Block Party put its Twitter anti-harassment tool on hiatus and bet on Privacy Party

Tools that protect people from online harassment; its flagship let Twitter users block and mute trolls and spammers.

A proactive privacy tool that tells users what boundaries to set across social platforms can carry the company once its Twitter harassment filter is gone.

$4.8M seed round, September 2022.

Block Party had run for four years by the hiatus; Chou said Twitter had proactively reached out to work with it before Musk's ownership.

Under Musk, Twitter shut down its Toolbox developer showcase, third-party clients stopped working in January 2023, and API access was then paywalled. In September 2022 Block Party had raised $4.8M to expand beyond Twitter, so on 30 May 2023 it announced the Twitter product would pause from 31 May and put Privacy Party, a browser extension, into alpha for existing customers.

From 31 May 2023 the Twitter product went on indefinite hiatus. Privacy Party began alpha testing with existing customers, offering privacy recommendations for Facebook, Twitter and Venmo, with Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn planned.

Twitter's API paywall, with a $100-a-month basic tier, made third-party projects like Block Party unsustainable.

The company had already raised $4.8M in 2022 to expand its anti-harassment and privacy tools beyond Twitter, so a fallback existed.

Privacy Party addresses the problem earlier, helping users decide their boundaries before harassment arrives rather than only filtering abuse afterward.

A product built on a platform's API is on loan: Block Party's raise to go beyond Twitter is what let it survive the day Twitter priced the API out of reach.

As of 30 May 2023, Block Party's Twitter product was paused indefinitely and Privacy Party was available in alpha to existing customers. The company said the Twitter pause was another example of why large platforms cannot be trusted on user safety without regulation or incentives.