They shouldn’t be able to do that!
I don’t mind it, but if the devs change it I hope they don’t take the Reddit route that prevents you from replying to any comment chain the user is in, especially with how small Lemmy is. Direct replies I can understand.
The way Reddit does is abusive. I called out a guy for spamming, he blocked me, he’s the one who creates TV discussion threads, I can’t participate anymore.
Not sure if it’s the same on Lemmy, but on Mastodon, your blocks are definitely shared to other instances. So the instance of the user you blocked definitely stores that you’ve blocked their user. And their system admin can view if their user has been blocked (via the PostgreSQL db).
Technically, hiding your posts from your intended blockee should be doable. But someone could run a modified version of Mastodon and display content from people who have blocked them.
Or just create a new account.
I’m unsure if Lemmy is coded in this same way (storing remote blocks on instances of the blocked user).
You can show them even if you don’t allow them to comment.
If I block someone, and one of their posts or comments gets reported for moderation, it won’t allow the moderation tools to work. I have to un-block them to moderate them.
And why for a long time I didnt block people. Especially when I was modding TenForward
Im a big proponent of symetric blocking. Normal blocking is like making the person you blocked invisible to you and if the people you block tend to be to you sorta creepy well… I mean if there was a flasher in the neighborhood and you turn them invisible its great to not see that but…
How is it not fair? You get to decide what you can see and say. You don’t get to decide what I can see and say.
How the Threadiverse works today — blocking hides content from blocked users, but doesn’t affect their ability to comment — is how Reddit originally worked, and I think that it was by far a better system.
Reddit only adopted the “you can’t reply to a comment from someone who has blocked you” system later. What it produced was people getting into fights, adding one more comment, and then blocking the other person so that they’d be unable to respond, so it looked like the other person had conceded the point.
I’d also add, for people who feel that they don’t have a good way to “hang up” on a conversation that they don’t want to be participating any further without making it look like they agree with the other user, the convention is to comment something like this:
“I don’t think that we’re likely to agree on this point, so I’m afraid that we’re going to have to agree to disagree.”
That way, it’s clear to everyone else reading the thread that the breaking-off user isn’t simply conceding the point, but it also doesn’t prevent the other user from responding (or, for that matter, other users from taking up the thread).
EDIT: Also, on Reddit, I remember a lot of users who had been subjected to the “one more comment and a block” stuff then going to try to find random other comments in the thread where other users might see their comment, responding to those comments complaining that the other user had blocked them, and then posting their comment there, which tended to turn the whole thread into an ugly soup.
Also, with Reddit’s new system, at least with some clients and if I remember correctly, the old Web UI, there was no clear indication as to why the comment didn’t take effect — it looked like some sort of internal error, which tended to frustrate users. Obviously, that’s not a fundamental problem with a “blocking a user also prevents responding” system, but it was a pretty frustrating aspect of Reddit’s implementation of it.
This is like putting up a tall fence to obscure the view of your neighbors and being surprised they don’t cease existing on the other side
You don’t want to just block users, you want to unilaterally ban them
There’s a difference between fair and just
I want to stop them from engaging with me. I don’t want to let them keep engaging with me without my ability to see what they’re saying.
Edit: Give persecuted minorities a way to protect themselves.
This comes from discussions I’ve had with minorities about the harassment they face on Lemmy and mastodon, and the currentblockmute feature is more harmful than helpful.If you’re using “block” to curate your content, then it works great. If you’re trying to prevent harassment, then it’s counterproductive
I’m sorry, but I feel like you need to support the statement “This comes from discussions I’ve had with minorities about the harassment they face on Lemmy and mastodon” a bit more. Your whole argument for limiting the speech of others is predicated on this statement.
I’m not saying that minorities couldn’t face harassment on Lemmy, but Lemmy is by far the most liberal and minority supportive online forum I have ever experienced. Part of the reason Lemmy is so niche is because it doesn’t have the mainstream attention other platforms have and is heavily moderated.
If you are engaging in an instance where harassment is occurring the moderators generally ban the person quickly. If the moderators of that instance aren’t doing their job people generally leave and the instance dies from lack of content (there just aren’t that many people on Lemmy). If someone follows you from a different instance to another the current instance moderators will likely ban them even if the one you met them on doesn’t. Finally, if they are direct messaging you you can block them, they can continue to message you but you won’t see their messages and neither will anyone else.
