Seriously what's that idea?
Seriously what's that idea?
They shouldn't be able to do that!
384 comments
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I have no issue with this whatsoever. I block people so that I don't need to see their posts, not that they couldn't see mine. If you don't want others reading what you post online, then don't post online.
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Also, while other locations in the Fediverse might disable access to unauthenticated persons, comments and post in Lemmy are generally public in that way. So, a blocked user could simply logout (or visit from a different instance) to see the content.
Also, as a third-party I do want someone (e.g. a fact checker) to be able reply to a comment with more information, so that I can see it, even if the commenter doesn't want to see replies (from the "woke mob" or wikipedians, e.g.).
I understand some people think the reply thread under their comments is somehow "owned" and should be "controlled" by them, but I don't agree. I think this should also be true in most places on the Fediverse, tho it isn't (as I understand it) on Mastodon (and the like).
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Perhaps some people want others reading what they post online but don't want to be bullied.
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You can block bullies. They can continue to waste their time writing mean messages but those will never reach you.
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That's why I love Voyager for mobile viewing. Not sure the feature's exclusivity, but you can tag people and add up or downvotes to their accounts total. For instance, you were at +70 upvotes from me. But if I didn't like you, I could add a tag to your account with why or whatever, and add -1000, effectively highlighting, for me, how much less I enjoy your input compared to others. It doesn't hide their bullshit but makes it super obvious who sucks complete ass!
Along the vein of blocking, I like how lemmy does it. I can see the block person left a comment and choose to read it or ignore it.
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I'm more annoyed by losing the "Block Community" button when a sub's admin blocks me.
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Because it would allow people to push narratives and not get called out if they block everyone against them.
Imagine a civil transphobe pushing some narrative that flies below the radar of whatever mods are moderating that comm. If they block all the trans users they cannot get called out on their stuff anymore.
I think there was some discourse on this on black mastodon?
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Excellent point tbh
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A lot of people here never had a stalker and it shows.
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If you're concerned about someone being able to see your activity, no blacklisting-based system --- which is what OP is talking about in terms of "blocking" would be -- on a system without expensive identifiers (which the Threadiverse is not and Reddit is not --- both let you make new accounts at zero cost) will do much of anything. All someone has to do is to just make a new account to monitor your activity. Or, hell, Reddit and a ton of Threadiverse instances provide anonymous access. Not to mention that on the Threadiverse, anyone who sets up an instance can see all the data being exchanged anyway.
In practice, if your concern is your activity being monitored, then you're going to have to use a whitelisting-based system. Like, the Fediverse would need to have something like invite-only communities, and the whole protocol would have to be changed in a major way.
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You can choose to federate with a specific server. I believe some mastodon servers would honour requests to only share with specific accounts, but that's it.
You could possibly have some encryption key shenanigans go on at the client side and build it ontop of the fediverse. It might be possible.
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Some stalkers might notice and circumvent, but most won't because in their mind they aren't doing anything wrong so why would they check if they got blocked. But apparently if the solution is not perfect it's not worth doing anything to deter it seems.
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I don't think blocking is an effective measure.
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Precisely because blocking here doesn't do anything really. On a different platform the feature made me invisible to the person and it helped reduce their obsession with me massively. Out of sight out of mind is true for a lot of people.
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When I block someone, I don't want to see their posts anymore. I know they can still comment on my posts, but that's okay, I just don't see their contributions any longer to make me angry.
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From a technical standpoint, doing it in another way requires your blocks to be public.
He and you are both publishing individual comments with metadata telling which thread and where in it that these entries go. The instance hosting the community simply pull all these entries together. To cut off that response then your instance must tell that hosting instance to detach that reply from the blocked user. Currently Lemmy doesn't support any such thing.
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Why not, exactly? I think with the way the fediverse works, this would be a needless hassle for them to program this in. IIRC, posts are all separate and are just referring to another post. I think it'll be up to their server on whether or not to honour that block (your server could possibly sever the link on it's frontend, but that won't change that the person linked your post to theirs)
And even if you could, they could still post a screenshot locally or write stuff about you.
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or copy-paste your comment (post-url)
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Bluesky differentiates between blocking and muting. Bluesky blocking is like what you describe, which is also how Reddit blocking works. Bluesky muting is like Lemmy blocking, where they can engage on your posts, you just won't see it.
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However bluesky is not decentralized. This is handled by their appview, which other bluesky clients might change
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I wish we had time-limited blocks / mutes on Lemmy. I use them all the time on Mastodon to exit a conversation when I am getting to short. If it really matters, I can revisit after a fortnight of reflection.
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Seems ideal, then they won’t know they’re blocked.
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That should be a separate function: Muting, Ignoring, or maybe "Shadow Blocking".
