Elon Musk set to Remove Block feature

Is this a return to the Wild West era of the Internet?

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What happens when people can no longer prevent stalkers from posting under their tweets?

Recently, Elon Musk implemented impressions as the way to make ad revenue on X formerly known as Twitter. This might have something to do with why Elon Musk is proposing to remove the block feature; getting impressions and thus getting advertisement money. But is that worth the high risk of threatening public safety online, especially that of children who use the site?

Blocking is a feature across all social media utilized to maintain a sense of peace in one’s own world away from stalkers, spammers, bots and even people who are just annoying. X (Formerly known as Twitter) is going to be the first social media to remove such a universally used feature.

X is a website where children are actively using the site with no ID verification. Trafficking including posting nudes of minors or minors posting nudes of themselves (As they cannot consent under the age of 18 to post nudes under federal law in the United States) is still a possibility on Twitter due to the lack of age verification or ID verification.

There are also consequences not only for adults but for children that cannot block potential predators on their X profiles. Is that really supporting free speech or does it encourage the violation of it, especially for children?

Social commentary Youtuber Shoe0nhead commenting on the issues with minors on X with removing the block feature.

The first amendment protects American’s free speech until you do something that can take away someone else’s right to it. Examples of this are defamatory speech, threats of violence, harassment (i.e. getting a restraining order to prevent someone from speaking to or about you), fraud, child pornography, obscenity, and incitement of lawbreaking.

By removing the block button it will encourage harassment not only of adults and public figures who are known to be targeted -even by political terrorist groups such as Antifa who have been known to have many instances of violence against their political opponents and getting people fired from their jobs for their “political opinions”, but also you take away human rights of children by enabling predators to interact with them. Children have the right to a healthy and safe life in America.

Right now, X recently made the change that you can no longer view profiles in an incognito tab or logged out which has encouraged a lot of users to make alt accounts.

A few months back it was possible to view someone’s account with one click of a button and go in incognito. As X is now, having to make an alternative account serves as “Creating friction” to discourage people you do not want viewing your page.

Creating friction is one of the keys to the internets success. Back in the day in the early 2000s payment processors didn’t save your information making checking out more of a pain and thus less people bought the products. Companies like Paypal revolutionized the internet and brought a lot of money to it because you no longer had to run to get your credit card to buy something and enter the same information repeatedly.

The difference between how X was a few months ago with viewing someone’s page in an incognito tab and not having a blocking feature is that you still can interact with the person’s account directly from you main account with a following.

Recently, a homeowner in Atlanta was arrested after trying to evict squatters from his own property. X is doing something similar by removing the block feature; you are unable to kick people out of your digital home and are forced to live with the homeless squatters of the internet. Allowing strangers to squat with your children in their online space is a risk that might not be worth it. Kicking people off of your page isn’t a censorship issue because freedom of association is a right that is part of free speech.

ID verification could help against this however; losing anonymity has it’s own consequences for freedom of speech. Cancel culture has gotten many people falsely swatted, doxxed, fired and even banned from websites necessary for their jobs i.e. suspended from paypal, getting easy access to the news (necessary for a lot of freelancers online), or how Youtubers primarily can only get ahold of Youtube staff to resolve their account issues via X. It’s not just Youtube; other companies operate this way too.

The potential of losing your job or access to customer service for necessary platforms has discouraged people from saying their actual opinions online in fear of being removed from the site thus limiting their speech and resorting to anonymity.

There is also a loss of access to certain news which is necessary to be informed on what politicians are doing that are not as readily accessible otherwise in this new age of Aquarius with technology being the main form of communications.

There have been discussions to remove anonymity such as Jordan Peterson’s take on it discussing the consequences of anonymous users being that the are more likely to do morally bad things when nobody knows who they are.

This is true, however, removing anonymity would result in a loss of opportunity and information which the internet has established it’s appeal on being like the wild west back in the early 2000s and 2010s when the internet was more dangerous but more fun. It’s not just a utility and human rights issue, but also we have the right to have fun on the internet (So long as nobody is getting hurt). We would not have the meme culture that we do now without internet anonymity.

So what happens now? If accounts are unable to block we can expect to see a rise in fun but also in harassment, predation, swatting, doxxing (revealing address or other personal information maliciously), stalking, and a decline in mental wellness because not everyone can handle that much stress online from not just trolls but actual attempts to ruin their livelihoods and access to the internet. Not everyone wants to be a public figure to sign up for that chaos.

We can also expect to see a lot of alt accounts being abandoned as a lot of them are only created to keep tabs on people that have them blocked on their main X accounts. Having millions of inactive users could influence how much advertisers want to pay and thus potentially causing a loss in money for not only Elon Musk but other “Influencers” on the platform. This isn’t just an issue for the thin skinned but also an issue of protecting the rights of people and children.

X is a work in progress and has improved in some aspects in terms of censorship compared to legacy Twitter but there is much work to do including on the issue of shadow banning. If people can no longer block, what would be the purpose of keeping users in the dark?

Speaking from experience, I’m going to quote myself as an online creator, and say

“My own Twitter account and many others are shadow banned, unable to get impressions and amplify messaging that can help people or bring awareness to important issues.”

My own mutuals can’t find my account when they search my name or even add me to group messaging for podcasts like Simpcast on stand up comedian Chrissie Mayr’s channel.

For users like me, our accounts are disabled from turning off the “Mark as sensitive” feature from legacy Twitter staff -causing every image to be blocked and appear as “Sensitive”.

If Elon Musk is worried about ad revenue and that is the true motivation to remove the block feature, perhaps he should turn his attention to the censorship going on X preventing viewership and discourse via shadow ban. This would make users of Twitter a lot happier and increase the usage of app.

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This is my first article but as someone who has been in the trenches of the internet as a Youtuber and online forums for over a decade, I thought I would share my 2 cents.

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