What minority group have you talked with that are receiving harassment and what extra protections were needed that aren’t already here?
the discussion was 2 years old, so I’m a bit fuzzy - it looks like it was only 1 person. but it was enough to convince me from basically saying what yall are saying here “don’t expect privacy on a public site” to “there should be an attempt at privacy, and people facing harassment should have some measure of control to protect themselves”
I didnt feel the need to make the provide their credentials as a minority and prove to me that they’re being harassed and that muting the harasser wasn’t enough. What they said made sense.
Engagement is a two-way street. By blocking them you have stopped engaging with them.
The fact that you’re upset by what other people are doing somewhere that you can’t see and that doesn’t affect you seems like a you problem, frankly. Just forget about them.
This isn’t about me, this is about what people from persecuted minorities have told me they need, when I bought this exact argument to them.
I used to say what you’re saying them they described to be the harassment that they face
Ah… Would reporting them rather than blocking be more appropriate, then? I recognize reporting isn’t always effective, but the right answer seems to be getting the community to police it rather than hiding your commentary from them.
And I recognize I’m speaking from a dearth of experience, here - this isn’t something I’ve dealt with, so I’m genuinely asking!
I’m generally trying to go off of a conversation I had with someone 2 years ago in lemmy. I was generally of the opposite opinion to my current stance, and they explained how the current “everything is public, dont even try to hide it from people” stance is problematic to persecuted minorities. It was 2 years ago so I’m a bit fuzzy on the details - I had to go look it up because someone didnt believe that the conversation even existed, but i didnt re-read the whole comment section.
their point was that, while total privacy in a federated service is likely impossible, you want to make it non-trivial for harassers to do harassment.
reporting is absolutely more appropriate than blocking, but blocking has a few advantages:
- its immediate, you dont need to wait for mods/admin.
- you don’t need to prove to an admin that something that the harasser said about you is actually a lie.
- mods/admins don’t need to be up-to-date on all the current dogwhistles
- it doesn’t need to actually affect the harasser beyond you. they dont need to get banned from the whole community or instance, unless the community or instance feels like they should be. its lower impact. This is important for lemmy communities that represent real communities, like classes or teams or neighborhoods.
In that case substitute “they” for “you” in my comment. The meaning remains the same, as does my position.
Oh god, did Lemmy turn into a libertarian hellscape while I wasn’t looking?
What are your opinions on community bans, since all your arguments apply equally to those. Let me see you rectify those positions.
When did an appreciation for free speech become the exclusive domain of the Libertarians? I don’t want you to be able to unilaterally silence me, therefore I’m a Libertarian?
What are your opinions on community bans, since all your arguments apply equally to those. Let me see you rectify those positions.
Community bans are the domain of a select few individuals who are responsible for maintaining the overall state of the community. If they abuse their power then the community suffers and people should go elsewhere.
Personally, I’d rather a system where one could “subscribe” to specific moderators so that if one goes rogue people could choose to unsubscribe from their moderation actions, that would IMO be the best combination of freedom and control. But I can understand that being rather complicated to implement well and perhaps a little confusing for the users, so I’m okay with the current setup as a compromise.
When did an appreciation for free speech become the exclusive domain of the Libertarians? I don’t want you to be able to unilaterally silence me, therefore I’m a Libertarian?
Minor nitpick with your comment: there’s a semantic difference between “Libertarian” and “libertarian”, and I suspect you want the latter.
Small-l “libertarian” is used to refer to the political ideology.
Big-L “Libertarian” is used to refer to the Libertarian Party.
The same sort of convention also shows up elsewhere, like “democrat” and “Democrat”, “republican” and “Republican”, etc.
How is “not letting you see what I personally wrote” consider to be “unilaterally silencing you” ?
What a mind bogglingly disingenuous response.I’m not saying that the reddit style block is good.
I’m saying that the current “mute” style block hangs vulnerable people out to dry.I’m ok trying something else, like maybe what you suggested.
But they’re not being harassed because they can’t see it……
thats not the entire extent of harassment. harassment extends far beyond insulting someone to their face.
You can’t stop other people from badmouthing you behind your back. That’s just life. Accept it and move on. Trying to censor people because you don’t like what they’re saying is peak liberal fascism.
If you care what they are saying, you shouldn’t block them. If you don’t care, you shouldn’t care they are commenting on you.
I don’t want other people being able to hide criticism of their posts/comments they don’t like from me. Allowing you to completely block engagement with your posts would just strengthen echo chambers and bolster misinformation IMO.
What I’m saying also protects vulnerable communities at least a little, and what you’re saying leaves them vulnerable.
If they’re able to comment on my content I’m my communities, then I need to be able to see if they’re spreading misinformation about me to my friends and acquaintances. Rather than just blind myself to that, I’d rather put barriers between my content and their ability to do that.
