Context: Lemmy still allow people to comment on your posts or comments after you blocked them:
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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There is value to the blocked person not being able to find out in any way, whether you've blocked them.
And if they really want to see your content, on federated social media, where you can't enforce a login requirement to view the content, they'll always be able to find your content if they really want to.
Stopping them from being able to comment on your posts would be nice, tho. Even better if they can comment, but it doesn't show up for you or anyone else.
Implementing such a block would be tricky, though. It is not as simple as community bans, as communities are always governed by their home instance.
If you post or comment in a community that isn't local, someone from a third instance could interact with that content without ever communicating with your home instance.
It can still be done, but it's a much more involved implementation than community bans.
This would be abused. Imagine I post some manipulated fake news or something. Then I block every single person who points out the bullshit in my post so no one sees it.
This happened exactly as you describe on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/sdcsx3/testing_reddits_new_block_feature_and_its_effects/
reddit implemented that and I’m sure it’s abused
I can tell you it has been abused against me multiple times on Reddit. I called someone out for something wrong or bigoted they posted and they blocked me after responding, making me unable to respond back. And presumably kept posting stuff in the future that I just didn't see, and wasn't able to call out
It's a terrible system as it just allows abuse by bad faith actors more than anything else
Ok, but how would blocks removing comments from your posts for everyone, including the blocked user, be any different? That could be abused in the exact same way.
If you're saying blocks should only prevent future comments, this could by all means also work the same way.
The point is that it should work like a shadow ban, and not be obvious to the person you blocked. That discourages them from immediately coming at you with an alt.
The block most platforms use is that if you block someone, none of you can see each others contributions, but your past interactions are still visible to everyone.
I know.
But when did I suggest past activity should be affected, which is what you replied about?
It wasn’t clear to me in your comment but you were suggesting it wouldn’t be retroactive?
If so, then sounds okay, as long as the person knows they have been blocked, would suck to write a well written comment in reply to someone who blocked you, and unknowingly your comment is hidden for everyone because you don’t realise you were blocked.
Why would it be retroactive?
That's exactly what should happen. If someone can just instantly know when they get blocked, nothing stops them from instantly signing up with alt account to continue bitching at someone.
This is less of an issue with centralized social media, but with federation you absolutely should take measures like this to curb at least some portion of targeted harassment.
And if you bothered someone enough for them to block you, not being allowed to stand on their soapbox anymore (not being able to make comments on their posts visible to everyone else) is a really weird thing to worry about.