Blocking Is Not Muting
So if you are a user of Twitter Or X or whatever Elon wants to call it, you probably heard that the Billionaire turd has decided to announce another bad take by saying he is going to ban all blocking on the platform.
Now, before I dive into this absolutely horrible take, let me clear up a couple of things. One is I use Twitter (I refuse to call it X) regularly. I have bounced the idea back and forth about going to other sites, but none are as good as promised. I am not saying that to be mean or rude, but I cannot spend two hours on one of the newer social media platforms. I also have decided to full on sell sports cards via direct and Ebay. I have curbed selling art direct and will continue to pursue writing here, but selling sports cards is very similar to what I have done for the last eight years in another industry. A commodity is a commodity. The sports card world on Twitter is still thriving compared to other sites. With that, I did pay for Twitter Blue because if I do a large transaction. I want the consumer to have the confidence it was through me. Sadly, I cannot promote sports cards effectively on other sites and there is way too many scams on FB and IG, and I refuse to do that.
Not really sure why I needed to share all of that, but I did.
Anyway, everyone on both sides was very very confused and irritated by the whole not being able to block thing. And rightfully so. Blocking is quite possible the best and most effective way to quickly rid an asshole from your feed. If you have ever tried to report someone who harasses, you learn rather quickly that Twitter does not give a flip. This is not an Elon thing, they truly never gave a flip. The Elon thing is bringing back the worst possible people and making them main characters on the platform again.
So people complained, Elon did not care, he ended up blocking right wing heart throbs like Catturd2 (not to be confused with Catturd) and James Woods.
I have Elon blocked as many people do. He is the most blocked person on Twitter. So I think that is the motivation behind this stupid movement. Another is that people are blocking ads so that hurts his revenue. Just remember, if you respond to a “Smash Or Pass” when someone posts a pizza tweet from a verified account, you are just making them money. They do not care about your response. That is how ad revenue works. The amount of comments they get generates ads in the comments, hence more money.
At the end of the day, none of this matters because they truly cannot get rid of the block feature. As William Legate on Twitter pointed out, it is against Apple and Google TOS so the app would be taken off, and virtually become Parler.
But I had this long argument about the difference in Blocking and Muting. Someone said that you can just mute someone and all is good. And I will tell you while I stand on my soapbox, muting is not good at all.
If someone annoys you, just block them. Seriously. A lot of people I follow have muted me because I promoted my art for years to give people a piece of me and support my family. And I would rather they block me. Muting is a weak way of just ignoring someone with the perception that you actually give a fuck.
Blocking is always the way to go. They are gone forever. Done. Unless they are stalkers and make another account. They the police are involved. But why mute someone so they can continue to see your account? Just block them. Why let your followers have to deal with the harassment or annoying parts of them? Just block them. Seriously, muting is dumb. Blocking is the way to go.
If they ever did take blocking away, I would be reporting more (I refuse to see others being harassed who do not deserve comments) and just lock my account. Done. But I do not think it will ever happen.
But too many people get harassed online for there not to be a block button. Hell, I do not blame you if you block me.
Just do not mute me. That is weak.
Thank you for reading. As always, consider a paid subscription where I will be doing art showings and giveaways along with exclusive content and direst messaging. And as always, if you ever wanted to throw a “coffee” my way, you can always do so here and very much appreciates.