Twitter Tests ‘Soft Block’ Feature

Twitter has begun testing the first of its proposed suite of new privacy tools; a new feature that allows users to remove followers without unfollowing them with the aim to make it easier to manage the follower list. The remove follower feature is currently being tested on the web and seems to canonize the “soft block” concept as an official Twitter tool.

Currently, if a user blocks someone on Twitter it prevents them from viewing their profile and direct messaging them, revealing to the person that they have been blocked.

Blocking an account automatically causes them to unfollow the user, and them to unfollow you. However, if this user visits the profile of an account that has blocked them, they can see that they have been blocked. Until now, to “soft block” someone – to have someone unfollow without their knowledge – users would manually block and unblock them.

Even when doing this, they could visit a profile that had “soft blocked” them and learn that they had been unfollowed. They may even refollow and continue to see the tweets on the user’s timeline. In the new feature, being tested by the microblogging platform, users can remove a follower without blocking them.

“To remove a follower, go to your profile and click ‘Followers’ then click the three-dot icon and select ‘Remove this follower,’” Twitter announced in a tweet.

This makes it easier for users to block someone without their knowledge with a fewer number of steps.

The new feature comes after last week’s announcement of the launch of a new “Safety Mode” on Twitter intended to keep people safe from seeing abusive posts. According to Twitter, this feature automatically blocks accounts that use potentially harmful language such as insults or hateful remarks or engaging with tweets in repetitive or uninvited ways.

Both the features are expected to roll out to a small number of people on the platform and could be made available to more users as Twitter learns about the user experience of the features.