I've practically been groveling begging my girlfriend to switch.
Its not that bad just ignore the ads
Yeah I don't go in replies because it's always bots
There's still some things on there
She didn't really catch onto mastodon, discoverability is the problem imo. May try getting her onto bluesky even though it wouldn't be my pick. Some people just like whatever they currently have more than change - which maybe not being able to block like EVERY OTHER media platform may be a big enough change.
Basically nothing I follow is on anything else because they need the numbers. The few people that are just copy their twitter posts and never actually engage.
A lot of people have professional reasons to be on Twitter. If you're trying to promote a business you need to be where the people are and none of the alternatives have anywhere near Twitter's size.
It IS a public forum though. The whole point of it, even dating back to it's inception, was very very public conversation. It was in stark contrast to facebook, which claimed to be privacy driven. As opposed to the mostly public myspace, and the completely public twitter.
Since Musk took it, it’s more like an arena where the loudest and dumbest have the microphones. It is neither a haven for free speech nor a forum where legitimate discourse takes place. It has become the trash pit of the internet.
That's not what was said though. I was saying that it was a PUBLIC forum. I'm not stating WHAT is being said. Merely that it's being said in a public way.
I don't think I would agree that just because something is public that it's a public forum. I feel like the public has to own it as well. I looked it up and maybe it's because I predate social media by rather a lot, but I think of it in the classical sense:
Public forums are typically categorized into three types:
Traditional Public Forums: Long-established spaces like parks or sidewalks, where people have historically exercised their rights to free speech and assembly.
Designated Public Forums: Areas that the government intentionally opens up for public expression, such as town halls or school meeting rooms.
Limited Public Forums: Spaces opened for specific types of discussions or activities but with certain restrictions on the subject matter or participants.
The important factor being public ownership of the forum. I will concede that it has colloquially come to include public social media, but I think it's important to distinguish that it's not really the same thing at all as has been discussed through most of our history.
Food for thought. I just think calling them public forums attaches too much importance to a profit seeking endeavor.
Exactly. You were much more articulate than I, with my comparison, but it was effectively the point I was trying to make — it’s not a public forum at all and it’s now overrun by a cesspool of nonsensical garbage.
City council meetings are public meetings. But if you go in there and start swearing your head off and using the N-word you will be removed because you are distupting the ability of rational people to have a discussion.
Twitter has decided to let these freaks scream their heads off. This disrupting its ability to be used as a public forum. It is no longer a public forum. It’s just 4Chan now. Sane people wanting to have discussions don’t use 4Chan.
I’ve kept my account because it’s a sought after username. Deleting it would allow some grifter to take it over. It also predates both Elmo’s and the original Twitter accounts.
I’ve not posted anything under it since the third party apps were blocked.
You may need gasoline, but you don't need BP's gasoline. By choosing to buy BP's gasoline, you support everything BP has ever done. Don't want to support them, buy different gasoline.
FWIW, I'm not sure if I have a Xitter account or not. I did at one point. Definitely don't remember a password, and I probably used a former email account that I can no longer access either, so no way of recovering it if it still exists. I have a severe lack of fucks to give about it.
But, I am pro-pedantry, and your argument kinda sucked.
I'm so sorry that People hurt you that much on Lemmy. Maybe this place is a bit too "rough" for you but you need to learn that the Internet is no safe space for you. If you feel so triggered maybe you should take longer breaks between using it and see how much you can actually stomach it at once. It's totally okay. No one will judge you, some people can deal better with the "stress" the Internet brings us and some people need to take breaks.
Ah, yes, I'm having a conversation with someone with an opposing viewpoint, so clearly I'm upset. Ya caught me.
Is this some odd debate tactic people use here? Tell people they're upset in the hope it gets them upset? Is emotional and mental stability that unstable on Lemmy? Never thought I'd pine for the reddit days.
If the block feature goes away, I guarantee it will come back for - at the very least - the highest tier of paid accounts almost immediately afterwards.
I can't imagine any of the large corps that still use Xitter for customer communication will be happy not being able to block serial trolls. Or people with legitimate grievances who won't go away.
Could be worse. I never liked the idea of blocking "hiding" your content from other people to begin with. It makes it too easy to give trolls the confirmation they succeeded in getting under your skin, encouraging them to make another account to continue harassing their victim.
I'm pretty sure both the App Store and the Google Play Store both require social media apps to have a block feature. Will be interesting to see what happens if he goes through with this.
The ones who are most vulnerable to this change are the ones who especially should've left this platform already. I'm sorry, but they're not being forced to use it, and everyone should leave it. I don't have much sympathy or care about wanting to make an alt-right social media platform safer, I want it to crash and burn.
