User uproar really can make a difference. That point was proven in spades this week, when Twitter unwittingly incited an uproar by changing a facet of its “block” feature.

The old Twitter block feature had allowed users of the social media network both to hide their tweets and interactions from certain users and to block someone’s tweets from appearing in their feed. The shift in the feature kept the fundamental “block” concept of hiding another person’s tweets, but did away with the extra security measure of the block going both ways. After Twitter made the change on Thursday, users could see, favorite, and retweet the messages of someone who had blocked them.

Unsurprisingly, the change inspired the ardor of innumerable social media users.

According to a report from SFGate, users immediately banded together, creating hashtags to express their disapproval (#restoretheblock) and launching Change.org petitions to take the fight directly to Twitter. They certainly had an argument: while the old block feature was a reasonable security measure to completely cut all contact with an annoying or aggressive Twitter user, the new block served essentially the same function as unfollowing that person.

Twitter ultimately reversed its decision and restored the block feature to its previous function. The company claimed it had made the change as a means of better drowning out users guilty of harassment, threats, or other offensive remarks. However, precisely why Twitter thought it was a good idea to give the offending harassers the ability to keep following their victims and interacting with their tweets after a block had been instituted, is hard to fathom.

Zerlina Maxwell, the high-profile feminist who launched the Change.org petition, also had difficulty understanding precisely what Twitter’s motives were behind the block function alteration. Maxwell, who claims to have received “repeated rape and death threats on Twitter,” was particularly worried by the lower security provided by the new block feature. She felt it would give stalkers, abusers, potential killers, and other criminals more power to follow their victims’ movements online and formulate a way to harm them. The petition drew 2,400 signatures before Twitter heard the plea and reverted back to its original block policy.

Twitter is inherently a more public social media network than something like Facebook, and is therefore a more open-ended avenue for harassment and threats. The block feature is one of the best ways users have of balancing out this inequity in security and protection, and most users will likely be glad to see it back – even though its absence was brief.