Has Twitter become better or worse since Musk controlled it?

[Takhisis]

There's no point in trying to bend over backwards giving them the benefit of the doubt

I'm not giving Manfred the benefit of any doubt. I'm posting for those who might.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

What "benefit of the doubt" is required? A couple of factual claims were made that I question the logic of. I didn't even say they were necessarily wrong, I just said explain to me why they're right. It's not even possible to back up factual claims that were made without discussing my personal "feelings" as if I'm not even here?

The claim was made that the changes to the block rule will make it harder to avoid seeing comments and content that you don't want to see. Can this statement be defended or not? If it can, what is the obstacle to just doing so?

 

[Gorbles]

The claim was made that the changes to the block rule will make it harder to avoid seeing comments and content that you don't want to see. Can this statement be defended or not? If it can, what is the obstacle to just doing so?

The claim was made, and evidenced, that the block function will be removed.

You claimed that it is instead being modified. For the second time of asking, care to provide a source?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

As for the other aspect, I would say that if you genuinely thought that it wasn't possible for basically anyone in the world with internet access to view the things you post on a public twitter account, then you'll probably be safer than before once that gets made explicit to you. If anything the change is just going to remove the illusion of privacy that you may have been falsely operating under. You could only ever block accounts, not people.

Whether or not I "care" about that is neither here nor there of course, nor even that it's me saying it, it's just how things are.

 

[GenMarshall]

It's hard not to remember exchanges like these whenever the "bad faith" accusations get thrown around. This is genuinely ridiculous behaviour.

What "benefit of the doubt" is required? A couple of factual claims were made that I question the logic of. I didn't even say they were necessarily wrong, I just said explain to me why they're right. It's not even possible to back up factual claims that were made without discussing my personal "feelings" as if I'm not even here?

This is what irks me about accusations of being “bad faith” and the oh so classic “it’s not my job to educate you”. It’s a good way to push people away from your position, especially moderate and centrist normies. The “not giving the benefit of the doubt” is really egregious as it lines up with the whole “guilty until proven innocent” mindset.

It’s these attitudes prevalent here is why I don’t engage with leftist on this board and anywhere else.

 

[Gorbles]

As for the other aspect, I would say that if you genuinely thought that it wasn't possible for basically anyone in the world with internet access to view the things you post on a public twitter account, then you'll probably be safer than before once that gets made explicit to you. If anything the change is just going to remove the illusion of privacy that you may have been falsely operating under. You could only ever block accounts, not people.

It was in fact very difficult because some time ago Elon made a change that limits visibility of Twitter if you're not logged in. If you're logged in, the block is in effect.

So, to recap, you're:

1. Refusing to provide a source for your claim.
2. Using everybody elses' confusion at this uncited claim as evidence of "bad faith" and other such logical faults.
3. Getting basic knowledge r.e. Twitter wrong along the way.

You're also ignoring my repeatedly neutral posts asking for clarification, but it felt self-serving to include that in the list.

Well, I tried.

Maybe somebody else can provide a source, and then providing Elon doesn't roll back the change because it inconveniences a right-wing friend or similar, we can all update what we know about Twitter removing the block function.

[snip]Moderator Action: Bickering edited out. Birdjaguar

 

[Cloud_Strife]

You're so right @GenMarshall minorities should be constantly willing to educate people on their plight, even if said people have made it clear that they don't actually care nor have their interests in mind, we're living encyclopedias for people like you

 

[Gorbles]

My favourite thing about telling people it's my job to educate them is how they definitely don't take it as condescending when I do so.

It's almost like that entire construct is designed by conservatives to be a lose-lose. It's my job? How dare I. It's not my job? How dare I.

And the outrage machine trundles along, powered by tabloid rags and associated Murdoch junk.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

it's actually extremely normal and definitely not weird or dehumanizing for minorities and women having to beg white people and men to view them as anything other than "curiousities" to debate about

 

[Broken_Erika]

The claim was made that the changes to the block rule will make it harder to avoid seeing comments and content that you don't want to see. Can this statement be defended or not? If it can, what is the obstacle to just doing so?

