Elon Musk’s X has been accused of having a “lack of care” about its responsibility to protect users from abuse over its plans to change how blocking works on the site.
Mr Musk, the social media platform’s owner since 2022, said last month that blocking would change on the site, so that blocked accounts would again be able to see a user’s public posts, but not interact with them.
Some users are now receiving notifications telling them the change is coming imminently, but domestic violence charity Refuge has warned the change showed the “continued failure” of tech giants such as X to protect women and girls in particular from abuse.
Jessica Eagelton, head of policy and public affairs at Refuge, told the PA news agency: “Imminent changes to the block function on X have highly concerning implications for survivors of online abuse.
“Allowing blocked users to continue to view content from the user that has blocked them will greatly reduce individual ability to mitigate online abuse, while signalling an evident lack of care from X owners about their responsibility to protect women and girls from abuse.
“Cases of technology-facilitated abuse are becoming increasingly common and complex, with survivors often experiencing stalking and harassment through social media platforms at the hands of perpetrators.
“To meet rising demand, Refuge set up a specialist technology-facilitated abuse and economic empowerment service in 2017, the only one of its kind in England.
“New analysis shows the specialist team saw a 92% increase in referrals in the first six months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2019.
“The scale of tech-facilitated abuse, as well as the devastating impact it can have on the lives of survivors, cannot be underestimated.”
When first announcing the upcoming change last month, Mr Musk said it was “high time this happened”.
Currently, when an account blocks another on the site, it prevents the blocked user from being able to view any activity on the other’s profile, as well as interact with any of their posts.
Ms Eagelton also criticised guidance from X around the change, which suggests users switch their account to private if they wanted to continue to stop blocked users from seeing their online activity.
“Women should not be forced offline or have their influence and status online eroded due to the continued failures of tech companies, including X, to put effective protections in place against online abuse,” she said.
“Tech and social media companies need to take accountability for tackling online abuse against women and girls, rather than putting the onus on women to shield themselves from the horrific surge in online misogyny that we are witnessing and effectively silencing women and girls instead of protecting them.”
According to a 2021 report by the charity, more than one in three women in the UK have experienced online abuse on social media – equivalent to 11 million women across the country.
One in six of those women experienced this abuse from a partner or ex-partner, the report said, adding that online abuse is twice as common among young women, with 62% saying they have experienced it.