Imo protecting people from harassment is more important than protecting my ability to combat misinformation on some strangers’ posts.
You might be better served using the “report” button if you are indeed dealing with harassment. That would be the appropriate tool for such things.
But I am going to go out on a limb and guess that you want to be able to just unilaterally punish anyone you don’t like.
That’s a limb that wouldn’t support your weight.
I used to support your concept of block, until I was in a thread like this one, and someone from a minority community explained to me the consequences of these design decisions
You want to at the click of a button stop everyone from reading something you don’t want to see. If you dislike reading a persons comments, then you can block them and no longer see what they write. If you are being harassed you can report it, but what you want to do is police other users as a regular user.
You are also making the “won’t someone think of the children” argument as your (so far) only point.
This is a place of public discourse, what you want can be achieved using a txt editor and a friend.
“won’t someone think of the children” isn’t always wrong.
What’s absolutely crazy to me is that you say “blocking won’t work because they can get a new account” and then in the very same breath suggest that reporting is a viable strategy. Either it is or it isn’t, which is it?
Public/private discourse is a false dichotomy. What are your thoughts on a community’s ability to ban someone? Should groups lose that ability, since apparently it’s both ineffective and toxic, apparently?
Then go to a private platform. This is a platform for public discourse, not private communities.
PS: You could even make a community on lemmy and ban people as it’s moderator. Although a different platform may still be a better fit.
Yeah, fuck those minorities, amirite? They don’t deserve to use Lemmy anyways\
- you, a couple min ago
Please go make your own place where those minorities (whoever they are) can do whatever they want.
- Them before you put words in their mouth to make a terrible argument.
i mean, i’ve linked you to the conversation I had.
have you tried to talk to anyone about it? or are you just some white dude confidently saying that nobody should change anything because it works for you, so it should work for everyone else?
because you really sound like that.
It’s not your content when you’re posting it in public forums. It’s public content.
If you want to be able to see when people spread “misinformation” about you, don’t block people.
the fact that there are only public forums on lemmy is a problem itself.
If you want to be able to see when people spread “misinformation” about you, don’t block people.
what are you even talking about here?
But if you don’t see what they’re saying, why do you care? How does it affect you?
What you want is to be able to silence them because you don’t like what they’re saying, ie censorship.
me personally? I don’t particularly care. i rarely use mute/block features.
but I understand that for some people, its a problem, because harassment doesn’t just end at insults, it can also be spreading rumours and talking shit.
its not going to be obvious to onlookers that one person has muted another, so if the harasser goes all over the victim’s posts saying terrible lies and rumours, then the victim should be able to know that and take action to stop it, even if the rumours aren’t against the community/instance ToS, and the victim can’t prove to the mods that the rumours are lies.
OK so you do want censorship.
Because the alternative is easily abused, see all the issues Reddit has with this type of block mechanism.
The core of the problem as I see it is, this gives every user limited moderation powers in every sub, the extent of that power is determined mainly just by how much they post and comment (blocked users can’t comment under their posts, and can’t reply to any comment in a chain started by the blocker), and the extent to which it is happening is invisible to most users. People advocating for this seem to assume it will be used mostly defensively, to prevent harassment, but the feature has way more utility offensively, and it’s totally unaccountable. If there is something someone is saying (not even necessarily to you) that you don’t like for whatever reason, whether or not it’s against the rules and regardless of what anyone else thinks about it, you can partially silence them by blocking and then working to get engagement in the same spaces they comment in. Think about if this was implemented on Lemmy, lots of communities have only one or a few people making all the posts, if one or more of them blocked you that’s almost the same as a ban. It doesn’t make it better that the people making those posts are often also moderators, because it would be a way to pseudo ban people without it showing up in the mod log.
Moderation of online discussion spaces should be transparent and accountable, it shouldn’t be a covert arms race between users.
The current system doesn’t stop that version of abuse though it just means it can only happen in the opposite direction. The abuse you’re implying still occurs.
Seems to me you shouldn’t be able to reply directly but you should be able to see the comments that way you could reply elsewhere in the thread if you want. Or the other people in the comment chain even.
I do think it would be less bad if it only prevented direct comment replies, and not replies to top level posts or replies to other comments by other people further down the thread.
I don’t understand what you mean by it still occurs in the other direction though. Nobody can prevent people from commenting except moderators and admins, which is how it should be. Mute style blocking isn’t moderation because it doesn’t affect anyone’s ability to comment, it’s effectively the same as a client level filter.
Well think about it, you say it’s abuse because someone can use blocking to change how conversations work right? They can make replies the other person can’t respond. That same thing can still happen. Yeah harass someone to the point they block you and then you continue to harass them by making replies that they can’t see and changing how the conversation of this forum works. It’s the exact same thing. Just opposite direction.
