They shouldn’t be able to do that!
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.
Blocking someone is not a tool to silence them. It’s a tool to ignore them.
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.
That’s unfair. It’s rather fair they don’t see me, I blocked them for a reason.
You get to control your own experience, not their experience.
My experience is, I see that there’s a comment, I can’t read it, I can’t upvote or downvote it, and I couldn’t report it, wonderful!
What you are asking for is closer to something like being able to personally ban another user from all your own content.
This would be more like if you made all your comments and posts in your own personal community, and then banned a user from it.
This, your suggested paradigm, can also be entirely defeated by someone just… making another account.
Or even: Logging out, and viewing as a guest.
Closer to message board styled systems are not twitter, are not instagram.
If you wanna try to develop something like a ‘private profile’ mode for lemmy, where you would have to grant access to every individual user you wanted to be able to see your posts and comments, good luck, go for it, code’s open source, best I can tell, all dev work on it is unpaid, volunteers.
I am reasonably confident this is basically impossible given how lemmy is architected, but hey, maybe I’m wrong.
I used to agree with you until I actually spoke with people from communities that get regularly harassed.
Muting is great if all you want to do is hide content you don’t like. But if you need to defend yourself against a campaign of harassment, this only gives power to the harassers.
Yes all the have to do is make a new account, but it’s another hurdle they have to cross. Better than no hurdle and also blindfolding yourself
I mean…
I am describing a technical reality of how lemmy works.
You can ‘disagree’ with that, but uh, you would just be wrong.
Not in the sense of ‘I do not have enough empathy to consider the plight of a regularly harassed person’.
More in the sense of … ok, then don’t use lemmy, if you don’t like how it works.
Or… make it work the way you want it to work, by actually coding it.
Like, I wasn’t joking when I basically said ‘I am reasonbly confident it is impossible to make lemmy work the way you want it to.’
Thats not my opinion, in a… how should things work in an ideal world, sense of ‘opinion’.
It is my opinion, as a person who understands a bit (certainly not all) about how the code just actually works.
If you can figure it out, I’d be impressed.
Alternatively, if you’d like to pay me $50 an hour to attempt to develop that, I may have some room in my schedule.
I know, i had a whole discussion about this 2 years ago, which is why I changed my mind about this very topic (I used to be very much "things are public by default, no expectation of privacy in a social network).
but that doesn’t make it good. this is a problem with the design of lemmy IMO. Lemmy is the best popular option we have right now, and unfortunately popularity is important. Lemmy is already a ghost town, i cant imagine moving to an even smaller alternative.
better than reddit, but far from perfect.
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
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
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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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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
How do you do that? I’m on voyager and didn’t know about this. I would love tags
Settings>User Tags>Track Votes! :D
Awesome! Ty!
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
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.
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
I had a feeling playing the victim and name calling was coming next after your last message.
But just in case anyone arguing in good faith needs it spelled out: Not every thing has to cater to every audience. Lemmy, at least for me, is primarily for sharing information, whether news, opinions or just memes. On such a site, I believe it is more important to avoid echo chambers and misinformation. So it requires a moderator or an admin to ban people. It’s not as if Lemmy is an unmoderated hellscape, it just leans more towards free speech over creating perfectly safe spaces than you may like. Avoiding echo chambers and misinformation benefits all users, including minorities. Therefore, every site hast to find a balance for it’s use-case. I would expect many people, whether minorities or otherwise, can handle occasional mean words or words they disagree with on their screens. But it is also alright if you are more sensitive or not in a good place psychologically and don’t want to deal with this. There are other places on the internet you can go, that do have the kind of blocking you want. Some places will lean towards free speech, some towards heavy moderation. That’s the great thing about the internet, not every place has to be the same.
I’m sorry for the way I spoke
We’re missing the point here though. People are dragging op through shit for wanting a totally reasonable thing to want.
Maybe Lemmy isn’t going to provide it, but they don’t deserve to be treated like this for just bringing up something that is pretty clearly confusing to people who dgaf about the underlying protocols
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
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.
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.
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.
If you can’t see the replies how can you possibly be harassed by it?
Because they can spread lies about me that I can’t see, to people who come to engage with me.
Not everyone is a stranger, you can have communities for real world groups.
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.
The same arguments apply, though.
Your version of blocking doesn’t exactly handle the problem you’re describing well, either, as someone wishing to spread hate or “off-screen harassment” can block their direct target which, under the model, will mean they can’t see it, and then post.
To use a bit of hyperbole and a physical metaphor:
I can let them burn my effigy in my front yard, or I can force them to go burn it in their own neighborhood.
They’re still burning the effigy and littering, but at least it’s not outside my front door, scaring away all the people who come to visit me.
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.
here, let me link you to the paradox of tolerance, you absolute mudcake.
try learning something.
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.
yes, we all want some censorship.
defederation is censorship.
instance bans are censorship.
community bans are censorship.\is your position that none of those should be allowed?
if so, thats a wild position to take, but you should say it with your full chest at least.
if thats not your position, why are you drawing the line here? and why are you willing to die on this arbitrary hill?yes, we all want some censorship.
Speak for yourself.
defederation is censorship.
instance bans are censorship.
community bans are censorship.\
And I disagree with them.
is your position that none of those should be allowed?
My position is that it should all be up to the user. Let me block instances and communities if I don’t want to see them. Let me choose what content I want to see. I don’t need some mods deciding what is and isn’t acceptable based on their ideologies and beliefs, because as we all know and see every day, most abuse that power almost all the time.
if so, thats a wild position to take, but you should say it with your full chest at least.
It’s not wild at all, and I have never tried to hide it. I’ve said it openly many, many times on Lemmy. I think all censorship is bad. Only weak minded people want or need censorship.
Nice attempted “gotcha” though.
But that’s the right off the mod and the admin to express themselves through blocking and defederation. It sounds like you’re supporting compelled speech
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.
Looking at the post you reference the person you talked to is a transgender person who moderates both LGBTQ+ and Transfem in Lemmy.blahaj.zone, they provide more than enough evidence of their minority status, but that wasn’t really needed. The question was what group was being harassed and thus this interaction would imply that the LGBTQ community is being harassed on Lemmy.
What I feel like you missed in your previous discussion is that the other person was talking about privacy in the context of being outed in the real world. The harassment being referred to was in the context of your real life identity being revealed or connected to your online conversation.
Under this context they are looking for a feature similar to how Facebook (at least previously) allowed you to pick who could see your post as you were posting it. That way you could individually disallow specific people or groups from seeing them.
This doesn’t imply that the issue is that someone is being harassed on Lemmy and thus we need better blocking options. It’s really only an issue for someone who wants to dox themselves and still have private conversations, in which case Lemmy and most online forums can’t accomplish that natively across all instances/subreddits/groups. The only solution is to have a private instance with vetting and heavy moderation. If you don’t dox yourself you can generally avoid the whole issue here.
Based on this I think you’re making a different argument than what the block feature is or ever could be.
You’re right, that was a different conversation. And I’m not part of that group so I can’t say for sure.
What I’m trying to do is take what I learned there and extrapolate it. I think there is some overlap.
At the very least, I don’t think OP deserves to be dragged like they were for what is to me a pretty reasonable take. In Lemmy, blocking someone acts like getting blocked on pretty much every platform, which is going to be confusing for many
