Block Party, a Tool to Combat Online Harassment, Raises a $4.8M Seed

Block Party, a consumer app that tackles online harassment and puts you back in control, hopes to expand to other social platforms with the help of $4.8 million in seed funding.

The app which was developed by software engineer and technical diversity advocate Tracy Chow, Block Party helps people create a secure experience on Twitter.

By building on top of Twitter’s API, Block Party lets users automate the process of blocking bad actors and building block lists on Twitter. For example, if a particular tweet is causing harassment, you can automatically block anyone who likes or retweets that post.

Block Party launched in early 2021, but now, the company hopes to expand to other social platforms with the help of $4.8 million in seed funding.

“We’ve got a bunch of preliminary validation, will this product be useful to people? Will it be possible to build on top of the platforms?” Chow told TechCrunch. “Will there be a willingness to pay for it, like how big is the market here?”

So far, the concept has proven itself. Chow said Block Party has attracted a wide variety of users, including both public figures and small accounts who simply want more privacy controls. As far as building on Twitter’s API, Chou said that Twitter continually reached out to the block party to ensure they can work together.

“It’s great to see that they understand the strategic alignment where building security tools is a win-win for a company like Block Party,” Chou told TechCrunch. “It’s good for the end user, because they have better tooling to control their experience.” And that’s good for the platform, because they don’t have to devote engineering and product design resources to the purpose.

Block Party is available as both a free and a paid service. As a non-paying customer, you can access tools like the “Medium Filter,” which mutes accounts that are more likely to be annoying, such as newly created accounts with few followers and more. No profile picture. Paid customers unlock access to features like keyword filters, which allow users to automatically block or mute accounts in their mentions with specific keywords or emoji in their username, display name or bio. Another paid feature, “Assistant View”, lets users assign a friend to help them manage their account settings. Instead of filtering through hurtful tweets yourself, this tool allows a friend to help you manage your filters, block lists, and watchlists.

Chow describes Block Party as “middleware,” a term that refers to how users can take more control over their experience on social media through personalized, third-party apps.

“It doesn’t really make sense sometimes for platforms to define what’s acceptable or not in some of these messages. They’re going to be able to define terms of service,” Chou explained. . “But there’s going to be a bunch of stuff in the middle where individual users don’t want to see that content, but it doesn’t make sense for Twitter to ban a user for calling me ugly or stupid.”

Instead of being tied up in an ideological debate about bad behavior being a punishable offense, users can turn to “middleware” like Block Party to decide for themselves what content they want to see. As Chow says, calling someone ugly isn’t against Twitter’s rules — but that doesn’t mean you should see it in your mentions.

In theory, Twitter could build these filtering options on its own. But Chou feels that social media platforms are not encouraged to prioritize security over pure use alone.

“I think seeing structural incentives is telling a lot. Platforms are incentivized to create more engagement – that is their north star,” Chou said. “So that’s what they’re going to put all their resources into.”

Right now, for example, with Twitter facing a legal battle with Elon Musk where $44 billion is at stake, internal priorities have shifted. The Verge reported that Twitter’s health team was reorganized into a team charged with identifying spam accounts, as Musk used fake accounts as a key aspect of his argument to end the acquisition of the platform. So, if Twitter can’t devote as many resources to security as it wants, it can at least block the party.

As Block Party plans to expand into other social platforms, Chou and his team of four full-time employees have compiled a list of strategic investors who can help take the company to the next level. 

Some of the investors include Dr. Rumman Choudhury, Twitter’s Director of Machine Learning Ethics; Jeff Seibert, ex-Twitter head of product; Evan Sharp, co-founder of Pinterest; Vikash’s former Instagram head Bengali Kaaba and other veteran social media execs. The round was led by Stellation Capital with participation from Impellant Ventures, Fuel Capital, Goodwater Capital and Hyphen Capital.

September 22, 2022