How Blocking Works on Twitter
You can quickly block any user on Twitter. Navigate to their profile (on the web or on the official mobile app), select the three vertical dots next to the Follow/Following button, then select Block @username. Blocking a user prevents them from following you from that account. If they try to follow you, Twitter displays a message stating, “You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.”
Does Twitter Notify You When Somebody Blocks You?
Twitter won’t send you a notification if someone blocks you. The only way you can tell you’ve been blocked is to visit the other user’s profile and see the Twitter block message. If you suspect you were blocked by someone, it’s up to you to investigate and confirm it. If you don’t even realize that a particular user is missing from your timeline, you might never even know you’ve been blocked. Additionally, tweets from a user that you blocked are removed from your timeline if you were previously following them. Twitter also automatically removes the user you blocked from your followers list. Likewise, your tweets no longer show up in a blocked user’s timeline if they previously followed you.
Keeping Track of Your Blocked Users
If you block a lot of users, Twitter has some advanced options you can take advantage of to keep track of everything. You can export a list of your blocked users, share your list with others, import somebody else’s list of blocked users, and manage your list of imported block users separately from your full list. To access this, select your profile picture > Settings and privacy > Blocked accounts, and you should see a list of blocked users. Select Advanced options, then choose to either export your list or import one.
Is There a Way to Prevent Someone From Finding Out You’ve Blocked Them?
There’s no way to keep a user from finding out you’ve blocked them. If you block someone and they visit your profile or try to follow you again, they will a message telling them they’re blocked. But, you can make your Twitter account private. That way, you can control who follows you and you can avoid blocking people in the first place.
Twitter Muting: A Friendlier Alternative to Blocking
If you really want to stop communication between you and a particular user, blocking is usually the best way to achieve that. However, if you simply don’t want to be bothered by a particular user, but you don’t want to permanently end the relationship, you can simply mute them. Muting is just what it sounds like. This handy feature essentially allows you to temporarily (or perhaps permanently) filter out all the noise that another user is making in your main feed or @replies without having to actually unfollow or block them. To do this, just select the three vertical dots on a user’s profile, then select Mute @username. The muted user can still follow you, see your tweets, and even @reply to you, but you won’t see any of their tweets in your feed (if you follow them) or any of their @mentions in your notifications. But, muting has no effect on direct messaging. If a muted account messages you, it still shows up in your direct messages. Alternatively, you can remove followers if you don’t want to appear in their feed. On the web, go to Profile > Followers, and then select the three dots next to the person’s name and click Remove this follower. Just like with blocking or muting, someone you stop from following you won’t receive any notification that you’ve done this. However, nothing will stop them from following you again.
