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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Reddit implemented this, and it was abused heavily to push trolls posts and disinformation up the algorithm, since by blocking people who disagreed with them, after multiple attempts the naysayers could no longer see the posts.
Somebody tested it, and was able to get their testing misinformation posts heavily upvoted after just a few days.
Has happened multiple times to me. I called somebody out for saying something wrong or bigoted or whatever, they blocked me after responding to me, I could no longer respond back to their response. And then presumably they kept saying shit that I was not able to see because I was blocked
It's a short-sighted way of implementing blocking, since it allows for heavy abuse by bad actors
Yeah, there was plenty of discussion on Reddit back in the day about the drawbacks and pitfalls of the blocking system. Surprised to see people calling for its implementation here.
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@Blaze@feddit.org, genuinely interested in your opinion on this considering the new information
Do you really believe that someone could get their a misinformation post heavily upvoted here? The main differences with Reddit are
- actual moderation (most of Reddit mods are inactive since the API shutdown)
- public votes (via Mbin) which allows to identify bots and brigading
- meta communities like !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com which allow to call out toxic behavior in a meta way.
If someone would do something similar here, they would at the very least get called out on !fediverselore@lemmy.ca or !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com , and mods and admins would get called out to act on those. Reddit does not have such mechanisms.
I disagree with you to some extent.
- Moderation does not matter if the post is made on a comm or instance which favors it cough .ml cough
- Bots and brigading are not the issue here. Neither of them were a factor in the post I linked, and they are not a necessary part of the abuse process under discussion.
- Yepowertrippinbastards works on a small scale, but it is not inherently scalable. As the fediverse grows, it will become less practical to name and shame bad actors on an individual basis. It also does not matter when the abuse system (preliminary blocklist) can be implemented by any new account.
- The very nature of the abuse system being described means that anybody who would report it on YPTB or similar comms can only do so once before themselves being blocked and unable to view future posts of that sort.
We should try to keep in mind that the fediverse and lemmy will likely grow to larger scales. Any systems and safety measures we implement should take that into account. The block mechanism as you suggest is extremely ripe for abuse at large scale, and relying on mods / admins to combat it will place an unnecessary extra load upon them, if it is even possible.
The block mechanism as you suggest is extremely ripe for abuse at large scale, and relying on mods / admins to combat it will place an unnecessary extra load upon them, if it is even possible.
Interestingly enough, I feel like the current systems require mods/admins to keep an eye at all times, as harassment can happen at any time, and users can't really protect themselves.
There is a scenario which is exactly the opposite from the one you presented:
- user gets harassed, blocks the harasser
- the harasser can still comment on every comment and post of that user, requiring mod and admins to jump in to stop the abuse. With the Bluesky system, users themselves can prevent that.
We should try to keep in mind that the fediverse and lemmy will likely grow to larger scales.
BlueSky just passed 21 millions users.
Bots and brigading are not the issue here. Neither of them were a factor in the post I linked,
I had a look again at the post.
I first prepared the account by blocking all the moderators and 4 or 5 users who usually call out misinformation posts.
Would that be enough here? Of course, it depends on the topic of the thread (no link in the post, so I can't really see what they were talking about), but I'm pretty sure there would be more than 4 or 5 people who would call out about misinformation.
The very nature of the abuse system being described means that anybody who would report it on YPTB or similar comms can only do so once before themselves being blocked and unable to view future posts of that sort.
Can't we use here the same argument other people use about Lemmy being a public forum, and thus the posts being public for everyone except the blocked accounts?
In the scenario you suggested, a user who has blocked a harasser should no longer be aware of continued harassment by the harasser. Thus while the mods may have to step in, there is no particular urgency required. Also, a determined harasser will just alt-account no matter what the admins do, regardless of the blocking model used.
BlueSky just passed 21 millions users.
BlueSky isn't really comparable, since they have a user-user interaction model as compared to Reddit / Lemmy which have a community-based interaction model. In a sense every BS user is an admin for their own community.
there would be more than 4 or 5 people who would call out about misinformation.
Agreed. However, good faith users by nature tend to stick to their accounts instead of moving around (excepting the current churn b/c lemmy is new). Regardless of how many people would call out disinformation, it's ultimately not too difficult to block them all. It can even be easily automated since downvotes are public, meaning you could do this not just to vocal users fighting disinformation but anybody who even disagrees with you in the first place. An echo chamber could literally be created that's invisible to everyone but server admins.
Can’t we use here the same argument other people use about Lemmy being a public forum, and thus the posts being public for everyone except the blocked accounts?
We could, but again, good faith users tend not to be browsing while logged out. They have little reason to do so, while bad faith users have every reason to.
BlueSky isn’t really comparable, since they have a user-user interaction model as compared to Reddit / Lemmy which have a community-based interaction model. In a sense every BS user is an admin for their own community.
We could say that every user can mod their own threads.
We could, but again, good faith users tend not to be browsing while logged out. They have little reason to do so, while bad faith users have every reason to.
