BLOCKED AND REPORTED

Elon Musk Comes Up With What May Be His Worst Idea Yet for Twitter

What happened to vox populi, vox dei?

Elon Musk might’ve just revealed his worst idea for Twitter yet.

The social media platform (which is now called X by Musk and seemingly no one else) will be scrapping the “block” feature and instead restricting it to DMs only, Musk announced Friday. According to the X-obsessed billionaire, “It makes no sense.”

Countless users, even including Musk’s fanboys, were quick to dunk on the change, with some pointing out the hypocrisy of a tweet from last year in which Musk promised “there will be a vote for major policy changes.”

“The block feature is the best feature on this site. It is what enables me to enjoy my time here,” Mollie Hemingway, the editor-in-chief of conservative news site The Federalist whose account has 1 million followers, wrote.

A verified account called X News Daily, which shares often-favorable updates on Musk and X, also said the move went “altogether too far,” highlighting the “significant problem” of “harassment, trolls and spam” while acknowledging the potential downside of “cutting off people who disagree with you politically.”

“That is a huge mistake. There are toxic people on this platform that users simply don’t want in their replies,” @WallStreetSilv, another Musk fan account with nearly 1 million followers, tweeted. “Block is a critical peace of mind issue for many people because it generally gets the cyber stalkers to move on.”

Musk’s out-of-the-blue decision comes after his clumsy rebrand of Twitter to X, a letter Musk has had a career-long fascination with despite it often reminding consumers of porn (see failed X-Paypal). In fact, Indonesia has already banned X under the country’s strict pornography and gambling laws.

But Musk’s stumbles date back even before he tossed the iconic blue bird logo. He caused uproar earlier this year when he purged legacy checkmarks and began charging $8 per month for shoddy verification, although he quickly backtracked by re-granting certain big celebs their checkmarks after a chaotic explosion of imposter accounts.

His biggest threat came when rival Mark Zuckerberg successfully launched the clone app Threads, which reached 100 million users within just days of its release. While data now shows Threads dropping significantly in its number of active users since, Musk’s latest change could give Zuckerberg the upper hand.

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