Twitter announced Thursday changes to its blocking policy but took a step back to repeal the changes before the day ended. The social network announced first that blocked users will no longer know that someone blocked them and the Twitter user that initiated the block will no longer see the activity of the other party. However, the blocked party will still be able to follow a particular user whose account is public, interact with posts, and even receive updates.
The intention of the said change was to protect users from harassers that launch more aggressive attacks upon knowing that they were blocked. For users, the new policy was nonsensical as it only mutes the aggravating party and makes stalking victims feel more unsafe.
Hours after taking effect, Twitterers chirped angrily from all over the Internet complaining that the company just empowered harassers. A petition on change.org also called on the company not to tweak its blocking policy. In less than 24 hours, the said petition garnered 2,000 signatures.
"Twitter is no longer a safe space. As a public person who uses the medium for my work, I am very concerned because stalkers and abusers will now be able to keep tabs on their victims, and while there was no way to prevent it 100% before, Twitter should not be in the business of making it easier to stalk someone," wrote Zerlina Maxwell who initiated the petition.
Giving in to the complaints of its users, Twitter finally reversed its decision and withdrew the changes to its blocking policy.
"We're reverting the changes to block functionality," the official Twitter account of the company posted.
We're reverting the changes to block functionality. https://t.co/H3W3V27rKN
— Twitter (@twitter) December 13, 2013
Twitter's Vice President of Product Michael Sippey also posted an announcement on the company blog.
"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," Sippey wrote.
"We've built Twitter to help you create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers. That vision must coexist with keeping users safe on the platform. We've been working diligently to strike this balance since Twitter's inception, and we thank you for all of your support and feedback to date," he said.
Hopefully, the Twitterers will be happily chirping now.
