Context: Lemmy still allow people to comment on your posts or comments after you blocked them:
There's no such thing as "public except for that guy in particular."
If any logged-out rando can see a thing, preventing a specific logged-in user from seeing it doesn't work and shouldn't be tried. It's ridiculous. And it's a great incentive for assholes to just make a new account.
The worst way to do it is how reddit handled it, where any asshole can have the last word, for free. You can't reply to anyone if someone in the thread blocks you. You can't even reply to your own comments in the chain, to notify people, 'hey, some asshole blocked me, I'm not just ignoring you or the argument.'
I really don't think blocking should prevent people from replying to you. I believe it should hide the content and not send you notifications, yes.
At the bare minimum, blocking should only prevent you from directly replying. On Reddit, if anyone in the comment chain above the comment you're replying to had blocked you then you couldn't make the comment.
I'm willing to discuss this, my opinions aren't rock solid on this.
In cases of harassment (what I view as the strongest counter argument) I think mods/admin need to take action by banning. Like if someone puts a comment on every post I make saying "JackbyDev is a doodoo head" (or something actually offensive lol) then that's harassment. I'm having trouble thinking of any problematic behaviors that wouldn't qualify as harassment that allowing someone to comment in reply to would actually prevent.
(None of this comment has anything to do with blocking an instance which is a separate topic I have separate opinions on.)
I think i agree. My opinion isn't rock solid either but if i block someone who is harassing me, the most important thing to me is just that i don't get notified and i never see that content or children of those comments. I see too much room for abuse if those blocked users can't interact with my posts at all (view/vote/comment).
In cases of harassment (what I view as the strongest counter argument) I think mods/admin need to take action by banning. Like if someone puts a comment on every post I make saying “JackbyDev is a doodoo head” (or something actually offensive lol) then that’s harassment. I’m having trouble thinking of any problematic behaviors that wouldn’t qualify as harassment that allowing someone to comment in reply to would actually prevent.
I mod several communities. We are lacking mods, and we can't have eyes on the communities 24/7. Allowing users to have this kind of blocking helps.
If this were implemented on Lemmy:
The best part was changing the error message to "something went wrong, try again later," just to lie to people and waste their time.
Oh dang, nice find. I wasn't even thinking about Reddit.
Reddit implemented this, and it was abused heavily to push trolls posts and disinformation up the algorithm, since by blocking people who disagreed with them, after multiple attempts the naysayers could no longer see the posts.
Somebody tested it, and was able to get their testing misinformation posts heavily upvoted after just a few days.
@Blaze@feddit.org, genuinely interested in your opinion on this considering the new information
Do you really believe that someone could get their a misinformation post heavily upvoted here? The main differences with Reddit are
If someone would do something similar here, they would at the very least get called out on !fediverselore@lemmy.ca or !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com , and mods and admins would get called out to act on those. Reddit does not have such mechanisms.
I disagree with you to some extent.
We should try to keep in mind that the fediverse and lemmy will likely grow to larger scales. Any systems and safety measures we implement should take that into account. The block mechanism as you suggest is extremely ripe for abuse at large scale, and relying on mods / admins to combat it will place an unnecessary extra load upon them, if it is even possible.
Has happened multiple times to me. I called somebody out for saying something wrong or bigoted or whatever, they blocked me after responding to me, I could no longer respond back to their response. And then presumably they kept saying shit that I was not able to see because I was blocked
It's a short-sighted way of implementing blocking, since it allows for heavy abuse by bad actors
Yeah, there was plenty of discussion on Reddit back in the day about the drawbacks and pitfalls of the blocking system. Surprised to see people calling for its implementation here.
Is there a long-sighted way to implement blocking?
Not when it takes one minute to create a new account
Bluesky/twitter/etc are person centric - you follow the person
Lemmy/reddit/etc are topic centric - you follow a community
It makes sense for blocking on Bluesky to completely hide you, you've severed the person - person relationship.
On Lemmy severing a person - person relationship shouldn't disadvantage the user from interacting with the community. Communities don't want duplicate posts so if you post some big news in a popular community now all the users you've blocked would be cut off from that content. Their personal beef with you shouldn't disadvantage them in the communities this way.
