Will Musk’s Removing X/Twitter User-Blocking Feature Get It Kicked Off Apple and Google App Stores?

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk set off a firestorm Friday by announcing that Twitter, now called X, would “delete” the service’s longstanding user-blocking feature — raising the prospect that, as a result, the app could be booted from Apple and Google’s app stores. “Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs,” Musk wrote. “Makes no sense.” Soon after Musk made the claim, users annotated his post via the platform’s Community Notes feature and included links to Apple and Google’s app-store guidelines, alleging Musk cannot eliminate the account-blocking feature without running afoul of the rules (see below).

By Friday evening, however, the Community Notes fact-check had been removed from Musk’s post. According to Apple’s App Store review guidelines, “apps with user-generated content or social networking services must include… The ability to block abusive users from the service.” Similarly, Google Play’s policies on restricted content say, “Apps that contain or feature [user-generated content]… must implement robust, effective and ongoing UGC moderation that … Provides an in-app system for blocking UGC and users.” So would the X app be banned by Apple and Google if the account-blocking feature is removed?

Not necessarily. To Musk, what’s needed in place of blocking is “a stronger form of mute,” as he’s described it. Currently, the X/Twitter mute function simply hides individual accounts that you don’t want to interact with from your timeline — in other words, such “muted” users are still able to see your posts and reply to them.

What would a more robust mute button look like? Aqueel Miqdad, a software engineer at X, suggested in a post, “We can make mutes stronger, like not allow people you mute.