X (Twitter) owner Elon Musk today said the option to block other users on Twitter “makes no sense,” and it is going to be “deleted as a feature” in the future.
Block is going to be deleted as a “feature”, except for DMs
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023
Musk was responding to a user that asked “Is there ever a reason to block vs mute someone? Give your reasons.” Mute and block, while sounding similar, are actually different features on Twitter. Whereas mute prevents you from seeing content from another Twitter user, blocking another user prevents them from seeing your content, following you, and interacting with you.
According to Musk, muting will be the sole way to filter content on Twitter in the future, though blocking will still be available for direct messages.
It is not clear if Musk will follow through on plans to remove the blocking feature, as the comments have received quite a bit of backlash from users. As pointed out by X users in “added context”:
If the ability to block users was to be removed, X would be in violation of the policies of the App Store as well as the Google Play Store. Potentially, this could lead to X being removed from these platforms. There are no such policies for the web-app however.