The way Reddit does it at the moment still allows good faith users to identify such behaviours: it shows [unavailable] when someone who blocked you comments, so you know you just have to open that link in a private tab to see the content. I actually have that at the moment as some right wing user blocked me as I would usually call out their bullshit. Still allows me to see their comments and post them to a meta community to call out their right wing sub.
blocking on mastodon, that user ceases to exist, and is no longer able to see, vote, or comment on your content. on mastodon, blocking is blocking
on lemmy/mbin, blocking only serves to mask that users content, though they are still able to see, vote, comment, and mine your content for descriptive data which can, has, and will lead to doxxing
"blocking" on lemmy/mbin is dangerous misnamed bullshit
though they are still able to see, vote, comment, and mine your content for descriptive data which can, has, and will lead to doxxing
Like 100% of the internet, you mean?
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Bluesky/twitter/etc are person centric - you follow the person
Lemmy/reddit/etc are topic centric - you follow a community
It makes sense for blocking on Bluesky to completely hide you, you've severed the person - person relationship.
On Lemmy severing a person - person relationship shouldn't disadvantage the user from interacting with the community. Communities don't want duplicate posts so if you post some big news in a popular community now all the users you've blocked would be cut off from that content. Their personal beef with you shouldn't disadvantage them in the communities this way.
This problem can be seen clearly on Reddit where blocking works this way, frequently abused by spammers and powerusers.
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.
Even better if they can comment, but it doesn't show up for you or anyone else.
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.
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
This happened exactly as you describe on Reddit.
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There's no such thing as "public except for that guy in particular."
If any logged-out rando can see a thing, preventing a specific logged-in user from seeing it doesn't work and shouldn't be tried. It's ridiculous. And it's a great incentive for assholes to just make a new account.
The worst way to do it is how reddit handled it, where any asshole can have the last word, for free. You can't reply to anyone if someone in the thread blocks you. You can't even reply to your own comments in the chain, to notify people, 'hey, some asshole blocked me, I'm not just ignoring you or the argument.'
I would prefer if people I block couldn't see anything I post
Err... you know all these comments are posted publicly and anyone can view them, right?
At least on Twitter before Elon changed things, the same thing applied, tweets were public but you could still block people.
Currently, X displays a “You’re blocked” message when trying to view the profile of a person who’s blocked you. In addition to blocking all posts, it also prevents you from seeing their replies, media, followers, and following list.
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I would prefer if people I block couldn’t see anything I post
One of the problems is that if the post is public, anyone you block could just log out and see your post.
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I don't think this type of block makes sense for a more forum-like environment. In fact I think it's more absuable for bad actors to be able to conceal their rhetoric from anyone they know would oppose it.
Yep, happened on Reddit exactly as you theorised.
This is one of the major gripes I have with Reddit. So often do people just block me when they are losing a debate against me, making it impossible to reply. A public forum should not behave this way if you want a healthy debate culture
IDK, seems like blocking behaving like that on Lemmy could backfire, actually encouraging abuse.
For example. What happens if someone being malicious blocks you and then starts talking shit about you elsewhere in the comment thread? The person being abused would never know.
It's not even theoretical. Reddit implemented this and the exact behaviour you described happened. Somebody tested and documented it.
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Another missing feature is the ability to stop inbox notifications for any any particular comment you made.
Look, sometimes I just want to say something inciteful and then just dip out without the fear of dealing with the fallout, okay?
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Just a short hypothetical: You start this thread or even top level vomment and I don't agree with you. Then I reply something and block you immediatelly after. That could be another tool for trolls, but I guess there could be some solutions that fix this problem.
(Not dissagreeing with the OP, just brainstorming)
I had a mod do that to me. They replied to my comment with a bunch of false accusations, then deleted my comment and banned me from the community. So, all the people saw was my username with all the accusations below, and I couldn't respond. I just blocked the whole instance and moved on.
This happened to me once on reddit. God I was pissed off cause they were spreading lies about me and I couldn't say anything.
I really don't think blocking should prevent people from replying to you. I believe it should hide the content and not send you notifications, yes.
At the bare minimum, blocking should only prevent you from directly replying. On Reddit, if anyone in the comment chain above the comment you're replying to had blocked you then you couldn't make the comment.
I'm willing to discuss this, my opinions aren't rock solid on this.
In cases of harassment (what I view as the strongest counter argument) I think mods/admin need to take action by banning. Like if someone puts a comment on every post I make saying "JackbyDev is a doodoo head" (or something actually offensive lol) then that's harassment. I'm having trouble thinking of any problematic behaviors that wouldn't qualify as harassment that allowing someone to comment in reply to would actually prevent.
(None of this comment has anything to do with blocking an instance which is a separate topic I have separate opinions on.)
In cases of harassment (what I view as the strongest counter argument) I think mods/admin need to take action by banning. Like if someone puts a comment on every post I make saying “JackbyDev is a doodoo head” (or something actually offensive lol) then that’s harassment. I’m having trouble thinking of any problematic behaviors that wouldn’t qualify as harassment that allowing someone to comment in reply to would actually prevent.
I mod several communities. We are lacking mods, and we can't have eyes on the communities 24/7. Allowing users to have this kind of blocking helps.
I think i agree. My opinion isn't rock solid either but if i block someone who is harassing me, the most important thing to me is just that i don't get notified and i never see that content or children of those comments. I see too much room for abuse if those blocked users can't interact with my posts at all (view/vote/comment).
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