Technology @lemmy.world Dot. @feddit.org 1mo ago

The only way to protect yourself from trolls and stalkers on X.

htxt.co.za The only way to protect yourself from trolls and stalkers on X - Hypertext

X users will need to make their account private if they want to remain safe from trolls and stalkers.

A notice from X (formerly Twitter) stating: 'Block is changing soon. If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked will be able to view them, but they will not be able to engage. For more control over who can see your posts, you can still protect your account.' There is an 'OK' button at the bottom of the notice.

X is telling users that blocking will soon be useless and trolls and stalkers will soon be able to see their posts again.

Instead of blocking, X advises that users take their account private, the antithesis to what X and its progenitor Twitter was about.

This removal of blocking may violate Apple and Google’s policies regarding platforms that host user generated content.

55 comments

Step 1 delete your X account.
- Step 2 create a mastodon account
  
  You're right, blocking doesn't matter when there's no one to block.
  
  Mastodon also doesn't let you prevent people from reading your posts.
- That's a better way, I agree.
- This was my first thought too, hah.
- I do miss my traffic closer alerts, but that's all.
  
  Right, but you’re smart enough to know it’s the right thing to do. Many aren’t , sadly.
Having an X account is in no way, shape, or form a necessity. Imagine thinking you need to participate in the toxic, mainstream socialsphere.
- The only way to protect yourself from fomo and narcissism in life
I protected myself by deleting Twitter the day douche nozzle took over because I'm not a fucking moron.
Maybe... Leave that cesspool?
Instead of blocking, X advises that users take their account private, the antithesis to what X and its progenitor Twitter was about.

so basically remove your voice from the public sphere, giving the platform fully to the trolls and bullies.

This will also majorly affect professionals who must use twitter publicly for their job. Reporters, artists, PR people, etc. - they have all had to block abusive users over the years, so I think this may finally push them away to other platforms.
- Not to mention the change that makes it no longer possible to opt out of being used for AI training. A lot of artists are now jumping ship to blue sky.
- This will also majorly affect professionals who must use twitter publicly for their job. Reporters, artists, PR people, etc.
  
  You either gonna regime whore or you ain't got a job... Telling you when they killed tupac and biggie that was about the beginning of the end and now we here🤡
  
  Get an OF account ?
People still using this platform get what they get. I could not care less.
That's the same way it works on the fediverse. You post something publicly and anyone can see it regardless of whether you block them or not.
- Yeah but this is musk and we hate him so this is obviously a very bad terrible idea and omg how can anyone still be on Twitter after this...but don't mind that I'm posting this on a site where the block does even less.
So even after this update, the block feature on Twitter is still more effective than it is on Lemmy, yet nobody seems to be complaining about that.
- How so?
  
  Blocking on Lemmy does nothing else but hide that user's posts and messages from you
Is that a problem? You could already just view their posts without an account, or create a burner account. Might be a hot take, but I think someone with a public account shouldn't expect to be able to hide it from specific people.
- I don't think Twitter lets you view posts without being logged in anymore. Or at least, it'll show you old posts, only.
  
  You may be right, seems like it only shows you posts by number of likes. But a burner account is nearly effortless to create anyways.
TL;DR: Set your account to "private"

No alternatives to ex-Twitter are mentioned. Lame.
I know of a better way still to protect yourself from stalkers and trolls on X.

Quit X.
There is nothing behind those eyes. Looks like an empty vessel with an over soaked ketamine brain.
getting a lot of new followers on bsky all of a sudden 🤷‍♂️
It really comes down to feature removal. Elon annihilated Twitter's staff, and the more features they can cut, the less staff they need. It may not seem like much to maintain a block feature, and if you have a staff, it's not. But you do need to have probably some sort of blocker backend service, a blocking UI, probably an unblocking UI (I dunno if that's a thing I don't use twitter), storage that keeps track of who blocked who, and somebody who knows how all that works.
Unpopular opinion but I don't see what is wrong with this? With the current policy, if your account is public people who you block will still be able to see your tweets by simply logout (e.g. by opening twitter in a private window, using a different browser where they are not logged in, etc. doesn't take any effort).

I think this is setting the wrong expectations.
- The article addresses this point.
  
  This change is justified by the fact that a user can simply log out and view another user’s posts anyway. Except that’s not entirely true. Since Elon Musk took over the site, being logged out of X makes it very hard to view a user’s profile, individual posts are viewable but viewing an account triggers a log in pop up.
  
  So technically it is possible for a logged out user to view your tweets but it's a lot more inconvenient. Anything you can do to make it not worth their while helps.
  
  With this change they won't even have to put any effort anymore to stalk your content on X.
  
  Ah I see! Thanks, I wasn't really aware of this change.
He kinda looks like Lars Ulrich in that picture

55 comments