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.
Reddit also blocks you from replying. Not just to that person, but to the comment thread in general. So many people do the insult-block to “win” a conversation.
Aren’t blocks visible on reddit though? It’s been a while since I used it, so maybe I forgot. At the very least, it was considered bad form there outside of direct harassment. I think I was only stalked and harassed once though reddit comments and I just called them out on it to end it.
Sort of. The posts show as ‘Unavailable’ and you get an esoteric error if you try to reply to a thread they’re involved in. It doesn’t say outright that you’re blocked though.
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”.
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.
I see what you mean. Personally I’m gonna side with the folks that need the block functionality as a defense against stalking/harassment though.
The lead eater can ban anyone they want but that doesn’t stop others from posting direct challenges to the lead eater’s rhetoric elsewhere. I think its better to help those in need than to leave them vulnerable with less than ideal tools to protect themselves.
Apart from real world means, the best defence against stalking/harassment is to stop posting on a public account associated with the identity that’s being stalked/harassed. If someone is that horrible to stalk you, they’ll be more than capable of circumventing a block.
Also, while there’s no absolute guarantee, most communities have something vaguely along the lines of prohibiting harassment, as do most instances.
That doesn’t mean that a given user’s idea of harassment and a moderator’s or admin’s idea will always perfectly line up. What you think of as being harassment might be what some other people consider disagreeing. But in general, if someone is clearly following a user around and just commenting with the aim of trying to make them miserable, rather than disagreeing with them on some point or something, you can probably report it to a moderator (or, ultimately, admin) and have them remove their comments and probably issue a ban. Brings a third party’s eyes into the situation.
And if you truly don’t feel that a given community’s moderators are sufficiently-restrictive, you can switch to a community that has more-restrictive rules.
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.
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.
Reddit also blocks you from replying. Not just to that person, but to the comment thread in general. So many people do the insult-block to “win” a conversation.
The mods of the sub are the ones to decide who gets blocked though. Not the person you’re auguring with, unless you’re arguing with is a mod.
The mods can ban you, but anyone can block you and stop you from commenting on threads they are involved in.
Aren’t blocks visible on reddit though? It’s been a while since I used it, so maybe I forgot. At the very least, it was considered bad form there outside of direct harassment. I think I was only stalked and harassed once though reddit comments and I just called them out on it to end it.
Sort of. The posts show as ‘Unavailable’ and you get an esoteric error if you try to reply to a thread they’re involved in. It doesn’t say outright that you’re blocked though.
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.
Bad actors already do that.
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.
If you don’t want everyone seeing your activity, don’t post it on a public internet system. Blocks can easily be circumvented.
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.
I see what you mean. Personally I’m gonna side with the folks that need the block functionality as a defense against stalking/harassment though.
The lead eater can ban anyone they want but that doesn’t stop others from posting direct challenges to the lead eater’s rhetoric elsewhere. I think its better to help those in need than to leave them vulnerable with less than ideal tools to protect themselves.
Apart from real world means, the best defence against stalking/harassment is to stop posting on a public account associated with the identity that’s being stalked/harassed. If someone is that horrible to stalk you, they’ll be more than capable of circumventing a block.
Also, while there’s no absolute guarantee, most communities have something vaguely along the lines of prohibiting harassment, as do most instances.
That doesn’t mean that a given user’s idea of harassment and a moderator’s or admin’s idea will always perfectly line up. What you think of as being harassment might be what some other people consider disagreeing. But in general, if someone is clearly following a user around and just commenting with the aim of trying to make them miserable, rather than disagreeing with them on some point or something, you can probably report it to a moderator (or, ultimately, admin) and have them remove their comments and probably issue a ban. Brings a third party’s eyes into the situation.
And if you truly don’t feel that a given community’s moderators are sufficiently-restrictive, you can switch to a community that has more-restrictive rules.
But even that case doesn’t work because someone could use a different account (or no account at all) to do the stalking.
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.
Discord recently made this distinction; it makes sense imo
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.