A lot of them are in-denial. I've seen them argue that Twitter isn't a Nazi platform and is used by normal people. Serves them right I guess, they were told it was a problem and they didn't want to listen.
The best way to cure network effect is with pain and suffering, and eventual forced deprivation (when the service shuts down).
i seem to remember something similar. and blocking advertisers seems like it should be common law but i guess chrome killing adblockers takes predesence.
Before the musk acquisition I had something like 8,000 people blocked… mostly the inane shit like “Patriot Christian Dog Mom” or incredible douchebags like “dc_draino”.
Remember to contact your political representative and express your concerns on any public organization account having an account on twitter. Also contact any journali of a media you use to read/watch and express the same concern.
Once politics and journalists get out of twitter is game over.
As much as I despise Musk and Twitter and hope that both die a painful death, what is actually proposed here is honestly a change for the better: It’s not about preventing people from blocking users, it’s about blocked users being able to see public posts, which they could also see by just logging out. This is being honest about what a block does and avoids giving people a wrong sense of privacy that they simply don’t have on the platform. From what I’ve heard there is a possibility to post for followers-only which in combination with requiring approval to follow and that isn’t going away here either…
Twitter massively reduced visibility for logged-out users, so just logging out doesn't help, you have to log into a different account. This additional fraction reduces the amount of harassment a lot. Not sure that being "more honest" is worth the price, especially when an info box could achieve the same without making harassment easier.
Twitter massively reduced visibility for logged-out users,
I know, but it still didn’t fully remove it.
Not sure that being “more honest” is worth the price
The thing is that there really is no price, nor was there ever one. Your suggestion that you think there is demonstrates that the way blocking worked gave people dangerously wrong ideas. It’s about being clear to people what they can and cannot expect. Anything else is ACTUALLY dangerous.
Sure, but it doesn't have to be fully removed to have an effect.
The thing is that there really is no price, nor was there ever one. Your suggestion that you think there is demonstrates that the way blocking worked gave people dangerously wrong ideas.
Sorry, but you don't get to redefine how humans work. There is a price, because friction reduces the likelihood of people following through. Removing that friction increases the likelihood of people following through. You might not want to believe this to be the case, but please read studies on the topic - it's just how humans work. You don't get to dismiss negative effects because you don't believe in them.
No, it's not just about stalkers, it's about harassment in general. But even if it were, even stalkers are still people and don't work fundamentally different.
Feel free to show any research proving me wrong, but unless you find any, the reasonable position is "humans work the same on this topic as on others".
I’m not advocating against a seatbelt, I’m advocating against not wearing it, “because I am confident that I can hold on to something in case of a collision” or similar stupid reasons. Expecting that blocking does anything to hide public posts that you can simply open in another browser (or in the same browser in private browsing mode) is not a seatbelt, it is the equivalent of a slightly stronger handle on top of the car window that is being advertized as a feature to protect you in case of an accident.
This change first and foremost makes it clear that that handle does nothing meaningful and that you should wear an actual seatbelt (follower-only posts, ideally with restricted followers) instead, if you are worried about a collision. Twitter is a public forum. You can’t tell people to leave you alone, shout with a megaphone across the marketplace and then be annoyed when they hear you. If you don’t want them to hear you, don’t use a megaphone.
That's the opposite of what's happening. In this case, Musk would have blocked you, and you would want to see his posts (for some reason). You could normally see a user who's blocked your posts by just opening the thread in an incognito tab to view as a logged out user. This just cuts out that step and lets you see the user's posts without doing that.
I agree that X is enemy territory now, but in a world where billionaires can buy up all the major means of communication, it doesn't feel like enough to just close up our accounts and move on. They can follow us wherever our accounts go and buy platforms out from under us. Lemmy and Mastodon are slightly better as open decentralized platforms, but they still could be attacked by Musk if he had the initiative to.
That was the one action I took on Twitter after creating an account before my account got banned.
I needed to create an account to check a local source for updates. So I did. I also decided to look around on Twitter to see what I was "missing". Saw a bunch of Musk stuff and instantly knew I didn't want to see any of it. So I blocked him.
In a few weeks, when I clicked a Twitter link, it said my account had been banned for suspicious activity. It had a secure password and this was its second log-in ever (no posts, comments, reactions, etc).
A friend has told me you can block Elon but his tweets still appear on your timeline as if you haven't. He still uses Twitter and the only way he manages it is by blocking every blue check. He has 28,000 blocked accounts now...
