Blocking

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What Does Blocking Mean?

In IT, blocking can be used in many ways to talk about the prevention of some action or command, or the hiding of some visual element from an interface. When something is blocked, it does not function or “go through” an interface. Blocking can be a user preference, or an essential part of a hardware and software system.

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Techopedia Explains Blocking

One example of blocking is the use of write blocker tools. These allow for evaluating the contents of the drive, without allowing the accidental damaging or rewriting of contents. Where read commands are let through, write commands are effectively blocked.

One of the most common uses of the term blocking in IT relates to the dominant Facebook social media platform. Here, users can access controls to block another user from their feed. They will then not see that user’s posts on their personal feed.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.