Regular Blocking should prevent direct replies completely.
EDIT: There also should be an option to make all or specific comments "Viewable by logged in & unblocked users only". For maximum separation.
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Blocking means you can't see them. It makes them non existent to you. It doesn't hide you from them. It's working as intended.
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I'd call that "muting" rather than blocking.
And it leaves vulnerable communities open to abuse, because they're unable to police their communities and kick out harassers.
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Moderators are still able to ban people from communities.
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If they are running their own communities yes they can. Mods can and do ban people from the communities.
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Do those communities not have mods? Oh they do? Report them if they’re breaking the rules then. If they’re not breaking the rules then you just need to harden up.
You need to harden up even if they are breaking the rules though.
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That's unfair. It's rather fair they don't see me, I blocked them for a reason.
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You get to control your own experience, not their experience.
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The only way to do that in a federated system would be to effectively make blocks public. That has its own disadvantages.
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Go back to Reddit? This system stops witch hunts, effectively stops echo chambers from gaining traction, and helps protect against power tripping mods.
Much like someone else told you, you can control what you see. If you don't see the trolls do they really exist for you? If you don't go looking for their "ghost" you won't find it
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Blocks work the way you want them to on Reddit. And all it did was allow people with fringe political beliefs and misinformation fetishes to stop decent people from refuting them. This is for the best.
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It also makes Lemmy objectively less safe because it's much less effective at limiting stalking and harassment. Especially since way blocks work on Lemmy isn't clearly communicated to the user.
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The solution here is obvious - creating an instance and/or community with stricter moderation rules, much like blåhaj.zone.
Each instance/community has the ability to set their own general rules and whilst (yes) this means that an individual person can't guarantee their "safety" everywhere it does mean anyone can create their own little bubble and then pick & choose which parts of the fediverse to connect with.
The fediverse is at its core a free speech project, which is why I like it. There are many other platforms out there that focus on safety.
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If you block someone you will never see their harassment.
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I think the way it works is good.
- If the blocked user browses on another account (or not logged in at all), they can’t tell that you have blocked them.
- 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
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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.
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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.
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i used to do that, but my sanity suffered, now i block liberally
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True...
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But the nut job will be stuck in his own bubble unable to talk to everyone, which is more sane than engaging them
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Some users would write their reply and then quickly block the other person so their points couldn't be contested.
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This has happened to me multiple times. And yes, I did consider it to be a serious issue. It's too abusive of a feature
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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.
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Thank you for explaining to me why I didn’t like blocking but couldn’t express why.
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Two sides of the medal..
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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.
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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.
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I love you, but I hate you!
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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
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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.
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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.
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You don’t get to make that decision.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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A thousand percent this.
Reddit's new system makes a ton of sense until you see it in action in a cat fight with the blocked user having to edit their previous comment to clarify they're now unable to respond to anything the other user is saying and everything turns into a mess.While I could totally agree neither method is perfect, it only takes one heated thread on Reddit to see why (IMO) this new method is much worse than the previous.
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I'm not totally sure about the chronology, but I think that the "old->new" block change on Reddit may have been due to calls from Twitter users. Most of the people I saw back on Reddit complaining about the old behavior prior to the change were saying "on Twitter, blocked users can't respond".
On Reddit, the site is basically split up into a series of forums, subreddits. On the Threadiverse, same idea, but the term is communities. And that's the basic unit of moderation --- that is, people set up a set of rules for how what is permitted on a given community, and most restrictions arise from that. There are Reddit sitewide restrictions (and here, instancewide), but those don't usually play a huge role compared to the community-level things.
So, on Twitter --- and I've never made a Twitter account, and don't spend much time using it, but I believe I've got a reasonable handle on how it works --- there's no concept of a topic-specific forum. The entire site is user-centric. Comments don't live in forums talking about a topic; they only are associated with the text in them and with the parent comment. So if you're on Twitter, there has to be some level of content moderation unless you want to only have sitewide restrictions. On Twitter, having a user be able to act as "moderator" for responses makes a lot more sense than on Reddit, because Twitter lacks an analog to subreddit moderators.
So Twitter users, who were accustomed to having a "block" feature, naturally found Reddit's "block" feature, which did something different from what they were used to, to be confusing. They click "block", and what it actually does is not what they expect --- and worse, at a surface glance, the behavior is the same. They think that they're acting as a moderator, but they're just controlling visibility of comments to themselves. Then they have an unpleasant surprise when they realize that what they've been doing isn't what they think that they've been doing.
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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.
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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.
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This is why moderators should use a separate account for moderation actions than their main
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Yes, except that you won't see the reports on your other account and will have to periodically check your moderator accounts.
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that's fully expected, if you don't want to see someone's posts why would you be able to moderate those posts?