He could simply make his account invulnerable to it if that was his goal, no there's a deeper reason why he's making the change. Likely because he realizes too many people are blocking the alt-right users part of his paying simp army.
Better media and infrastructure support, name recognition, corporate privacy issues instead of no privacy whatsoever, ads, pay-to-win social 'cred' (blue check-mark), an insane leader, and an algorithm controlling your content.
I've come to the conclusion that it never will. Be happy with what it is. It'll slowly grow for a few years, and slowly die at the same time.
What eventually will happen is the fediverse will be so niche that less than 1000 people will use it.
Which is sad because IF it had the userbase, it would last basically forever. Because it can scale, and adapt to a changing world. It can scale itself indefinately as long as there is interest. It has the basic foundation for being able to uproot corporate ownership elsewhere.
But the reason it never will is the same reason Linux never will be even in the same conversation as the dominant operating systems. It's because it's formed niche concepts which confuse the average user. I've been here 5 months, with more posts than most I come into contact with. Yet I still feel like I must not be getting something. It feels off.
It's more than just decentralized. It's fragmented. The people who write the code seem to think that the average person gives two shits about decentralized. They don't. At all. If anything it's a hinderence to them, because it makes things harder to understand.
And THATS the problem. If you call the average person "normies", then you're sending a clear line between them and you. As if they don't belong.
The best way to attract "normies" is to make things easy. Painfully easy. Preschool levels of easy.
My niece has been using an iPad since she was like 2 years old. My sister, who bought the iPad has ZERO clue how to use it.
These are the people who live on this planet.
With both Linux and the fediverse, the same mentality from the creators seems to be in use. "If I had to deal with it being hard, so do you". And that's a deal breaker for the vast majority.
There needs to be a set of standards that ALL fediverse services and instances need to adhere to. It can still be defederated, but it should FEEL unified. That means one set of usernames. It means if you don't like the instance you're on, you can transfer your account. All your settings, all your post history, all your upvotes would come with you. When you're signing up, you get the choice between the default behavior of random home instance. Which would place you on any random instance which accepts public resignation. OR you can choose any instance that will have you.
This would please the idea of no single instance growing too big. While also keeping individual public instances from clumping same minded people, which then introduces different instances all having different personalities. Ideally you want fediverse nuetrality. Just people, all people, on all machines.
But that's why the fediverse won't grow. SOMEONE will come along and say "Well it won't work because...."
To which I say MAKE it work. Otherwise the fediverse won't be attractive to average people. Google looked at linux and said "We'll MAKE it work." And today Android is the most widely used cell phone OS in the world. While traditional linux has less than 5% adoption rate.
Android is something you don't need to explain. It doesn't work like windows. So you can't blame that. It had no preexisting muscle memory, so you can't blame that. They just put it in peoples hands in 2009, and said "This is android. Use it."
And people didn't need to watch tutorial videos. They didn't need to learn new things. They just picked it up, knowing nothing about what a smart phone even was. In those days touch screens were even a novel new concept. And people just got it. They understood right from the start how it worked.
That's what the fediverse needs. Simplicity that doesn't need explaining, and cross adoption. So if you get a Lemmy account, it makes sense to get a pixelfed account instead of an Instgram.
But thats not what the developers of these systems are doing. That's not whats being worked on. It never will. Don't look for it. What we have is what we got. We might get a slight increase in users, but not anything significant. Because there is no unity in the decentralization.
The billionaire this week posted his hoped-for change that “the block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, a public post”.
If I understand the change aright, that's an excellent move in my book.
What it sounds like Twitter is doing now is how Reddit used to work. When you ignore a user, you won't see their responses, but other users can.
Then Reddit changed it to "blocked user cannot respond", which people on Reddit promptly started abusing to, in heated arguments, make a comment and then promptly block the other person, so that it looked like they weren't responding. You wound up with people commenting all over a thread with stuff like "this user blocked me, but here's my response to this other comment". Was one of the several major moves that Reddit made that I think were in error and made me less happy with the site.
Lemmy works the same way Reddit originally did as well; that's how I'd want social media to generally work.
EDIT: It might also be that this is only a partial move in that direction, so that a block prevents a user from responding but not seeing a post. If so, that'd be an improvement, I think, but not as far as I'd like things to change.
There's a huge difference between what a site like Reddit is used for and how Twitter is often used for. Reddit is all about discussion, so blocking discussion is bad (as you pointed out). Twitter is used a little for discussion (their character limit doesn't really allow much discussion), but it's mostly used for informing the world about whatever you are doing or care about. Famous people and companies use it for advertising, and normal people use it for letting people know what's going on in their world. Stalkers can use this information to figure out where people are in the world. Being able to COMPLETELY block a stalker is a good thing. Now people with stalkers will once again be afraid to openly say what they are doing in the world.
