Twitter protest reverses ‘block feature’ intended to reduce online abuse
For the first time in the history of Twitter, the users had to revolt in order to counter a new “block” feature activated Thursday.
Twitter responded, reversing the short-lived changed. The new policy allowed a blocked user to still view or tweet the person who blocked them, but the activity was invisible to the victim. The old policy has been re-instated.
“We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users – we never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe,” vice president of product Michael Sippey wrote in a blog post.
Chief Executive Dick Costolo initially sought to address the mounting criticism by saying on Twitter that the new features were widely requested by victims of abuse.
The concern was that blocked users would retaliate against those who blocked them. The change was meant to filter out abusive messages without putting a target on the victim.
Keeping abuse in check is a key issue for the company, which needs to keep current users happy while attempting to attract new ones as the pressure from the stock market will mount. The stock has risen 35% to over $50 as investors see Twitter as an Internet powerhouse.
