Twitter has never been a place for sharp discussions of ways to take humanity forward, but maybe we’ll be able to say that about it sometime in the future. To curb the profusion of trolls, annoying followers, and rudeness, Twitter is testing a new privacy-related feature that will let people soft block trolls. Twitter users will be able to remove a follower without blocking them — and the follower who gets removed won’t be notified of the change.
The company took to its platform via Twitter Support to announce the latest development. It revealed that Twitter is testing a way to make it easier for people to be the curator of their own follower list. All you need to do is go to the Followers section on your profile and click the three-dot icon next to a follower’s name. Thenjust click on the Remove this follower option and you are done. Your tweets will not appear on their timeline anymore.
rolling out to everyone on the web today👇 https://t.co/Nqhhf2q2fo
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 11, 2021
If the trolls persist in engaging with you, there’s still the hard block option that can be used, but there’s a major difference between blocking a user and removing them as a follower. If you remove a follower, they won’t be able to see your tweets on their timeline. However, they will have the option to follow you again if they want. On the other hand, blocking is more of a permanent solution that cuts off their access to your profile.
The soft block test is limited to web applications for now. However, we expect it to roll out for Android and iOS in the near future.