Changes on the social media platform X that have been brought in for “greater transparency” are proving unpopular with users.

Bosses at X, formerly known as Twitter, have introduced a major change to its block feature that many are not enjoying, and now numbers on alternative platforms are reportedly rising.

The changes on X mean that, from now on, any accounts you have blocked will still be able to see your posts. Previously, blocking someone meant they could not see anything you posted on the social media site.

However, anyone who has been blocked will still be unable to like, repost or reply to any posts.

A notification was sent to users saying: “Block is changing soon. If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked will be able to view them, but they will not be able to engage.”

Last year, Elon Musk took to his site to talk about the blocking policy. He wrote: “Blocking public posts makes no sense. It needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of mute.”

But users are not happy, with reports of many now joining alternative sites – such as Instagram, Threads and BlueSky – to find another way of engaging online without having to use X.

One person online wrote: “This is such a stupid thing. The purpose of blocking someone is for them not to see anything you post. Imagine a stalker still being able to see your posts. Who is making these decisions at @X”.

Another replied to another post, who asked what the point of the changes were: “The point is create chaos. Utter chaos.”

X has said the change allows users who have been blocked to be able to see if someone is trying to “share and hide harmful or private information” about them, which allows for “greater transparency”.

But the move has reportedly seen other sites benefiting from increasing users.

X alternative BlueSky announced on Thursday (October 18) that it had gained half-a-million new users in the 24 hours since X made the formal announcement about the change.

Bluesky, started by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, used to be invite-only to join the site, but it has now opened up to anyone and has used the opportunity of block changes on X to say its own block features will remain watertight to stop “toxicity” online.

“Welcome to the 100k+ people who have joined Bluesky in the last 12 hours!!!” the official BlueSky account announced.

Facebook owner Meta has also launched an alternative, Instagram Threads, which is similar to X. The social platform amassed 100 million users in record time after its launch.