Elon Musk stated in a statement today that the block feature "makes no sense" and that users of X (previously Twitter) will no longer be able to block accounts they don't want to engage with.
This follows Musk's infamous firing of Twitter's Trust and Safety Team and dissolution of the corresponding committee, which was comprised of 100 independent civil rights, human rights, and other organizations and established by the company in 2016 to address issues such as hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm, and other issues on the platform.
After buying the social networking app for $44 billion in October 2022, Musk's new strategy for it became more firmly established with the removal of Trust and Safety. Removing the Trust and Safety Team, which was done under the pretext of establishing a "bastion of free speech," had the consequence of completely eliminating content moderation on Twitter and allowed violent, homophobic, and racist accounts to once again post offensive and risky content without restriction.
The block feature, a crucial safety measure normally used to stop online abuse and harassment, will now be removed by Musk. Users won't be able to hide their accounts from nefarious users and other online abusers anymore.
Musk's reign over Twitter, now mysteriously rebranded as just X, has been a succession of slip-ups and foolish decisions that have led to X losing advertisers and high-profile users migrating to rival apps, far from creating the open forum freedom of speech zone that he promised to be building.
How Musk will deal with the accounts he has blocked—including those of Laura Loomer, Sandi Bachom, and Esther Choo—as well as the well-known "God" account is unclear.