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When you click on a report, it should bypass any block, it doesn't.
This isn't organically viewing a post, it's responding to a report and it is visible when reported.
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And why for a long time I didnt block people. Especially when I was modding TenForward
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Why not start your own TV discussion threads with blackjack and hookers?
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Evento better, with blahaj and hookers.*
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they block evade by using another account to restart the conservation, or they get mad if you block them, then they try to mass report you.
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The way Reddit does is abusive.
Yes, but counterpoint: it was also petty and satisfying as fuuuuck hammering someone with your last point and then blocking them so that after they write up their long-ass reply outlining why eugenics is the true path to a glorious white future, they end up getting an error message.
Yah, it was very bad for actual discourse, but that ship has sailed. people don't care about debate and discourse anymore, on almost every social media site people post things as stand-alone displays to viewers for points, never engaging with each other unless there's a contentious point that can be leveraged for up-arrows and thumbs.
We have to get back to talking to each other in real life and stop pretending having introversion or social anxiety is anything but an obstacle to community and a better world
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Nah bro, let them have their schizo rant lol
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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.
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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.
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i had several instances on reddit, where the person commenting evaded a block by using a new account.
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Agreed. It’s a flaw in the system
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it was kinda same with reddit too. people just get around it by using another account and just harrass you again, or they try to brigade you and report.
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Thank you.
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This is why I don’t block, I just passively ignore.
I want to watch idiots shout into the void. No interaction, no downvotes, nothing. Their impotent rage makes me smile as I move on. That’s my fetish.
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Why you little ... gaaaaaah!!!! (Turn you on yet?) Hello? Anyone? (Sploosh!)
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There was a forum I used to lurk on. I hardly ever posted, but there were still some posters who were so annoying that I had to block them anyway, to not get aggravated while reading the good posters. In fact I remember now, it was worse than that. The forum software for some reason only let you block a maximum of 10 accounts at a time, and there were far more than 10 annoying posting accounts (though maybe fewer people behind them) at any given time. I ended up having to write my own software to ignore enough accounts. I had first resisted ignoring, but once I gave in to the feature, I went nuts with it and it was great.
That was a really good forum that became useless when trolls overran it. The owners fixed it by charging a one-time $5(?) fee to get an account (existing users didn't have to pay). If they banned a troll account, they couldn't really stop the troll from paying up to join again, but few bothered doing that. So that worked quite well and was a big relief. Not counting the trolls, it was an intense and nerdy forum that legitimate participants didn't mind paying to join. It was eventually shut down with its archives deleted even though the parent site is still around. I don't know why they did that and I think its archives could have some significant historical value. Oh well.
Edit: I may be mis-remembering how the fee worked. It might be that you had to be a paying member of the parent site, since I do remember sending money, though that might have been to access some unrelated site features.
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Same. I tell some idiots that I’m going to block them and then just stop replying and enjoy watching them chuck a tantrum haha
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Here's how I frame it to myself: that person is basically screaming into the void after I block them. Sure, other people on here can see what they wrote, but 99.9% of them won't care or remember. I was their "intended target" and I'll never see their stupid comment. If it makes you feel any better, I've noticed a lot of troll types really hate being blocked and complain about it fairly regularly. You blocked them, you won the peace of them no longer existing for you.
Also, if you've blocked them for being obnoxious, others probably have, too.
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Would you rather make your blocklists public?
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I would be in favor of public blocklists, to be honest. At least let the person know that you've blocked them, and so you will not see any of their replies.
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It's The Sixth Sense, you're the wife and they're Bruce Willis. Just get on with your life
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It doesn't make sense in the case said blocked user is attacking the user who blocked them, but on the case were the user that is blocking is the offender too makes much more sense.
For example, one could make a post with misinformation about a user and then blocking the target so they can't reply.
I guess this protects someone being wrongly accused of something and the accuser blocking the accused(hiding). But it leaves more vulnerable users being targeted by another user that for some reason isn't breaking community rules.
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So I have to unblock and permanently have to be a reporter in hope something changes?
Tbh that would triple the work for admins...
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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....
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That’s why it’s called blocking, not banning.
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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).
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You can show them even if you don't allow them to comment.
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As a point of reference, on Bluesky, it appears that if you're blocked, you cannot see the account that blocked you. Essentially they just disappeared. They've not visible in search either.
So, unless you create another account, they ceased to exist.
Just to be clear, as far as I can tell, this invisibility is mutual as soon as one account blocks the other.
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I think this is the best way to do it.
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This is why I use the block button and block lists frequently on Bluesky and not at all here. Actually does its job there.
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They can see, and they can comment, want screenshots?
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They are not refuting you. They are talking about how it is on Bluesky, as a point of reference. They are not talking about the fediverse.
