There may be an age or generational explanation for this, but I especially notice this behavior on Reddit while not nearly as much here on Lemmy (though maybe that’s also a mater of implementation).
It seems many are so quick to assert overly-confident positions, but then hit-and-run with some smarmy remark at even the slightest challenge, then quickly block. Like, not even crazy stuff. Just basic, civil disagreements. I can pretty well predict when it will happen, and it always feels like such a petty ego-sparing fingers-in-ears denial thing to do, and to me if anything shows they were not very confident in their views being challenged.
I think I’ve only blocked a handful of people over a decade who were actively spamming, stalking, or spewing extremely hateful rhetoric and I just reported them simultaneously. You have to cross a pretty extreme and irrational line for me to do that.
The reason I ask is to see if I’m missing something; to better understand the mindset of those who do.
You must log in or register to comment.
Im very pro block. I prefer that users can do stuff themselves over moderation honestly. I would like blocking to be reciprical and I have to do a lot of it for communities because the language thing often either seems to not work or my suspicion is the person making the community did not set it. That being said I block few users but tons of communities. The fediverse is not really large enough to subscribe to some stuff and ignore the rest. I block anything I have no interest in or sometimes just because its to niche for me. Things like sports, memes, and communities about like one specific thing like a tv series or video game.
Trolls have no right to any of my time.
Someone disagreeing with you isn’t a troll.
I’ve blocked like 2 people total, it’s pretty clear when someone isn’t arguing in good faith.
Regardless, my point is the same. No one has a right to demand I read what they write.
Blocked.
I constantly block both users and communities on Lemmy. Mostly because they are spouting doomer nonsense, and I ain’t got no time for their bullshit.
Quake is better anyway.
People don’t like being forced to engage with belligerent reactionaries.
It’s how society is degenerating. Respect for each other is gone. The bullets have started to fly.
I’m 31 now but I’ve always been pretty quick with a block button, i don’t mind people disagreeing with me, but some people are just overly aggressive and I find life’s better to just not care about them and block.
I also block trolls because you know don’t feed the trolls.
I’ve got better things to do than read a load of horseshit from bad-faith weirdos, so I block them. No point engaging with them and reading their opinions makes my day measurably worse.
I’ve not blocked anyone here or on Reddit. I have on Mastodon but only becase the 3 people I have blocked are fucking interminably boring not because of any philsophival difference of opinion or they were rude or some shit.
I tend not to engage too much, it is some random on the internet after all. I am old, I’ve been doing this shit from IRL meetups of computer clubs, to BBS’s where I actually personally knew just about everyone from meet ups, then Usenet and IRC opened the world, then fora, then reddit (because Usenet died) now here and Mastodon…
It depends what you’re on (social media) for.
If you’re there to get some positive social interaction and read some articles or funny pictures, it completely makes sense to block agitators or regular shitposters.
If you’re there to have political arguments and engage with rage bait then you leave everyone unblocked.
Its really not that complicated.
For me personally, I just don’t feel like dealing with yet another source of garbage that I don’t want to read.
In happier times, I felt a different way about blocking. Nowadays, the fucking potus forces the country to match some phony fucking Fox News image, and I don’t really care about reading some dumb assholes dumb rant anymore. Not blocking people and “dialog” and “debate bro” shit isn’t fixing this crap anyway, so I’m going to go ahead and make my own life contain a little less hassle.
That’s also why I’m only really here and on mastodon. I know they’re basically left wing safe spaces. I frankly don’t give a fuck.
I’ll try to be civil and will ask clarifying questions.
However, as soon as I see someone both-sides-ing, I block them.
Ain’t got no time for their “can’t we all just get along, kumbaya” centrist bullshit anymore. No we can’t “just get along”, the overton window has gone too far to the right for that.
You have actual Nazis running shit now, or attempting to run things in other nations.We need to fight them, the time for “understanding” is over.
It’s baffling how quick people are to do it. A while ago, I sold an old electronic thing on Marketplace to someone. A day later, they sent me an angry message saying that it didn’t work and how I scammed them, then proceeded to block me. I would’ve liked the opportunity to troubleshoot with them or even refund the item if it turned out to actually be broken, but… blocking me precludes all that. What exactly did they hope to achieve?
