TIL blocking users on Lemmy is nothing but a placebo
-
Today I found out that on this platform, "block" is just a fancy word for "filter". Just had an individual user go through my entire profile and downvote everything. So I blocked them, thinking that this would make me safe from any future stalking. But I was just informed that no, any user that you 'block' is actually still able to see everything that you post and vote freely.
All that 'blocking' actually does is hide the person from you. But they're still free to stalk and do as they please. I just tested this out for myself using my other account and sure enough, it's true.
I just want to know, how is this acceptable? I bet you that if I called out this user publically, I would probably end up in hot water myself for harassment or something. And yet 'blocking' is completely fkn useless too. So what recourse does a user actually have here when faced with a hostile user that wants to ruin their experience on Lemmy?
Coming from Blåhaj, I thought I would try 'moderating' my own experience for a bit. But you can't 'moderate' your own experience if the tools to do so are fkn useless and only trick you into thinking that something has been achieved, without actually doing anything useful.
And now I'm starting to see a new value in instances like Blåhaj. Because you actually need admins that give a shit around here or else you're just left to the wolves on a platform that seems more interested in protecting abusive users than allowing users to protect themselves.
-
System shared this topic
-
Today I found out that on this platform, "block" is just a fancy word for "filter". Just had an individual user go through my entire profile and downvote everything. So I blocked them, thinking that this would make me safe from any future stalking. But I was just informed that no, any user that you 'block' is actually still able to see everything that you post and vote freely.
All that 'blocking' actually does is hide the person from you. But they're still free to stalk and do as they please. I just tested this out for myself using my other account and sure enough, it's true.
I just want to know, how is this acceptable? I bet you that if I called out this user publically, I would probably end up in hot water myself for harassment or something. And yet 'blocking' is completely fkn useless too. So what recourse does a user actually have here when faced with a hostile user that wants to ruin their experience on Lemmy?
Coming from Blåhaj, I thought I would try 'moderating' my own experience for a bit. But you can't 'moderate' your own experience if the tools to do so are fkn useless and only trick you into thinking that something has been achieved, without actually doing anything useful.
And now I'm starting to see a new value in instances like Blåhaj. Because you actually need admins that give a shit around here or else you're just left to the wolves on a platform that seems more interested in protecting abusive users than allowing users to protect themselves.
I want to know when and why younger people seem to think that blocking inherently works both ways. It's almost never worked like that. If you block someone, you are hiding them from your sight; not hiding yourself from theirs. This is the most common way blocking works.
-
I want to know when and why younger people seem to think that blocking inherently works both ways. It's almost never worked like that. If you block someone, you are hiding them from your sight; not hiding yourself from theirs. This is the most common way blocking works.
Can you give examples of platforms where it works like this? I know that blocking someone on Facebook blocks them from being able to see you. Pretty Twitter is or was the same before Musk. And I just looked it up, blocking a user on Reddit does in fact block them from seeing you. I'm pretty sure it's always worked this way on smaller platforms I've used too.
So I'm curious to know, which platforms have you always used that have apparently always worked this way?
-
Can you give examples of platforms where it works like this? I know that blocking someone on Facebook blocks them from being able to see you. Pretty Twitter is or was the same before Musk. And I just looked it up, blocking a user on Reddit does in fact block them from seeing you. I'm pretty sure it's always worked this way on smaller platforms I've used too.
So I'm curious to know, which platforms have you always used that have apparently always worked this way?
Literally every forum, chatroom, and social media site outside of TikTok, and I think Imgur, works the same way it does here. Including Facebook and Reddit. The only thing Reddit does special in this, is that blocked users engagement doesn't appear to you either. So if you block user ABC, they will still see your posts, but if they vote on it, you won't see that vote.
-
Can you give examples of platforms where it works like this? I know that blocking someone on Facebook blocks them from being able to see you. Pretty Twitter is or was the same before Musk. And I just looked it up, blocking a user on Reddit does in fact block them from seeing you. I'm pretty sure it's always worked this way on smaller platforms I've used too.