But there's nothing to stop a stalker just making another account to follow you if they really want to. I dont see blocking doing much good there as there is no such thing as being able to stop your public posts being viewed, because they're public.
I still think its a bad idea to remove blocking just becuase people want to remove things they dont want to see (like right wing billionaire arseholes) but I dont think giving people a false sense of security is a good reason against it.
I dont see blocking doing much good there as there is no such thing as being able to stop your public posts being viewed, because they're public.
My thoughts as well. Someone dedicated to harassing you isn't going to give up when they get blocked. They'll just make another account and do it again, but now with the knowledge of what gets under your skin.
Sacre bleu! It's almost like the free speech warrior does not know that the other aspect of free speech besides speaking freely is being able to choose whom to listen to! Does he think free speech means being forced to listen to specific people speak?
Journalist James Ball noted that this is not the first time that Musk has made similar threats to reimagine the block function, suggesting it may be a false alarm.
That makes no sense. You can filter them out of your feed pretty easily, but they'll still be able to interact with you and of course bring a lot of new toxic users to you. Your browser can't do anything about that, it's entirely Twitter's side.
Looks like that's basically what's happening now that I looked into it more. Like I believe the "hide" user button is the same (idk I haven't been on the site forever lol), and the block basically blocks interaction but doesn't hide it. Honestly makes sense because you could see the user who blocked you if you simply clicked a thread link in private browsing.
Like if you replied and blocked me on Lemmy, I could still open the thread in incognito or whatever and see the whole public thread but not reply to you. Seems actually reasonable tbh, since the blocker and block-ee doesn't lose or gain anything they couldn't already do already.
That's how Reddit used to work until they made the idiotic change (IMO) to go the other way. A blockee loses the ability to even participate in any thread/post started by the blocker.
For example, after the change if I blocked you now, you wouldn't be able to respond to me or anyone else further down a thread I started.
This is a boon to bullshitters, disinformation campaigns, etc since those people could just post their bullshit and then block anyone who attempted to call them out.
Pretty sure he’s doing this simply because he doesn’t like how many people have blocked him personally
Taylor Swift blocked him and he can't have that
He’s grumpy that she won’t see any additional jokes he makes about impregnating her
JUST. LEAVE. TWITTER.
I've practically been groveling begging my girlfriend to switch.
She didn't really catch onto mastodon, discoverability is the problem imo. May try getting her onto bluesky even though it wouldn't be my pick. Some people just like whatever they currently have more than change - which maybe not being able to block like EVERY OTHER media platform may be a big enough change.
Basically nothing I follow is on anything else because they need the numbers. The few people that are just copy their twitter posts and never actually engage.
Problem is people have gotten used to centralized platforms
A lot of people have professional reasons to be on Twitter. If you're trying to promote a business you need to be where the people are and none of the alternatives have anywhere near Twitter's size.
But ..the porn...
By all means, keep posting and perusing porn on the platform, when that and Elon will be all that's left on Twitter, it'll be ok.
I use to keep in contact with my metal homies. That's about it.
Using a corporate controlled advertising platform sounds like the least metal thing you can do.
If you ever feel like trying Mastodon, https://metalhead.club is the instance you're looking for
It's a win for humanity if it causes more people to leave and stop thinking it's a public forum.
It IS a public forum though. The whole point of it, even dating back to it's inception, was very very public conversation. It was in stark contrast to facebook, which claimed to be privacy driven. As opposed to the mostly public myspace, and the completely public twitter.
Since Musk took it, it’s more like an arena where the loudest and dumbest have the microphones. It is neither a haven for free speech nor a forum where legitimate discourse takes place. It has become the trash pit of the internet.
That's not what was said though. I was saying that it was a PUBLIC forum. I'm not stating WHAT is being said. Merely that it's being said in a public way.
I don't think I would agree that just because something is public that it's a public forum. I feel like the public has to own it as well. I looked it up and maybe it's because I predate social media by rather a lot, but I think of it in the classical sense:
The important factor being public ownership of the forum. I will concede that it has colloquially come to include public social media, but I think it's important to distinguish that it's not really the same thing at all as has been discussed through most of our history.
Food for thought. I just think calling them public forums attaches too much importance to a profit seeking endeavor.
Exactly. You were much more articulate than I, with my comparison, but it was effectively the point I was trying to make — it’s not a public forum at all and it’s now overrun by a cesspool of nonsensical garbage.