Here

View attachment 704732

It will be glorious

 

[Takhisis]

Curiously enough, he argues ‘First Amendment’ and yet Twitter is both a private enterprise and… a global one, i.e. the US Constitution doesn't apply.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Curiously enough, he argues ‘First Amendment’ and yet Twitter is both a private enterprise and… a global one, i.e. the US Constitution doesn't apply.

Yes, but

 

[GenMarshall]

Nobody asked you, buddy…

Rude and unnecessary response. If you think this is some sort of “pwning the chud”, you’re mistaken. I don’t know how you get my statement as “grandstanding” and “strawmanning” my when most would just presume I have a chip on my shoulder. But this isn’t here nor there.

For the record, Manfred made the claim, and is refusing to evidence it. Everyone else is confused because they're understandably going on "the block function is being removed" as per a screenshot of Tweet made by Musk.

I am pretty much in the same boat as Manfred and most users whom aren’t plugged into the culture war (and others who’ve disengaged from culture war). I only know about Musk plan to remove the block feature and that’s all the details that I know so far.

I’ve only witnessed, largely from the Twitter left, a blocking spree happening, even to users (largely right wing ones) who’ve never interacted with lefty Twitter. I’m going to admit that I do not know all the full details since most of the people who do get block don’t divulge the full story. I don’t know if this harkens back to your other post that it’s a construct made by conservatives and right wingers.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Here

Hmm okay. Well I'm going on the assumption that the information here is correct:

What To Know About The Controversial Change To X’s Block Feature

The changes have been widely scrutinized by critics who believe the block function doesn’t go far enough to protect users.

www.forbes.com

(not just there, but every news story I've seen seems to agree with that one).

 

[Manfred Belheim]

For the record, Manfred made the claim, and is refusing to evidence it.

As far as I'm aware no-one asked me to evidence anything. I assumed we were all singing from the same hymn sheet. Takhisis posted "You cannot block people on Twitter anymore." on Monday. I checked and found that the block function seems to still be there as normal and posted as such. Then following some more posts I googled it and immediately found limitless news stories all saying the same thing - that the block functionality would no longer prevent people you block from seeing your posts, but would otherwise be unaltered (as in they still couldn't interact with you, and you still wouldn't see their posts).

I mean... okay sure, I'll apologise if I shouldn't have assumed everyone else knew this, or if this isn't the case and the top news stories in the google results are telling the same incorrect version of things, but yes... I just assumed that the people angrily posting about how this change is abhorrent would have cared enough to at least have googled what the change actually was.

 

[sophie]

The person would be able to see what they’re talking about, see any pictures they might post, download those pictures and store the metadata. They would be able to screenshot those posts and subtweet the user, directing their followers to go comment on and harass that user further. They would be able to forward information about that user to an information repository for targeted harassment like (formerly) kiwifarms.

This also would affect qol tools like shinigami eyes that many users use to manage targeted harassment by proactively blocking users before a targeted harassment train can get going.

It also affects how and what shows up in your feed. You won’t see blocked users on your fyp; you won’t see quote tweets of blocked users on your fyp. The amount of screenshots and subtweets also fall precipitously. Generally the reason you block isn’t done with the expectation that doing so will completely excise them from your life - sockpuppets, burner accounts, and anonymous browsing are, after all, a thing. If someone seriously wants to actively follow your activity, a block is usually not going to stop that. The reason you do so is because you passively showing back up in a person’s feed reignites a secondary round of harassment weeks or sometimes even months later, and these epicycles can persist for years. If you can cut off the [see post>get mad>quote tweet>your mentions and dm’s are blown up and/or you get doxxed] at the “see” point, you can short circuit the epicycle before it gets off the ground.