Sounds like they wanted to angrily vent, but not also take accountability for what may be their own mistake. People are extremely poor at confrontation, and so often resort to these cheapshot hit-and-run tactics. They MUST have the last word, so they get their little dig in, then block very quickly. I just roll my eyes.
If you’ve previously had the experience of reaching out to someone politely in good faith about a problem with your purchase, and they really were a scammer and responded “haha get fucked loser” and blocked you, that’s a mentally damaging interaction. You made yourself vulnerable and got taken advantage of. Not just once for buying from a scammer, but twice for then politely asking the scammer to help you! And that feels awful - as if the scammer “won”, and you are a sucker who didn’t even realise you’d been scammed.
That is why people are quick to go on the offensive when they suspect they’ve been wronged, because they’ve been hurt before and want to try and claw back some small measure of pride by saying effectively “Okay you scammed me, but I’m not so stupid I don’t see it, and I won’t make myself vulnerable to you.” - that’s what the message and block you received really means, if you unpack it.
I would be so much nicer if things weren’t this way, and we could assume the best in people. With honest sellers such as yourself, it would even lead to the problem getting fixed! But there are a lot of scammers out there, so I understand the psychological “why”, even if I don’t like it and try to never behave that way myself.
Cognitive dissonance.
Even when someone says some stupidly egregious shit, or uses thorns instead of th, its way easier to block them than try to understand that however stupid and misguided they may be that there is a person on the other side who may actually have a point somewhere u Herbert the radicalization and between the five brainless they have.
I think blocking is justified when someone actually means you personal physical harm in some way, but that so rarely ever happens.
I use it to curate my lemmy experiance. 99% of the users/communities I block aren’t for anything personal, they’re just clogging up my ALL feed with things I dont care about (for example, sports ball or foreign language comms).
next you’ll tell me you don’t like incredibly low effort political memes reposted from (social media site you specifically joined lemmy to avoid), smh
Why are you subscribed to them? No need to block just curate.
they’re just clogging up my ALL feed with things I dont care about
They aren’t subscribed to them.
Yes, I am curious why anyone would want to look at ALL. Easier to just curate what you want and be done with it. Works better for Lemmy too since there is no algo.
How would you discover new communities when only browsing your feed? And there is plenty of topics I’m not interested enough in to subscribe to but I might still want to see when a popular post there blows up.
I find it much easier to browser ALL and just block the communities I’m definitely not interested in.
How will you see anything interesting that “blows up” if you are blocking it?
In any case: Lemmy is not reddit. So a lot of the subs I belong to would never show up in ALL. There is no algorithm to show me things based on my tastes or comments.
Discovery is up to you.
When I joined, I browsed communities, searched for topics I was interested in and once in a while revisit the list. I am truly using it like a forum aggregator. Links to other things and subs I am interested in often show up in the comments and that is the best discovery tool out side of browsing.
By the way, switching to scaled helps pull in more of your subscriptions to the top even when they are smaller communities.
How will you see anything interesting that “blows up” if you are blocking it?
I’m not blocking them. I’m only blocking communities I’m definitely not interested in, for example AI art or video games I don’t play.
So a lot of the subs I belong to would never show up in all.
I’m often browsing ALL ordered by “new” or “new comments” so with proper timing even the smallest communities will show up there. I’ve discovered plenty small ones like that.
New Comments does seem like a good way. Just wanted to say thanks for the conversation, obviously no right or wrong way, just what ever works for each of us. It’s nice to have a civil conversation.
I subscribe to ones I’m interested in. But sometimes I browse all to stumble across new interesting communities. I block the ones I see repeatedly and aren’t interested in. I block mass posters, I block bots, I block tankies, I block mods/admins of larger communities. It just makes my all browsing time more efficient.
What’s the purpose of blocking mods/admins of larger communities?
I just noticed a pattern of personality types that I didn’t mesh well with. So it’s best I don’t see their opinions, nor give them mine.
Like blocking all hexbear users. I’m sure I’m probably missing something worthwhile here and there, but overall my life is better without it.
I never block anyone but I do get blocked a lot by both hardcore right wingers and hardcore left wingers. I’ve also gotten blocked by scammers by being such an incredible pain in the ass.
