Block Partya startup developed by a software engineer and tech diversity advocate Tracy Chu, was among the victims of Twitter’s (now X) API changes earlier this year, forcing it to turn its operations around. At the SXSW conference in Austin this weekend, Chou gave a glimpse of what Block Party is up to now with her new product, Privacy partydesigned to help people more easily navigate and adjust their privacy settings on social networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, X and more.
The original version of Block Party was built on top of the Twitter API to automate the process of blocking bad actors, trolls, harassers and more. The company raised $4.8 million in seed funding in 2022, a year after launch, with the goal of expanding its automated blocking to more platforms.
However, the suppression of Twitter’s API meant that Block Party’s ability to operate was immediately affected. This product, now discontinued, has since been renamed Block Party Classic.
Chou touched on the product’s debacle at SXSW, saying that Block Party Classic allowed Twitter users to filter out “all the spam and harassment from their reports” and made Twitter easier to use and more enjoyable without being a complete content control solution (because the content itself remained on the Twitter platform). Instead, it acted more like middleware, he said.
“Unfortunately, Twitter’s ownership changes also meant that we lost access to the API,” Chou explained.
“Regulation requiring open APIs would allow us to bring it back, without being subject to the whims of an erratic owner or changing business trends and priorities. And, in general, it would open up consumer markets and choices for social media experiences across so many platforms,” he added.
Given the unknown future for API regulation, the company is focused on the development of Privacy Party in the future.
Chou said the idea for the new product came from talking to newsroom security teams who wanted more tools to help their reporters stay safe online.
“In addition to suffering a lot of harassment, journalists sometimes have to face threats such as glorification, stalking, [and] death threats. Personal social media creates many surfaces for vulnerability, so the security recommendation is always to lock things down,” he noted.
Other people may just want to clean up their social media profiles so that old photos and posts don’t come back to haunt them, or because they were from a different era. For example, college party photos probably shouldn’t be shown to potential employers.
However, navigating security settings across platforms is time-consuming, tedious, and complicated. Platforms often make their user interface and experience cumbersome or frequently change the location of settings to prevent users from locking up their valuable data or to appease regulators.
Privacy Party will also act as a middleware here, allowing users to interact with platforms and services to adjust their privacy settings with fewer clicks.
In an example presented at SXSW, Block Party head of product design Deonne Castaneda explained that it took at least six clicks on Facebook to find the setting to make an individual photo album private.
“It was very clear that there was an unmet privacy need for this kind of time- and effort-saving photo control and protection,” he said.
The way Privacy Party works is to offer users recommendations for different social media platforms.
In beta, the browser extension will adjust its recommendations based on users’ current settings. The extension will navigate to Facebook or another social networking app, learning about your settings in a background scan. You’ll keep your browser tab open while the scan completes, and then receive a notification when it’s done. (In some cases, scanning may be interrupted due to 2FA needs). You can then review your settings — such as the content you’ve been tagged in or the public nature of your photos and posts, and you’re given the option to change the settings to be more secure or skip them if you prefer.
Image Credits: Block Party
The extension also focuses on other areas that could allow bad actors or stalkers, such as who can contact you, who can see your activity, which apps have access to your data, who can see personal information like location or your city, what is the oldest content available and to whom, and more. As you make your changes, the Privacy Party extension will update the settings for you. It’s like having a privacy expert walk you through the various settings and give you feedback on what needs to be changed and why.
Privacy Party beta works across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Strava, X, and Venmo, with scans lasting anywhere from one minute to eight minutes, depending on how many settings need to be locked down. The browser extension is free to use during the beta version.
Image Credits: Block Party
“Each recommendation gives you transparency about what’s happening with your data and related potential trade-offs,” said Castaneda. “They also present controls you have, including an additional layer of control that automates finding and fixing privacy settings for you.”
Chou didn’t say when Privacy Party would come out of beta, but it’s free for now.