City council meetings are public meetings. But if you go in there and start swearing your head off and using the N-word you will be removed because you are distupting the ability of rational people to have a discussion.
Twitter has decided to let these freaks scream their heads off. This disrupting its ability to be used as a public forum. It is no longer a public forum. It’s just 4Chan now. Sane people wanting to have discussions don’t use 4Chan.
Reminder: if you still have an account with that fucko’s service-
You support everthing he does.
I’ve kept my account because it’s a sought after username. Deleting it would allow some grifter to take it over. It also predates both Elmo’s and the original Twitter accounts.
I’ve not posted anything under it since the third party apps were blocked.
Reminder: if you have american citizenship, all support everything those fucko's do
People aren't born on Twitter.
I promise you: you’re not harassing him. You ARE however, supporting him by having an account.
Reminder: if you purchase gas from BP, you support anything they've ever done.
Reminder: if you purchase a smart phone, you support child labor.
I don’t believe I’m entertaining this ridiculous comparison, but….
We NEED gasoline. We NEED telecommunications. You don’t NEED to tweet dumb shit about your breakfast or keep up with sports scores.
You’re here to defend X, therefore you’re defending Elon. That’s how it works. Don’t like it, maybe don’t speak up for him next time.
You may need gasoline, but you don't need BP's gasoline. By choosing to buy BP's gasoline, you support everything BP has ever done. Don't want to support them, buy different gasoline.
FWIW, I'm not sure if I have a Xitter account or not. I did at one point. Definitely don't remember a password, and I probably used a former email account that I can no longer access either, so no way of recovering it if it still exists. I have a severe lack of fucks to give about it.
But, I am pro-pedantry, and your argument kinda sucked.
So you popped in to say that you essentially have nothing to say by supporting a shit tier false equivalence argument. Good for you!
you think people don't need smartphones? do you not have a job?
I'm so sorry that People hurt you that much on Lemmy. Maybe this place is a bit too "rough" for you but you need to learn that the Internet is no safe space for you. If you feel so triggered maybe you should take longer breaks between using it and see how much you can actually stomach it at once. It's totally okay. No one will judge you, some people can deal better with the "stress" the Internet brings us and some people need to take breaks.
If you ever need more help: https://mentalhealthhotline.org/anxiety-hotline/
Take care of yourself and learn what your Body is teaching you!
k.
You seem pretty obviously upset.
Ah, yes, I'm having a conversation with someone with an opposing viewpoint, so clearly I'm upset. Ya caught me.
Is this some odd debate tactic people use here? Tell people they're upset in the hope it gets them upset? Is emotional and mental stability that unstable on Lemmy? Never thought I'd pine for the reddit days.
I never buy gas at BP or Exxon. Ever. Smart phone though? That's required for my job.
If the block feature goes away, I guarantee it will come back for - at the very least - the highest tier of paid accounts almost immediately afterwards.
I can't imagine any of the large corps that still use Xitter for customer communication will be happy not being able to block serial trolls. Or people with legitimate grievances who won't go away.
Could be worse. I never liked the idea of blocking "hiding" your content from other people to begin with. It makes it too easy to give trolls the confirmation they succeeded in getting under your skin, encouraging them to make another account to continue harassing their victim.
Hopefully when Musk does this it will convince my addicted friends to drop the platform when their stalkers can all suddenly contact them again.
Or maybe it’ll get the EU to ban the platform like Brazil did.
I'm pretty sure both the App Store and the Google Play Store both require social media apps to have a block feature. Will be interesting to see what happens if he goes through with this.
Absolutely nothing. Rules on those stores are only for the little guys
He backed down when Brazil blocked him. If Apple and Google decided to threaten to delist Twitter, he'll back down.
The delete account button is still there.
I'd say "for now", but at least we've got the EU protecting us from that possibility.
The ones who are most vulnerable to this change are the ones who especially should've left this platform already. I'm sorry, but they're not being forced to use it, and everyone should leave it. I don't have much sympathy or care about wanting to make an alt-right social media platform safer, I want it to crash and burn.
A lot of them are in-denial. I've seen them argue that Twitter isn't a Nazi platform and is used by normal people. Serves them right I guess, they were told it was a problem and they didn't want to listen.
The best way to cure network effect is with pain and suffering, and eventual forced deprivation (when the service shuts down).
Nice username thats gonna be worth big money some day
Thx I'll sell you it as an nft
"BuT eVeRyOnE iS oN tWitTeR"
And will continue to be so long as everyone keeps showing Elon there is NOTHING he can do, say, or allow that will get people to leave.