So I'm curious to know, which platforms have you always used that have apparently always worked this way?
Not much of an example these days, but pre-mainstream social media (forums, chat) block was always hide on your end.
To be honest I never blocked back in the old days (the mods would take care of outright spam and users being disruptive).
For me, the new method seems counterproductive. Hiding your post/messages that can still be accessed via another container and/or account just seems strange to me.
-
Not much of an example these days, but pre-mainstream social media (forums, chat) block was always hide on your end.
To be honest I never blocked back in the old days (the mods would take care of outright spam and users being disruptive).
For me, the new method seems counterproductive. Hiding your post/messages that can still be accessed via another container and/or account just seems strange to me.
So, 20 years ago before Facebook? I know for a fact that blocking has always worked properly on Facebook, I had a very toxic 'friendship' there another lifetime ago where we were blocking and unblocking each other every 5 minutes. But it's funny how everyone here keeps upvoting the incorrect information and ignoring the correct information about this. Not funny haha but funny peculiar. If Facebook only filtered out people instead of blocking them properly, it would be a disaster as far as stalking goes. And I think that everyone knows it because normally people on this platform seem quite rational. Except for when there's any criticism of the Fediverse, that is.
-
So, 20 years ago before Facebook? I know for a fact that blocking has always worked properly on Facebook, I had a very toxic 'friendship' there another lifetime ago where we were blocking and unblocking each other every 5 minutes. But it's funny how everyone here keeps upvoting the incorrect information and ignoring the correct information about this. Not funny haha but funny peculiar. If Facebook only filtered out people instead of blocking them properly, it would be a disaster as far as stalking goes. And I think that everyone knows it because normally people on this platform seem quite rational. Except for when there's any criticism of the Fediverse, that is.
I agree with you that all mainstream
platforms (FB, Twitter, Reddit - this just the ones I have experience with) work like that.Believe it or not, but there still exist modern forums with large users bases (stable or growing), so it's not like it's an archaic model.
It's fair to criticise Lemmy for using this approach. I genuinely see where you are coming from. But if we approach Lemmy as an evolution of old style forums, then the "hide" approach makes more sense.
With admins, mods (not relevant for default UI?) actively dealing with mass downvotes, stalker-like behaviour and so on.
Part of the adoption of the dual-side block method is because large corps want automation and don't really care about quality (all about engagement).
-
Today I found out that on this platform, "block" is just a fancy word for "filter". Just had an individual user go through my entire profile and downvote everything. So I blocked them, thinking that this would make me safe from any future stalking. But I was just informed that no, any user that you 'block' is actually still able to see everything that you post and vote freely.
All that 'blocking' actually does is hide the person from you. But they're still free to stalk and do as they please. I just tested this out for myself using my other account and sure enough, it's true.
I just want to know, how is this acceptable? I bet you that if I called out this user publically, I would probably end up in hot water myself for harassment or something. And yet 'blocking' is completely fkn useless too. So what recourse does a user actually have here when faced with a hostile user that wants to ruin their experience on Lemmy?
Coming from Blåhaj, I thought I would try 'moderating' my own experience for a bit. But you can't 'moderate' your own experience if the tools to do so are fkn useless and only trick you into thinking that something has been achieved, without actually doing anything useful.
And now I'm starting to see a new value in instances like Blåhaj. Because you actually need admins that give a shit around here or else you're just left to the wolves on a platform that seems more interested in protecting abusive users than allowing users to protect themselves.
Be that as it may, I love seeing a reply to one of my posts from someone I've blocked.
Lets me know that whatever bullshit they wrote is going to go eternally unanswered, and I hope it frustrates them.
-
Today I found out that on this platform, "block" is just a fancy word for "filter". Just had an individual user go through my entire profile and downvote everything. So I blocked them, thinking that this would make me safe from any future stalking. But I was just informed that no, any user that you 'block' is actually still able to see everything that you post and vote freely.
All that 'blocking' actually does is hide the person from you. But they're still free to stalk and do as they please. I just tested this out for myself using my other account and sure enough, it's true.
