Changes may be coming to how blocking works on Twitter.
Elon Musk, Twitter owner and former CEO, on Wednesday replied to right-wing commentator Andy Ngo questioning blocking accounts.
“Blocking public posts makes no sense. It needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of mute,” Mr. Musk tweeted.
In the original tweet, Mr. Ngo complained that he was not allowed to see a progressive activist’s post about a brawl outside of a Glendale, California, school board meeting Wednesday.
When someone is blocked on Twitter, he or she cannot see or respond to the person who blocked posts.
Mr. Ngo claimed that activist Alejandra Caraballo is “one of the most prominent voices of disinformation on Twitter” and that it should not be allowed for her to block people from seeing her posts.
Ms. Caraballo’s post was a video of the brawl that showed anti-LGBTQ protestors fighting with LGBTQ parents. She said in the tweet that the “extremist” anti-LGBTQ activists attacked the parents, and the police helped the attackers.
Mr. Musk did not reply to the thread after his first tweet, nor did he outline any specific changes he would want to see.
Responses to the tweet were mixed. Many in the replies pointed out the hypocrisy of Mr. Ngo’s comments, saying that they are blocked from seeing Mr. Ngo’s tweets. Many use the block feature to avoid harassment on Twitter or to better curate their feeds.
If changes do come to how blocking works, it would not be an out-of-character decision for Mr. Musk, despite him not being CEO anymore. Many decisions in the first six months of his ownership of the company originate as off-the-cuff tweets and later develop into full-blown policies.