I’ve blocked a bunch of people, who may be replying to me with harassing comments, but that isn’t influencing what I do. It might influence the overall conversation, and that could be a problem, but I think the way that problem is dealt with should be public, because the problem is public, it’s not something that’s exclusively my problem. I don’t think I should have the authority to act to police any arbitrary community like that, especially without anyone being able to know that I’m doing it.
It’s The Sixth Sense, you’re the wife and they’re Bruce Willis. Just get on with your life
My only gripe is that the blocked comment’s replies are also not visible. I want to see what everyone else is saying, even if they’re replying to a blocked user. I just don’t care what the blocked user says.
Maybe you don’t need a block function to accomplish that, then. Seems you could accomplish it by just not caring about what the user says.
I don’t -it’s the replies TO the blocked user I’d like to see.
Then don’t block them.
No
In that case you won’t see the replies to the blocked user.
I think you’re at an impasse.
I’m hopeful developers will find a way to support blocking without truncating subthreads.
It already works that way.
That’s why it’s called blocking, not banning.
I think the way it works is good.
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If the blocked user browses on another account (or not logged in at all), they can’t tell that you have blocked them.
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Bot/spam accounts can’t use the blocking system to stop users who target these accounts to call them out on their disguised malicious behavior. This became a problem on Reddit when they changed their blocking system away from what we have here.
Edit: I guess there is a downside of if so many of the sane users block the same nutjobs, then there won’t be anybody to downvote or refute those nutjobs
I guess there is a downside of if so many of the sane users block the same nutjobs, then there won’t be anybody to downvote or refute those nutjobs
This has nothing to do with the block system. No matter how it worked, this would be the case. What you’re describing isn’t a block system, it’s moderation, which we still have (though it’s obviously up to the moderators of any given community). That is to say, blocking only affects what you see. Moderation affects what everyone sees, which is what you’re talking about here.
if so many of the sane users block the same nutjobs, then there won’t be anybody to downvote or refute those nutjobs
Don’t worry, a lot of us never block anybody, specifically so we can do exactly that.
i used to do that, but my sanity suffered, now i block liberally
True…
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That style of blocking makes sense for more personal social media, but I don’t think it fits a public forum like the Threadiverse. On Reddit, bad actors were able to weaponize blocking to hide from anyone who would disagree with them, anyone who would push back against misinformation. That did a lot more harm than good.
Everything you post here is public, and you should expect that anyone can see it, even people you do not like. If you don’t want to see someone you don’t like, that’s what blocking is for, but you shouldn’t expect to be able control who can see your posts when they’re all public to begin with.
If something is so sensitive that you think you need to hide it from someone you don’t like, then this probably isn’t the platform to post it on at all.
For anyone wondering how the blocking feature has been weaponized to spread misinformation, in 2022 a redditor did an experiment: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/sdcsx3/testing_reddits_new_block_feature_and_its_effects/
Afaik, the blocking feature is still in the same state as in 2022, which makes modern reddit a heaven for spreading misinformation.
My main experience with blocking is when people use it to “get the last word” in an argument. They’ll write up a response - often containing questions and challenges to my position - and then immediately block me after posting it so that it will look like I gave up in the face of their arguments.
I usually just edit my previous comment with whatever responses seem necessary, playing an Uno Reverse on them since they’ll be the ones who never see it.
It’s still rather annoying, though, because if other people also respond Reddit’s brain-dead implementation prevents me from responding to other people who have responded to someone who blocked me.
I am glad that the Fediverse has a much more sane approach to blocking that doesn’t let it be weaponized like that.
The worst part IMO is that if they commented anywhere in the chain you’re blocked from that entire chain. Say you’re having a nice conversation back and forth about something, then they reply to the original comment (not even seeing you) now you’re blocked from the entire thread of comments.
I’d call what you’re describing “muting” rather than blocking.
I used to agree with you, but then I spoke with some people from persecuted minorities, and this style of blocking just gives power to their abusers rather than keeping their communities and themselves safe.
Yes they can get a new account, but it’s another hurdle, and if we erect enough hurdles then it’ll catch enough of them. Defense in depth.
We’ve seen the problems with Reddit’s style of blocking already.
If someone’s being truly abusive, that’s something you should report to moderators or instance admins.
I agree it has problems, but that doesn’t mean that anything is better.
Reporting someone is good, but isn’t that subject to the exact same reasons why “it won’t work”? If reddit style blocking someone isn’t effective anyways, why would admin bans be effective?
