Unless you’re a Cylon or geek you probably didn’t realize that Twitter “downgraded” their Block feature into a mute button earlier today without renaming it as a mute button.
It caused so much outrage amongst the Twitterverse that Tweet execs held an emergency meeting to discuss the pending cyber riot & (to the cheers of many) decided to roll back the block feature to…well…a block feature!
“Earlier today, we made a change to the way the “block” function of Twitter works. 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. Any blocks you had previously instituted are still in effect. (via Official Twitter Blog)”
While the reverting will please the angry masses, there is still a vocal minority on Twitter demanding the ability to block someone without having them notified that they are being ignored (which Twitter later on acknowledges on their blog).
Instead of having another meaningless debate on the “art of blocking,” why not introduce a mute button?
Rival platforms like Google+ & Alpha (upon App.Net) boast these features, which allows people to ignore offending voices without picking up the ban hammer.
It would satisfy both groups without having to flirt with an intergalactic civil war within the Twitterverse. 😉
PS
If the mighty mute button is being considered, it would be awesome if users could mute tweets containing certain #hashtags (lest we see the same manual retweet over & over & over & over again!).