Elon Musk announces that ‘Block’ option will be removed from X (formerly Twitter)

Elon Musk announced in a post today that users of X (formerly Twitter) will no longer be able to block accounts they don’t want to interact with, stating that the block feature “makes no sense”.

This comes after Musk famously fired the Trust and Safety Team at Twitterand disbanded the corresponding committee, which was made up of 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform.

The removal of Trust and Safety solidified Musk’s new direction for the social media app after he purchased it for $44 billion in October of 2022. Claiming that he was creating a bastion of free speech, removing the Trust and Safety Team had the effect of annihilating content moderation on Twitter, paving the way for violent, homophobic and racist accounts to once again have free reign to post offensive and dangerous content.

Now, Musk will be removing the block feature, an essential safety tool typically used to prevent online harassment and bullying. Users will no longer be able to make their accounts invisible to online bullies and other dangerous individuals.

Far from creating the open forum freedom of speech zone that he claimed to be building, Musk’s reign over Twitter, now inexplicably rebranded as simply X, has been a series of bumbles and irresponsible moves resulting in X losing sponsors, and high profile users fleeing to other apps.

What isn’t clear is how Musk will handle the accounts that he has blocked, which includes Laura Loomer, Sandi Bachom, and Esther Choo, and a popular account called “God”.