I thought Twitter was once forced but a court to enable blocking for all users against all users. Isn't this why we are able to block advertisers?
i seem to remember something similar. and blocking advertisers seems like it should be common law but i guess chrome killing adblockers takes predesence.
Before the musk acquisition I had something like 8,000 people blocked… mostly the inane shit like “Patriot Christian Dog Mom” or incredible douchebags like “dc_draino”.
Remember to contact your political representative and express your concerns on any public organization account having an account on twitter. Also contact any journali of a media you use to read/watch and express the same concern.
Once politics and journalists get out of twitter is game over.
As much as I despise Musk and Twitter and hope that both die a painful death, what is actually proposed here is honestly a change for the better: It’s not about preventing people from blocking users, it’s about blocked users being able to see public posts, which they could also see by just logging out. This is being honest about what a block does and avoids giving people a wrong sense of privacy that they simply don’t have on the platform. From what I’ve heard there is a possibility to post for followers-only which in combination with requiring approval to follow and that isn’t going away here either…
Twitter massively reduced visibility for logged-out users, so just logging out doesn't help, you have to log into a different account. This additional fraction reduces the amount of harassment a lot. Not sure that being "more honest" is worth the price, especially when an info box could achieve the same without making harassment easier.
I know, but it still didn’t fully remove it.
The thing is that there really is no price, nor was there ever one. Your suggestion that you think there is demonstrates that the way blocking worked gave people dangerously wrong ideas. It’s about being clear to people what they can and cannot expect. Anything else is ACTUALLY dangerous.
Sure, but it doesn't have to be fully removed to have an effect.
Sorry, but you don't get to redefine how humans work. There is a price, because friction reduces the likelihood of people following through. Removing that friction increases the likelihood of people following through. You might not want to believe this to be the case, but please read studies on the topic - it's just how humans work. You don't get to dismiss negative effects because you don't believe in them.
The argument here is literally about stalkers. Not about random uninterested people that don’t care.
No, it's not just about stalkers, it's about harassment in general. But even if it were, even stalkers are still people and don't work fundamentally different.
Feel free to show any research proving me wrong, but unless you find any, the reasonable position is "humans work the same on this topic as on others".
Wearing a seatbelt in a moving vehicle does not magically prevent all deaths upon an accident. Do you recommend we should stop wearing seatbelts?
If there are measures in place that reduce the danger of something happening, it's not wise to remove them just because they're not 100% effective.
I’m not advocating against a seatbelt, I’m advocating against not wearing it, “because I am confident that I can hold on to something in case of a collision” or similar stupid reasons. Expecting that blocking does anything to hide public posts that you can simply open in another browser (or in the same browser in private browsing mode) is not a seatbelt, it is the equivalent of a slightly stronger handle on top of the car window that is being advertized as a feature to protect you in case of an accident.
This change first and foremost makes it clear that that handle does nothing meaningful and that you should wear an actual seatbelt (follower-only posts, ideally with restricted followers) instead, if you are worried about a collision. Twitter is a public forum. You can’t tell people to leave you alone, shout with a megaphone across the marketplace and then be annoyed when they hear you. If you don’t want them to hear you, don’t use a megaphone.
Please read again what he changed and then try to figure out why your rationale is clearly not what this is about.
That's the opposite of what's happening. In this case, Musk would have blocked you, and you would want to see his posts (for some reason). You could normally see a user who's blocked your posts by just opening the thread in an incognito tab to view as a logged out user. This just cuts out that step and lets you see the user's posts without doing that.
At this point if you're still on Shitter you kinda deserve whatever you get
I agree that X is enemy territory now, but in a world where billionaires can buy up all the major means of communication, it doesn't feel like enough to just close up our accounts and move on. They can follow us wherever our accounts go and buy platforms out from under us. Lemmy and Mastodon are slightly better as open decentralized platforms, but they still could be attacked by Musk if he had the initiative to.
I'm saying it now: Get an amateur radio license and pay ARRL dues. We're going to need to protect that bandwidth.
People need to get the fuck off twitter.
Why the fuck does elon want to remove the block button on twitter like WHY????
So people can't block him, I imagine.
That was the one action I took on Twitter after creating an account before my account got banned.
I needed to create an account to check a local source for updates. So I did. I also decided to look around on Twitter to see what I was "missing". Saw a bunch of Musk stuff and instantly knew I didn't want to see any of it. So I blocked him.
In a few weeks, when I clicked a Twitter link, it said my account had been banned for suspicious activity. It had a secure password and this was its second log-in ever (no posts, comments, reactions, etc).
