If you're having problems with a stalker, you don't need a restraining order — just wear a blindfold. That at least appears to be the logic behind a policy change Twitter announced Thursday, one its users are calling baffling.
Previously, the service allowed you to block any troublesome follower, denying them access to your tweets. Now, in an about-face, the process of blocking simply mutes the user in question, meaning you can't see their tweets. But they can retweet you, allowing their followers to contact you in turn.
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"If your account is public, blocking a user does not prevent that user from following you, interacting with your Tweets, or receiving your updates in their timeline," the company says in its amended "blocking users on Twitter" help page.
A company spokesperson explained to Forbes that the change had been made because "people would see they had been blocked and get mad," resulting in "antagonistic behavior."
But that didn't wash with many users who'd experienced real harassment on the service. "This is a huge and very serious problem for people, like me, who have received repeated rape and death threats on Twitter on a fairly consistent basis," wrote Zerlina Maxwell, a prominent feminist activist, analyst and writer, in a Change.org petition demanding Twitter restore the blocking function.
"I utilize the Block button almost every day," Maxwell added. "While that is not a perfect solution — because users can simply log out to view your timeline even if you have blocked them — it at least forbid harassers from following you, and at worst retweeting you into their feed, which can simply allow their followers to also harass you ... Twitter should not be in the business of making it easier to stalk someone."
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