Updated 11 July 2018: still seems to work OK on https://dabr.eu
There are a lot of people making misleading (and occasionally illegal) health claims on Twitter. When you challenge them they often block you. This has happened to me (and many other skeptic bloggers, scientists, healthcare professionals etc), and my early efforts at finding out how to monitor such accounts and tweets is a large part of why I now have this blog about how Twitter appears to work!
Of course being blocked has never stopped anyone from reading a blocker’s tweets as you can always just log out (or use a spare account, or an incognito window) to view anyone’s tweets, as long as the blocker’s account is public.
One disadvantage of being logged out, particularly if you use desktop Twitter, is that you can see only their broadcast tweets and not their ‘Tweets and replies‘ tab. To get around that the search string »from:username« had, until yesterday, been a simple workaround while logged in as the blocked account, on desktop or the official mobile app.
As of yesterday it no longer works while logged in as the blocked account – I don’t know if that’s a glitch or a permanent change to Twitter’s search function but for now it looks like your options for viewing tweets from someone who’s blocked you are as follows
Log out and use the »from:username« search style to view replies as well as broadcast tweets
As above in an incognito window (for Twitter searching purposes the two are logiclly the same)
Log into a spare account and you can either use the above search strategy or just visit their page (assuming they’ve not blocked your spare account)
Use Dabr.co.uk – you can even log in (for the time being, it might change) – as of early July the page seems to be down but https://dabr.eu is still up
Try other non-official phone apps too…
You can also search »to:username« to see tweets sent to that account if you like.
To see the tweets of someone whom you’ve blocked is as it always was – visit their profile and click on the ‘View tweets’ button.
Some people are suing President Trump because he’s blocked them on Twitter. They argue that doing this stops them from reading or replying to his tweets and, by extension, means that their opinion cannot be made available to others who are reading the thread.
This is not true.
While I am not a supporter of President Trump this lawsuit appears to be based on a misunderstanding of what Twitter’s block actually means (to be fair this misunderstanding is very widespread). Perhaps if I were a lawyer I’d see some merit in the lawsuit but it currently eludes me, it seems to me to be daft, incoherent and wrong.
A block from an otherwise unlocked / public account wouldn’t stop anyone from reading the tweets or even replying to them (though locking the account certainly would).
Reading tweets from someone who’s blocked you, while logged in
If a user has blocked you simply search for their tweets (eg from:realdonaldtrump). I’ve tested this using a work account that blocked my personal account and it works on desktop Twitter, Tweetdeck, several iPhone apps, Dabr.co.uk and probably most Twitter platforms and apps.
Enthusiasts could set up an account with IFTTT and have any public account’s tweets emailed to them, or they could use another account to create a website widget which relays the tweets there.
Replying to tweets from someone who’s blocked you, while logged in
On desktop Twitter you need to click on the speech bubble icon to bring up the reply window (see the pics below). If you click on the tweet itself you’ll be taken to the ‘you are blocked’ page. On all the other platforms I’ve tested, including Tweetdeck, you can click on the tweet and reply to it.
Everyone else clicking on the tweet you’re replying to can see your reply*.
Viewing a “this tweet is unavailable” tweet that’s quote-RTed by someone else
In this scenario I’d simply right-click, open in private browsing window where you can view the tweet while not logged in. You can reply to the person who quoted the tweet while logged in to the regular browser window.
If an account blocks you can they see your tweets? Yes they can, though as your tweets aren’t delivered to them they won’t see them unless they want to. So, practically speaking, this might be ‘no’.
If anyone wishes to ‘not see tweets from someone’ while ‘avoiding being sued for blocking them’ then I strongly suggest MUTE as the better choice. If you are not following an account then MUTING them stops any tweets they send you from arriving. They don’t know they’re muted and can read and reply to your tweets (which others can see, but you won’t).
On desktop and iPhone Twitter (I’ve not tested other apps) you can arrange your settings to that you’ll only see tweets from accounts that you follow, which is basically the equivalent of muting everyone except accounts you follow. Again, no-one else knows.
*Twitter doesn’t show all replies
I don’t know how Twitter determines which tweets it will or won’t show, it may be algorithmic or it may be based on other users flagging up tweets as offensive. Occasionally in a thread I see ‘view more tweets, including those that may contain offensive content’ and they’re rarely all that offensive. Even if Mr Trump hadn’t blocked your account your replies to him might not be shown to him.
Worked example, with pictures
I’ve just blocked myself (@jobrodie) using one of my old work accounts @chi_med. The pictures below show me what I see / don’t see, and how I can reply to the tweet of an account that’s blocked me.
Fig 1. @chi_med has blocked @jobrodie. When I’m logged in as @jobrodie I see a ‘you are blocked’ page if I try and look at @chi_med’s profile
Fig 2. While logged in as @jobrodie I’ve searched for tweets from @chi_med by typing from:chi_med into the search bar, the results are clearly visible. Note the small speech bubble at the bottom left of every tweet – that will let me reply to the tweet.
Fig 3. This is what I see if I click on one of the tweets (instead of the speech bubble to reply) – I’m taken back to the ‘you are blocked’ page from Fig 1, this is its URL.
Fig 4. Clicking the speech bubble brings up a reply window.
Fig 5. I’m not logged in, but the tweet from @chi_med now displays my reply – visible to all.Fig 6. How the tweet looks when I’m logged in as @chi_med. I can see that there has been a reply (see the little ‘1’ next to the speech bubble) but I can’t see what the tweet says because I’ve blocked the account that sent it. Others would see the tweet though.
How to do various techy things 