This assumes that admins and mods even have the capacity to deal with all this shit, which seems to be very uncertain.I don’t understand what you mean. Moderator bans do work, that’s a moderator’s job.
a common response I’ve been getting is “blocking doesn’t work, they just need to make a new account”
but then they say “if its really a problem, then they just need to report the user”
but if making a new account would defeat blocking, then making a new account would defeat reporting a user. its either effective in both places or neither place.That isn’t what I said. You’re replying to me to talk about somebody else’s argument, while completely ignoring mine.
sorry i was getting it mixed up, i’ve had a very similar conversations a few times and that rebuttal came up multiple times.
mods and admins are overworked, and they can’t always be expected to keep up to date with dogwhistles along with everything else they have to manage. besides, harassment doesn’t always appear to break ToS - starting rumours and spreading lies about someone can be very difficult to prove to a mod, but can have huge repercussions in some communities.
and besides, it can take a while before mods/admins are able to take action.IMO I think a few things should exist.
I should be able to prevent someone from replying to my content even if I can’t prevent them from seeing it.
Additionally, I think there should be a best effort to make invite-only/private communities. I know that the fediverse makes this technically difficult, but having something is better than having nothing.
Some users would write their reply and then quickly block the other person so their points couldn’t be contested.
Thank you for explaining to me why I didn’t like blocking but couldn’t express why.
Two sides of the medal…
It… Makes perfect sense?
YOU blocked them. They didn’t block you.
It’s like when you were a kid and told to ignore the kid bullying you; except that it actually works.
I love you, but I hate you!
If I block them, I want to stop them from engaging with me.
I don’t want to let them continue to engage with me and other people in my comments, but just lose my ability to see what they’re saying about me.
That’s like saying the purpose of a locked door isn’t to keep people out, it’s to prevent you from seeing what they’re doing in your house
The engagement between the two of you is over. He’s saying stuff to other people now, not to you.
I don’t want to let them continue to engage with me and other people in my comments, but just lose my ability to see what they’re saying about me.
You want to control what they see and do? No, you don’t get to decide that for other people.
If you don’t want to lose your ability to see what they’re saying then don’t block them.
That’s not how harassment works.
I think you know that, too.Consider it a restraining order.
A restraining order is something a judge grants. That’d be a moderator or administrator in the context of the Threadiverse, and they do have the ability to prevent people from posting. Bringing something to their attention is what the “report” link is for, it’s their decision after that.
I remain firm in my opinion that giving everybody the ability to unilaterally apply restraining orders to everybody they want to for whatever reason they want to leads to bad outcomes. That’s how Reddit does it and it’s pretty badly broken over there.
It being broken over there doesn’t make it not broken over here.
Report is good, but why should I have to let other people read my content? Why is this a hill you want to die on?
This is a public forum. If you post to a public forum, you should expect your posts to be public. If you’re posting something you don’t want to be public, all I can say to you is that this isn’t the right platform for that.
thats exactly the take i used to have, until it was explained to me how harmful that is to persecuted minorities and drives them off the platform.
I evidently cannot do a good job of explaining why that would be the case and (apparently) why thats even a problem, but I believe it is.
Report is good, but why should I have to let other people read my content? Why is this a hill you want to die on?
Why should you have to let other people read what you post on a public site?! Is that really the hill you want to die on?
Yes, it is.
Because it’s my content.
Because it’s not just a public site, public/private is a false dichotomy.
Because social networks need to provide effective anti-harassment tools, and if admins/mods are too overworked then that needs to be self-serviced.Defederation exists
Instance bans exist
Community bans exist
Why are all of those good, but individual bans aren’t?
Why are all of those effective (at least partially), but not for individuals?
Or is the argument that all of those should be disposed of, too?
It being broken over there doesn’t make it not broken over here.
It being different over here is what makes it not broken over here. The effects that makes Reddit’s block system suck so badly are not present here.
It’s hard to tell exactly what you mean, but there are different sucky effects.
You don’t get to make that decision.
you dont get to make that decision
If I block them, I want to stop them from engaging with me.
That’s exactly what happens. They can no longer engage with YOU because YOU no longer see THEM.
It’s a curtain, not a door.
Engaging with me is more than my ability to respond.
Them replying to my content is still engaging with me, no matter if I can see it. Them telling misinformation to other people in my thread is still engaging with me.You are (I know this is a shock) not the centre of the internet. Your inability to police what other people say is not a bug, but a feature.
you are (I know this is a shock) not the center of society. your ability to harass people without repercussion is a bug, not a feature.
This is not harassment. If you feel otherwise please use the tools provided and report.
whats not harassment?
