Twitter backs down amid outcry over "blocking" changes Twitter has reversed changes it made this week to how people block abusive users, the latest example of a social media company making a rapid U-turn after a user backlash. The company faced a deluge of criticism on Thursday after redesigning its "block" feature, which is used by victims of cyber bullying to prevent certain people from seeing their tweets. Twitter, whose shares have soared since its initial public offering last month, joins sites including Facebook and Instagram that have been forced to withdraw new features or change policies after failing to anticipate the negative reactions of users. "It doesn't look good for the credibility of management strategy or execution," said Ed Barton, head of digital media at Strategy Analytics. "You'd think that a social network would have a very deep awareness of the likes and dislikes of its users," he said. They haven't done that particularly well and they haven't been particularly confident in their decision, as they've been spooked into going straight back into what it was before. Twitter's U-turn comes weeks after Facebook decided to remove videos of people being beheaded from its site, following an outcry from users. Instagram withdrew a controversial set of new terms and conditions last year after a campaign to boycott the service in favour of its rivals. Google is facing criticism over its decision to force YouTube users to sign up to its social network Google Plus if they want to post comments on the video site. A petition on change.org calling on Google to scrap the move has received more than 220,000 signatures. Michael Sippey, Twitter's vice-president of product, announced that it was making the U-turn on Thursday night, less than a day after the new blocking feature was introduced. Under Twitter's longstanding blocking system, a "blocked" user is prevented from seeing the tweets of those who are blocking them. They are also notified when they are blocked. The new feature, now withdrawn, worked so that a person who blocked another user would no longer see their tweets - in effect, muting the abuse. But the blocked user would receive no notification that they had been blocked and could still see the tweets of the person who had blocked them. The measures were supposed to help victims by reducing the risk of retaliation. The response from Twitter users, however, was almost universally negative, according to Twitter sentiment tracker Topsy. Several Twitter users have praised the company's about-face, saying it showed there was a "healthy culture toward criticism" and calling it "good work." Thank goodness Twitter reverted that block change. What they did was essentially hand people a blindfold so they couldn't see their stalker," said @stuartgibson. The site has been criticised for not doing enough to protect victims of cyber bullying and trolling, particularly in the UK where female politicians and high-profile campaigners have been threatened on the site with violence and rape. The home of the 140-character message is working to quell some advertisers" fears that their brand's promoted tweets could be tainted by association with less savoury material in the feed. Dick Costolo, Twitter's chief executive, said last year he was frustrated with the "horrifying" abuse and hateful speech on the site.