Blocking People on X Is Officially Pointless
After confirming in September that blocking as we know it would soon be gone from X, Elon Musk’s social media company started rolling out the change over Halloween weekend. This fundamentally alters the way you’ll be interacting with the site from now on, so let’s take a moment to break down how blocking used to work on X, how it works now, and what you can still do to keep your content away from prying eyes.
How blocking used to work on X
In the past, blocking a user on X prevented that user from both interacting with your posts and seeing them altogether. They wouldn’t show up in the blocked user’s timeline, and if all went well, that user wouldn’t even know you had posted.
It wasn’t a cure-all, since if your posts were public, that user could easily log into a different account and see them elsewhere. But it served as a preventative, forcing anyone who wanted to snoop on you to go out of their way to do so. It also kept blocked users from following you, sending you direct messages, adding your account to a list, sending you notifications, or tagging you in photos.
How blocking on X has changed
Fundamentally, blocking on X maintains most of its features, save for its most obvious one: Blocked accounts can now see your posts.
This allows blocked users to keep tabs on you without swapping to another account, so long as your posts are public. According to site owner Elon Musk, “the block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post [sic].”
In other words, a blocked account will not be able to like, reply, repost, or otherwise interact with a public post or the person who wrote it, but they’ll still be able to view (and screenshot) it.
A quick look at the responses to and quote tweets of Musk’s announcement show that the move has been controversial, although Musk himself said it was, “High time this happened.” Note, however, that it might be some time until the update takes effect for you. When I tried blocking one of my burner accounts from my main account, that account still couldn’t view posts from my main.
Overall, it’s a bit of an unusual move, and it’ll be some time before we know if it will stick. Both Apple and Google’s stores require apps with user-generated content to have blocking functions built-in, and it’s unclear whether Musk’s new rules meet these requirements. For instance, while Google says an app must include “in-app functionality for blocking users,” it does not define exactly what that block function should look like.
How to keep blocking users on X
It’s possible that, in the face of Musk’s change, we’ll see Apple and Google clarify what exactly a block function should entail. However, neither company has made any public statements on the matter yet. In the meantime, there is one step you can take to keep the wrong people from seeing your posts.
The most obvious step will, unfortunately, turn your X account into more of a Facebook-lite: Right now, the best way to ensure abusive posters do not see your X posts is to set your account to private.
X refers to this as protecting your posts, and on desktop, you’ll find the toggle for it in the sidebar’s More menu under Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety > Audience and tagging. On mobile, click on your profile picture and scroll down to Settings and privacy to find it.
Once you’re on the right page, you’ll see a toggle for Protect my posts and a toggle for Protect my videos. Protected posts and videos will only be visible to your followers, and you’ll see a lock icon next to protected accounts. You’ll also have to approve any future followers, although any followers you had already accrued will still be able to see and interact with your posts. Reposts will be grayed out on your posts, too, and they’ll stop showing up in search engines or when people who don’t follow you search for them on X.
In other words, you’d essentially be limiting your account to interactions with friends and family. That removes some of the functionality that sets X apart from older social media sites like Facebook, but could be helpful if you don’t want to lose track of any friends you’ve made there. All that said, X’s biggest competitors still let you block as usual.
How blocking works on Threads and Bluesky
Anecdotally, I’ve seen a massive slump in posting after Musk announced that he would be changing how blocking works on X, with many of my mutuals leaving the site for either Threads or Bluesky. With that in mind, let’s quickly go over how blocking works on those sites, in case you want to follow suit.
On Threads, blocking keeps users from seeing or interacting with “anything you post,” plus removes their likes from your posts and keeps them from mentioning your username or tagging you. The only complication is that, because Threads is on the Fediverse, you’ll need to request to block users on other servers before they stop seeing your posts. For instance, to block someone on Mastodon, you’ll need to navigate to Settings > Privacy and enter their username and their server under External server username, then hit Send Request. Meta can’t promise that the server will honor the request, but it’s a start.
For something a bit more surefire, you can try blocking on Bluesky. Here, blocking will prevent you and the blocked account from seeing or interacting with each other’s posts. The catch? Your whole blocklist will be public through the app’s API, which could lead to some awkward interactions if you know the person you’re blocking in real life.
And that’s about it. Blocking on these public platforms has always been more about putting steps in between abusive eyes and your content rather than outright keeping them from seeing it, so it’s always best to remain vigilant even on platforms with more restrictive blocking features. Alternatively, if you’re not quite at the point of blocking someone, there are less aggressive steps you can take against them, like muting or restricting their posts, so they don’t show up for you unless you go looking for them. These also tend to be more private, since blocked users will find out they’ve been blocked once they work their way over to your account and see themselves locked out of either viewing or interacting with your content.