Twitter backtracks on ‘block’ functionality changes

Following a revolt by its users Twitter was today forced to backtrack on some changes to 'block' functionality yesterday.

"Earlier today, we made a change to the way the ''block'' function of Twitter works. 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 its  blog.

Under the new rules effective today, a blocked user can still view or tweet at the person who blocked him or her, but that activity would not be visible to the victim as if the offending account did not exist.

Twitter said yesterday that the change was meant to protect victims of harassment who wanted to block offensive messages but feared that the act of blocking a user would lead to retaliation. However, following protests by users who said the new policy empowered perpetrators of online abuse, Twitter reverted the changes.

In its blog, Twitter said that users would be able to tell once again that they had 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," it said.

According to commentators, the change that led to the uproar actually eliminated the ability to truly block another user's account. Instead, ''blocked'' users would just be muted or removed from users' view, which left the previously blocked users free to retweet, ridicule, harass, annoy, irritate, reply, and favorite anything sent from a public Twitter account on which they had previously been blocked.

The method was not without its own merit though, in that it eliminated blocked users from knowing they had been blocked while relieved people from harassment through a dozen or more dummy accounts in retaliation (aka trolling). It also did away with the false sense of security that the accounts users had blocked were unable to see anything they had tweeted publicly.

The down side was that for years people had, actually blocked people they did not want from interacting with them. With ''blocked'' changing to ''muted'', the change meant Twitter had given a long rope to people that users did not wish to interact with.