgioCostanzaX]

There are at least 5 "p-words". Which is the verboten one?

Sorry, i'm from Greece, i can't keep up with all the verboten English words.

Just banned here starts with Poli rhymes with sticks.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

He made it better though.

Nah.

 

[ManaByte]

 

[Jaybe]

Decided? Wasn't he forced because of his shit posts on Twitter about buying them?

He was recruited to be on Twitter’s board but decided simply being in the board wouldn’t drive the change he wanted to see at the company.

 

[Toons]

because it was overvalued dramatically -- an enormous portion of the user numbers and value quoted before his initial offer were found to be bots.

And yet, despite not knowing any of this history, you decide to weigh in.

Kinda like elon musk when he made moves to buy Twitter? You have to see the irony here.

I mean clearly he wasn't aware of the large presence of bot accounts before doing so. Maybe this was because he didn't have any real plan for how o go about this and it was an ego trip for him and not some moral imperative you(and he) are trying to claim it as?

 

[Dirk Benedict]

There will only ever be a mass exodus if enough major celebrities, influencers and other major platforms decide to leave it.

...which of course they won't any time soon, because that affects their bottom line. Elon's biggest asset is the greed of other people like him.

Nah... More and more people are starting not to give a FUCK about those people, the Celebrities... I am one of those people.

 

[Zathalus]

Twitter has basically devolved into a hub of misinformation and bots. Any value it might have had is long gone. Turns out that having a platform with near zero moderation and anonymity leads to an utter shitshow. Who knew? Other then basically every forum owner or moderator ever.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

He was recruited to be on Twitter’s board but decided simply being in the board wouldn’t drive the change he wanted to see at the company.

Not wishing to be rude, but come on.

Musk loved twitter, loads of people did. The idea that he stepped in with the image of the company as it is now in mind is just absurd.

"I want to see thousands... no, millions of bots, ads from drop shipping companies, and wipe out AT LEAST 75% of the company's value." (Cheers from sycophants).

Obviously nonsense.

The whole thing is what happens when someone buys a business, doesn't really understand it outside of their experience of it as a consumer and thinks that they know best.

Now that he is failing with this business, Musk is presumably trying to find an explanation that fits the current state of it as a desirable one to try and save face in interviews and media appearances.

 

[Tomeru]

Whats the split of information/misinformation on twitter?

 

[T-0800]

because it was overvalued dramatically --

Sure was and he fixed that.

 

[ManaByte]

deeb (@deeb.bsky.social)

I wonder what’s going on over at Twitter? Hey, it’s a thread of bots with blue checks explaining networking hardware to each other. This is normal and not weird at all.

bsky.app

 

[Lux77]

X is more relevant then ever. You can see lots of stuff there you don't find in MSM. If there is stuff you don't like, doesn't mean its misinformation by default.
But of course you need to check sources and use a bit of skepticism like everywhere.

 

[Clear]

I remain mystified by anyone arguing that Twitter under Jack Dorsey wasn't more toxic than present day X.

Personally I'd like to see all these big social networks removed from the internet, they disgust me honestly.
So singling out X as being especially "evil" just strikes me as product of political bias/personal animus.

 

[StueyDuck]

The hypocrisy of social media is always a funny one. "X is for smelly doo doo heads". Yet they themselves will be the ones who are using X.

Pro advice, dump it all, it's all shit and unnecessary, do yourself a favor.

There's no magic alternative, it's just the same shitty people on an app with a different icon.