Pretty sure you already can't block him specifically, I'm not on Xitter but have heard from several people this is the case.
Nah you can still block him
A friend has told me you can block Elon but his tweets still appear on your timeline as if you haven't. He still uses Twitter and the only way he manages it is by blocking every blue check. He has 28,000 blocked accounts now...
I just deleted the app from my own phone and locked my account, I moved my microblogging activity to Mastodon, and also using Lemmy more and more.
So he can tell women how he will give them babies or horses.
Otherwise how the bullies can continue to belittle the victim behind their backs?
Switching to throwaway accounts is boring
You can always count on this twat to do the dumbest, shittiest thing he can.
I feel Musk is an experiment testing what would happen if you gave an Internet troll of middling intelligence billions of dollars.
I have started to actively avoid brands, journalists etc. who still use Twitter as their primary social media presence.
Meanwhile, everybody will continue to refuse to leave the platform, further showing Elon that there is no price too high for people.
I swear I've read this exact headline a year or so ago already.
He keeps floating it, but hasent done it yet.
They clearly have internal data that top alt right posters are getting blocked too much for Musk's tastes, so here it is again.
Everythings made up, and the headlines don't matter.
I swear sometime he really seems like he is personally trying to kill twitter/x/xitter whatever it’s called.
He could simply make his account invulnerable to it if that was his goal, no there's a deeper reason why he's making the change. Likely because he realizes too many people are blocking the alt-right users part of his paying simp army.
That's a good point. He's probably not smart enough to figure that out.
other than userbase, what does twitter have that mastodon does not have? genuinely curious
Better media and infrastructure support, name recognition, corporate privacy issues instead of no privacy whatsoever, ads, pay-to-win social 'cred' (blue check-mark), an insane leader, and an algorithm controlling your content.
the only positive you've stated lol. man, do I wish the fediverse would take off
Name recognition and privacy are also positives though.
Although they are bad long term. Any platform reaching critical mass is invaded by the corporations, fanatics and propaganda campaigns.
I've come to the conclusion that it never will. Be happy with what it is. It'll slowly grow for a few years, and slowly die at the same time.
What eventually will happen is the fediverse will be so niche that less than 1000 people will use it.
Which is sad because IF it had the userbase, it would last basically forever. Because it can scale, and adapt to a changing world. It can scale itself indefinately as long as there is interest. It has the basic foundation for being able to uproot corporate ownership elsewhere.
But the reason it never will is the same reason Linux never will be even in the same conversation as the dominant operating systems. It's because it's formed niche concepts which confuse the average user. I've been here 5 months, with more posts than most I come into contact with. Yet I still feel like I must not be getting something. It feels off.
It's more than just decentralized. It's fragmented. The people who write the code seem to think that the average person gives two shits about decentralized. They don't. At all. If anything it's a hinderence to them, because it makes things harder to understand.
And THATS the problem. If you call the average person "normies", then you're sending a clear line between them and you. As if they don't belong.
The best way to attract "normies" is to make things easy. Painfully easy. Preschool levels of easy.
My niece has been using an iPad since she was like 2 years old. My sister, who bought the iPad has ZERO clue how to use it.
These are the people who live on this planet.
With both Linux and the fediverse, the same mentality from the creators seems to be in use. "If I had to deal with it being hard, so do you". And that's a deal breaker for the vast majority.
There needs to be a set of standards that ALL fediverse services and instances need to adhere to. It can still be defederated, but it should FEEL unified. That means one set of usernames. It means if you don't like the instance you're on, you can transfer your account. All your settings, all your post history, all your upvotes would come with you. When you're signing up, you get the choice between the default behavior of random home instance. Which would place you on any random instance which accepts public resignation. OR you can choose any instance that will have you.
This would please the idea of no single instance growing too big. While also keeping individual public instances from clumping same minded people, which then introduces different instances all having different personalities. Ideally you want fediverse nuetrality. Just people, all people, on all machines.
But that's why the fediverse won't grow. SOMEONE will come along and say "Well it won't work because...."
To which I say MAKE it work. Otherwise the fediverse won't be attractive to average people. Google looked at linux and said "We'll MAKE it work." And today Android is the most widely used cell phone OS in the world. While traditional linux has less than 5% adoption rate.
Android is something you don't need to explain. It doesn't work like windows. So you can't blame that. It had no preexisting muscle memory, so you can't blame that. They just put it in peoples hands in 2009, and said "This is android. Use it."
And people didn't need to watch tutorial videos. They didn't need to learn new things. They just picked it up, knowing nothing about what a smart phone even was. In those days touch screens were even a novel new concept. And people just got it. They understood right from the start how it worked.
