Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail.

On Oct. 16, the social-media platform X, once (and still) known as Twitter, announced “a change to how the block function works.” “Soon,” per the announcement, “[i]f your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked will be able to view them, but they will not be able to engage (like, reply, repost, etc.).” The stated purpose is to protect blocked individuals from malicious gossip they’d have no recourse to address.

Did anyone buy the safety-measure pretext? Quite the contrary: “You might as well just say you support stalking,” one user wrote. “Huge day for stalkers everywhere.” “X out the women.” Many have threatened to leave the platform, and some are taking their social-media usage elsewhere.

An image began to form of the type of person who’d be delighted by X’s new blocking rules. He was a he, for starters: a stalker, or, at least, a persistent reply guy. Posts – some quite funny – critiqued the policy. My favourite was author Jacob Silverman’s: “they’re calling it the ‘I must see my ex-wife’s posts’ function.” Another post........

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