This problem can be seen clearly on Reddit where blocking works this way, frequently abused by spammers and powerusers.
There is value to the blocked person not being able to find out in any way, whether you've blocked them.
And if they really want to see your content, on federated social media, where you can't enforce a login requirement to view the content, they'll always be able to find your content if they really want to.
Stopping them from being able to comment on your posts would be nice, tho. Even better if they can comment, but it doesn't show up for you or anyone else.
Implementing such a block would be tricky, though. It is not as simple as community bans, as communities are always governed by their home instance.
If you post or comment in a community that isn't local, someone from a third instance could interact with that content without ever communicating with your home instance.
It can still be done, but it's a much more involved implementation than community bans.
Even better if they can comment, but it doesn't show up for you or anyone else.
This would be abused. Imagine I post some manipulated fake news or something. Then I block every single person who points out the bullshit in my post so no one sees it.
This happened exactly as you describe on Reddit.
reddit implemented that and I’m sure it’s abused
I can tell you it has been abused against me multiple times on Reddit. I called someone out for something wrong or bigoted they posted and they blocked me after responding, making me unable to respond back. And presumably kept posting stuff in the future that I just didn't see, and wasn't able to call out
It's a terrible system as it just allows abuse by bad faith actors more than anything else
This is one of the major gripes I have with Reddit. So often do people just block me when they are losing a debate against me, making it impossible to reply. A public forum should not behave this way if you want a healthy debate culture
I would prefer if people I block couldn't see anything I post
Err... you know all these comments are posted publicly and anyone can view them, right?
At least on Twitter before Elon changed things, the same thing applied, tweets were public but you could still block people.
Currently, X displays a “You’re blocked” message when trying to view the profile of a person who’s blocked you. In addition to blocking all posts, it also prevents you from seeing their replies, media, followers, and following list.
I would prefer if people I block couldn’t see anything I post
One of the problems is that if the post is public, anyone you block could just log out and see your post.
Hmmm you're right. Okay.
I would prefer if people I block were hurt a little.
Wowww this comment says a lot. Have you ever considered that if you were given the ability to 'hurt' people who you think deserve it, that other people could use that same ability to 'hurt' people who dont deserve it? Maybe stop focusing on retaliation for dumb internet disagreements and go touch some grass.
Oh no no no you don't get it, I should be the sole arbiter of pain on this website.
Other people can't do it just meeee
I don't think this type of block makes sense for a more forum-like environment. In fact I think it's more absuable for bad actors to be able to conceal their rhetoric from anyone they know would oppose it.
Yep, happened on Reddit exactly as you theorised.
IDK, seems like blocking behaving like that on Lemmy could backfire, actually encouraging abuse.
For example. What happens if someone being malicious blocks you and then starts talking shit about you elsewhere in the comment thread? The person being abused would never know.
It's not even theoretical. Reddit implemented this and the exact behaviour you described happened. Somebody tested and documented it.
I've had multiple occasions where someone on reddit was losing a debate against me and just blocked me, making it impossible to reply and giving them the "last word" to everyone else that can still see the entire comment chain.
This is not how a public forum like Reddit or Lemmy should behave. It makes sense on actual social media platforms like Instagram, but not here
Another missing feature is the ability to stop inbox notifications for any any particular comment you made.
Look, sometimes I just want to say something inciteful and then just dip out without the fear of dealing with the fallout, okay?
Just a short hypothetical: You start this thread or even top level vomment and I don't agree with you. Then I reply something and block you immediatelly after. That could be another tool for trolls, but I guess there could be some solutions that fix this problem.
(Not dissagreeing with the OP, just brainstorming)
I had a mod do that to me. They replied to my comment with a bunch of false accusations, then deleted my comment and banned me from the community. So, all the people saw was my username with all the accusations below, and I couldn't respond. I just blocked the whole instance and moved on.
They wield the instance ban hammer for themselves, while tools for the common plebes are lower priority:-P.
Memes about the Fediverse