I just want to know, how is this acceptable? I bet you that if I called out this user publically, I would probably end up in hot water myself for harassment or something. And yet 'blocking' is completely fkn useless too. So what recourse does a user actually have here when faced with a hostile user that wants to ruin their experience on Lemmy?
Coming from Blåhaj, I thought I would try 'moderating' my own experience for a bit. But you can't 'moderate' your own experience if the tools to do so are fkn useless and only trick you into thinking that something has been achieved, without actually doing anything useful.
And now I'm starting to see a new value in instances like Blåhaj. Because you actually need admins that give a shit around here or else you're just left to the wolves on a platform that seems more interested in protecting abusive users than allowing users to protect themselves.
I think the utility of blocking people on a public platform is kind of fake anyway. If someone is harassing you, and you block them, it's obvious that you did it so they'll just log out and suddenly they can see your posts again. Accounts are trivial to make on the fediverse too so they can always just spin up a new one to harass you.
I think silent filtering is better for that reason because they can't tell that you did it so they won't just immediately switch to a new account and keep going.
Active blocking like you're talking about only makes sense if there's such a thing as "follower-only" posts imo. Otherwise it's a false sense of security because they can see everything anyway just by logging out or switching to another account.
-
Today I found out that on this platform, "block" is just a fancy word for "filter". Just had an individual user go through my entire profile and downvote everything. So I blocked them, thinking that this would make me safe from any future stalking. But I was just informed that no, any user that you 'block' is actually still able to see everything that you post and vote freely.
All that 'blocking' actually does is hide the person from you. But they're still free to stalk and do as they please. I just tested this out for myself using my other account and sure enough, it's true.
I just want to know, how is this acceptable? I bet you that if I called out this user publically, I would probably end up in hot water myself for harassment or something. And yet 'blocking' is completely fkn useless too. So what recourse does a user actually have here when faced with a hostile user that wants to ruin their experience on Lemmy?
Coming from Blåhaj, I thought I would try 'moderating' my own experience for a bit. But you can't 'moderate' your own experience if the tools to do so are fkn useless and only trick you into thinking that something has been achieved, without actually doing anything useful.
And now I'm starting to see a new value in instances like Blåhaj. Because you actually need admins that give a shit around here or else you're just left to the wolves on a platform that seems more interested in protecting abusive users than allowing users to protect themselves.
Piefed seems to implement bidirectional blocking
blocking – users, communities, domains, instances. bi-directional.
Roadmap - PieFed
Currently, PieFed is still pre-release software, suitable for developers to contribute to but not for use in production. https://piefed.social is running as a demonstration and beta test site but is not ready for people to call it their fediverse home. The following are the goals for a 1.0 release, good enough for production use. Items with a ✅ are […]
PieFed (join.piefed.social)
@rimu@piefed.social @Snoopy@piefed.social @fxomt@piefed.social
-
Piefed seems to implement bidirectional blocking
blocking – users, communities, domains, instances. bi-directional.
Roadmap - PieFed
Currently, PieFed is still pre-release software, suitable for developers to contribute to but not for use in production. https://piefed.social is running as a demonstration and beta test site but is not ready for people to call it their fediverse home. The following are the goals for a 1.0 release, good enough for production use. Items with a ✅ are […]
PieFed (join.piefed.social)
@rimu@piefed.social @Snoopy@piefed.social @fxomt@piefed.social
Yeah I'm honestly just waiting for a decent app before I jump over to Piefed. Everything I see about that place excites me because every time they drop a changelog, it's chock full of great things that improve the end user's experience. It's the future of this platform IMO.
-
Yeah I'm honestly just waiting for a decent app before I jump over to Piefed. Everything I see about that place excites me because every time they drop a changelog, it's chock full of great things that improve the end user's experience. It's the future of this platform IMO.
You may invit lemm.ee users and admins to check out PieFed and try it. Or set up an instance ?
Even if there is no mobile app you can try its PWA version. PWA is a mobile website that work as an app. It works well.
There is tag, flair, filter trump/musk...and each week-end lots news features.