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Who can see?
My observation was based on personal experience after noticing that an account blocked me.
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Practically speaking, there's no good way around it. If you could block them seeing you, they could just make another account to follow you with.
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Hypothetically I wonder if it would be possible for Lemmy to federate some kind of hashed version of your private blocklist, such that no one could decode the accounts it references, but at post-time a username could be checked against the list and blocked from replying?
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That's not quite sufficient. Look at a bit more advanced cryptographic stuff like Snarkblock.
You still got the issue that blocks WILL have a publicly visible effect when you block somebody who already have replied to you.
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I agree, but meh, I don't think I care much about it one way or another. Just not seeing their annoying replies is enough for me. 🤷😅
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Blocking on Lemmy is really just muting, and it should be called that.
A real blocking feature would be nice (it exists on other fediverse platforms).
The devs have said that blocking wouldn't do anything because everything is public, so the blocked user could still access the content they are blocked from but frankly that's bs. If that were true, then there would be no point of banning either, right?
Devs want a monopoly on the power to block people they don't like through the use of bans (and they claim to be all for the people).
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Devs want a monopoly on the power to block people they don't like through the use of bans
Admins can ban on a per instance basis. Moderators can ban on a per community basis. But devs don't have any particular banning power.
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This is how it should work. You block someone so you don’t have to see them. Why do you care if they can reply to you if you can’t see it?
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It seems a little unfair though because it changes the way the conversation looks to the outside doesn't it? If the other person can't see your reply to you then you can just lie in your comment and people will think you're telling the truth since they didn't bother to refute it. Hell someone tried to do that to me once. Thankfully while I couldn't see them directly I could see them in the Post history for some reason so I was able to edit my comment to set the record straight. I blocked them for harassment by the way so it makes total sense that they were doing that.
The middle ground seems to be that if someone's blocked you you should be able to see their comments but not reply directly. That way if you want to comment based on what they said you can just not with a direct reply to them.
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Hopefully people migrating from lemmy to Piefed eventually fixes a lot of these core issues.
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I didn't particularly hade or love Piefed. I have an account and i also have saved there a community about to be lost when lemm.ee is gone offline. That said, I still feel more comfortable using Lemmy. Maybe is just a matter of habits.
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384 comments
Blocking someone is not a tool to silence them. It's a tool to ignore them.
Yeah, by blocking them you are saying YOU don't want to see their posts. That doesn't mean you get to make that decision for everyone else. I don't see the problem here.
I never had a twitter account, but made a bsky account just to support people moving away from there even though I'd them they move to mastodon.
Anyway, I saw a post claiming a certain fetish term was now forbidden because it was being used a slur. I commented that I've only ever heard it used to refer to a real person when the person in question was using it to describe themselves. I got some positive responses, but the ended up getting blocked from replying when they disagreed with me. Can 3rd parties see blocks or did it just look like I chickened out?
I didn't care for that and I think these little "features" of twitter that people have gotten use to has twisted how to interact with other people. On reddit or lemmy, the topic is the main focus and the people managing the topic should be the only ones who control what gets said there. With twitter and bsky, the opening post is the main focus and they get control of what gets said. I prefer the former over that latter.
I think communicating that someone is blocked is a useful part of blocking. Even if it's just a notification after comment "you have a blocked reply, it will not be visible to the poster".
Someone else in this thread pointed out that this would just encourage bad actors to make sock puppet accounts to get around being blocked.
A block should also be able to prevent them from seeing your activity. That would not constitute silencing the blocked individual as they can still go anywhere and talk to/see anyone else on the fediverse, just not you.
No, I don't think that would be good. So for example if there was a guy who thought we should all be eating lead. And every time he posts you put up facts about how eating lead was poisonous. And then the lead guy blocked you. Then every time the lead guy posts about how everyone should eat lead, you wouldn't see it and so you wouldn't be able to reply with how lead is poisonous.
So if the lead guy blocked everyone who disagreed with him publicly. Then the lead guy can just post whatever they want and no who knew lead was poisonous would reply because they wouldn't see the post. So others who didn't know lead was poisonous would start seeing this guy posting about eating lead without being challenged. And so they might think it's a good thing.
If you don't want everyone seeing your activity, don't post it on a public internet system. Blocks can easily be circumvented.
There is a need for more precise terminology. We should refer to "block" as stopping someone from interacting with you or your submissions/comments and "mute"/"ignore" as making it so that the person's own actions cannot be seen by you.
I could see someone being frustrated that from a third party, it looks like you are not responding to a reply and that person could spin that as a concession that they were right
I could see a compromise, where a direct reply from such a blocked/muted person is allowed, but indicated so that people are aware a response could not have been done.