Up until today when somebody blocked you on Twitter, you couldn’t see their tweets in your feed, you could not re-tweet them nor could you favorite their tweets.
That has changed. From Forbes:
Twitter has redefined the word “blocked.” Traditionally, to “block someone” on social media is to cut all digital ties. You no longer see their activity and they no longer see yours. However, that’s always been tricky on Twitter because so much of what is published there is public. Even if you were blocked by a fellow user, you could still see their tweets if their account wasn’t a private one. Twitter has decided to cease the farce of “the block” for public accounts.
From now on, a blocked user can still follow, retweet, and favorite a public user who blocked them, and won’t be informed, as they have in the past, that they’ve been blocked. The blocker though won’t see the RTing, faving, or any mentions by that person show up in their notification stream, and won’t see them in their follower list.
Blocking someone on Twitter now actually means you’re just muting them. It’s the digital equivalent of plugging your ears; they can shout but you won’t hear them. Sorry, Mediabistro, but you’re going to have to come up with a new digital “junkpunch.”
Twitter has updated its help page with the new rules for blocking and rolled out the change. A few Twitter users have already noticed it.
I have confirmed that I was able to follow several people I know had blocked me in the past including actors John Cusack and Wil Wheaton as well as former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and Media Matters Senior Fellowdouche, Eric Boehlert.
Alas, they cannot see anything I am sending to them but I can once again, see their silliness without having to jump through a few hoops to do so.
Some people have expressed concern about this change thinking blocking made their tweets unreadable to those who have been blocked. That’s not the case. The tweets are public. Therefore, they can be seen. If you’ve been added to a list, people can see your tweets. If you manually go out to the Twitter website and go to a profile of somebody that has you blocked, you are able to see those tweets.
Essentially, as the Forbes piece says, people you have blocked will be muted. They can read your stuff, RT it and favorite but unless you dig around, you’ll never know.
What do you think?