There’s also something to be said for the effect viewing but not interacting has on sexual stalkers and abusers. If someone is being creepy in my replies, I block because I don’t want them to keep seeing me or my posts. I don’t want them to continue fixating on me. I don’t want them to continue building up a self-destructive parasocial relationship with me. I don’t want them to continue to get more desperate to be noticed by me, and to try more unhinged things outside of twitter in a bid to get my attention. I want them to move along. Allowing them to see, but not interact, does not achieve that.

This is the sort of thing where I think it’s hard to relate when you’re a man and the most you have to contend with generally speaking is like pissing a random guy off and getting a flurry of replies below the post being annoying. The sort of thing where all you really need for effective management is the ability to get them out of your replies. But when you’re trans or a woman, that simple fact of identity is frequently seen as an open invitation to harass or sexualize us. You get harassment simply by existing and being visibly a woman. The ability to control who sees is important to prevent the experience of being on the website from quickly descending into an unusable mess of creeps posting nonstop dickpics/porn, slurs/nazi propaganda, and graphically violent content (often all three in the same message).

 

[Voidwalkin]

This is the sort of thing where I think it’s hard to relate when you’re a man and the most you have to contend with generally speaking is like pissing a random guy off and getting a flurry of replies below the post being annoying. The sort of thing where all you really need for effective management is the ability to get them out of your replies. But when you’re trans or a woman

I was actually stalked by a man once. I'm a man that's not interested in that sort of relationship. Never actually learned his name or felt very threatened. It was in the physical world.

There’s also something to be said for the effect viewing but not interacting has on sexual stalkers and abusers. If someone is being creepy in my replies, I block because I don’t want them to keep seeing me or my posts. I don’t want them to continue fixating on me. I don’t want them to continue building up a self-destructive parasocial relationship with me. I don’t want them to continue to get more desperate to be noticed by me, and to try more unhinged things outside of twitter in a bid to get my attention. I want them to move along. Allowing them to see, but not interact, does not achieve that.

So, while being stalked I did feel something similar; you don't really want to be seen. Don't wanna be that object. Considered being evasive. I, being a man, also internally debated just yelling at the dude, which you're expected to do of course, but he lost interest before I was sufficiently aggravated to do either. I'm kinda hard to irritate I guess. Went on for about 2 months.

Somewhere in there though, I did understand the guys dilemma: the social room to actually meet people as a man is very limited. It seems to organically happen much less through the routine interactions of life. In any sort of context. Regardless of whether the intention is social friendship, romantic relationship or simple joy of speaking. This was probably particularly true in his case if he was indeed a gay man.

At some point, societally, a larger conversation needs to be had about the overall health of the social ecosystem. Blocking, not blocking, stalking, while IRL, most people I know have few if any friends and candidly unsatisfactory marriages(if married at all).

Blocking as a tool to improve social health on the individual level is effective, but if social health continues to decline on the societal level, it will breach whatever walls are put up. I don't really see a good reason to take it away, though.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Hmm okay. Well I'm going on the assumption that the information here is correct:

What To Know About The Controversial Change To X’s Block Feature

The changes have been widely scrutinized by critics who believe the block function doesn’t go far enough to protect users.

www.forbes.com

(not just there, but every news story I've seen seems to agree with that one).

Am I missing something, or is this change basically the same as the "ignore" feature on Civfanatics now?

 

[Takhisis]

I’m going to admit that I do not know all the full details

I'm trying to help you here: first find out what you're talking about then.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I literally asked you twice, but nevermind

I don't want to shock you, but I don't always read your posts. But yeah I mean... I googled it and every single result said the same thing. And I've linked one of them, so that's all good then right?

Given that "you cannot block people on twitter anymore" was posted, and was the first new post in this thread in about 3 weeks, I assumed something new had just happened. Googling that thing yielded various news stories from the last week or so all saying the same thing and outlining the new rules, including screenshots from twitter itself outlining the new rules (as in actual informational text on twitter, not Elon tweets). So... I don't think it's that crazy that I thought that's what everyone was talking about and was the information everyone had. I didn't realise you were all shouting about a screenshot of a tweet from September and you hadn't read anything else at all. I'm deeply sorry for the oversight.