That's what the fediverse needs. Simplicity that doesn't need explaining, and cross adoption. So if you get a Lemmy account, it makes sense to get a pixelfed account instead of an Instgram.
But thats not what the developers of these systems are doing. That's not whats being worked on. It never will. Don't look for it. What we have is what we got. We might get a slight increase in users, but not anything significant. Because there is no unity in the decentralization.
Though that is debatable, given how hard that they've been trying to shed it for the "X" name for ages.
An egotistical twat at the helm.
Shit tons of racists.
Ability to actually find interesting content. I want an algo, but at this point I want more of what Bluesky does but for Mastodon.
good point, I agree.
If I understand the change aright, that's an excellent move in my book.
What it sounds like Twitter is doing now is how Reddit used to work. When you ignore a user, you won't see their responses, but other users can.
Then Reddit changed it to "blocked user cannot respond", which people on Reddit promptly started abusing to, in heated arguments, make a comment and then promptly block the other person, so that it looked like they weren't responding. You wound up with people commenting all over a thread with stuff like "this user blocked me, but here's my response to this other comment". Was one of the several major moves that Reddit made that I think were in error and made me less happy with the site.
Lemmy works the same way Reddit originally did as well; that's how I'd want social media to generally work.
EDIT: It might also be that this is only a partial move in that direction, so that a block prevents a user from responding but not seeing a post. If so, that'd be an improvement, I think, but not as far as I'd like things to change.
There's a huge difference between what a site like Reddit is used for and how Twitter is often used for. Reddit is all about discussion, so blocking discussion is bad (as you pointed out). Twitter is used a little for discussion (their character limit doesn't really allow much discussion), but it's mostly used for informing the world about whatever you are doing or care about. Famous people and companies use it for advertising, and normal people use it for letting people know what's going on in their world. Stalkers can use this information to figure out where people are in the world. Being able to COMPLETELY block a stalker is a good thing. Now people with stalkers will once again be afraid to openly say what they are doing in the world.
But there's nothing to stop a stalker just making another account to follow you if they really want to. I dont see blocking doing much good there as there is no such thing as being able to stop your public posts being viewed, because they're public.
I still think its a bad idea to remove blocking just becuase people want to remove things they dont want to see (like right wing billionaire arseholes) but I dont think giving people a false sense of security is a good reason against it.
My thoughts as well. Someone dedicated to harassing you isn't going to give up when they get blocked. They'll just make another account and do it again, but now with the knowledge of what gets under your skin.
Sacre bleu! It's almost like the free speech warrior does not know that the other aspect of free speech besides speaking freely is being able to choose whom to listen to! Does he think free speech means being forced to listen to specific people speak?
Surprised. Pikachu. Face.
Everthing he does is a win for them.
But I need that to block the 15 bots that follow me each day
But hey, at least we got to sell more ad space by printing another article about it...
lol, what?
Where's the "CALL ME THE MEME LORD" meme
I mean, Twitter's blocking policy goes way too far... but axing them completely? I dunno about that one chief.
Does really seem that stalkers are often overlooked by devs, so it's great to see something that finally caters to them for once. Said no one ever.
But he'll still have a block button. He's a real Republican now.
A browser plugin bringing the functionality back would probably do well.
That makes no sense. You can filter them out of your feed pretty easily, but they'll still be able to interact with you and of course bring a lot of new toxic users to you. Your browser can't do anything about that, it's entirely Twitter's side.
I meant in terms of hiding a particular user.
To me, blocking means "I don't see $". Not "$ doesn't see me". Ad blocking, script blocking, site blocking via DNS, etc is my mental model.
Looks like that's basically what's happening now that I looked into it more. Like I believe the "hide" user button is the same (idk I haven't been on the site forever lol), and the block basically blocks interaction but doesn't hide it. Honestly makes sense because you could see the user who blocked you if you simply clicked a thread link in private browsing.
Like if you replied and blocked me on Lemmy, I could still open the thread in incognito or whatever and see the whole public thread but not reply to you. Seems actually reasonable tbh, since the blocker and block-ee doesn't lose or gain anything they couldn't already do already.
That's how Reddit used to work until they made the idiotic change (IMO) to go the other way. A blockee loses the ability to even participate in any thread/post started by the blocker.
For example, after the change if I blocked you now, you wouldn't be able to respond to me or anyone else further down a thread I started.
This is a boon to bullshitters, disinformation campaigns, etc since those people could just post their bullshit and then block anyone who attempted to call them out.