Comment on TIL blocking users on Lemmy is nothing but a placebo
PillowTalk420@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
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.
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?
This can’t work on a federated platform. They can always open a tab where they aren’t signed in and see your profile. Or use software that doesnt support that feature.
It works on Facebook because facebook controls every step and can block people from viewing a page.
Why does it matter if a blocked user views your posts? They can’t interact with you from your point of view. Your post describes you going around your own block to view their posts.
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 accessee 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.
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.
Literally every forum, chatroom, and social media site outside of TikTok 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.
When you block someone, the first thing that Facebook does is restrict the blocked user’s access to your profile. The user can’t view your profile even if they have a direct link to your account page. They’ll get an error message if they try to do that.
Information from howtogeek.com/…/what-happens-when-you-block-someo…
You can keep making these bullshit statements about how it works on other sites but thankfully I have this thing called ‘internet’ to look up the facts myself.
That’s how it works on Reddit, which is likely the only forum-like website many users are used to.
It does not work that way on Reddit, unless it is a recent change.
If you’d like to cut off contact from someone for any reason, you can block them by going to their profile or visiting your user settings.
Redditors you block won’t be able to access your profile or see or reply to your post or comments in communities, unless you are a moderator in specific situations.
From …reddithelp.com/…/4413520308372-How-does-blocking…. But I see that you downvoted that user for their correct information anyway without bothering to confirm for yourself. I find it pretty sad how people around here seem to be falling over themselves to defend the Fediverse at all costs without even discussing something or wanting it to be better.
I have literally always known blocking to be blocking, not filtering. Blocking blocks people on your phone, on chat apps, on Facebook and on Reddit. Not sure why this is a special case that needs to be forgiven or ignored.
Nah, man, it was working in both directions for a while. I wanna say at least as far back as 2019 for sure, because I got blocked by accident by someone I know irl, and couldn’t see their stuff when logged in, nor could they see mine
I have not been on Reddit for 2 years or more. That’s how it’s always worked for years before that even. As someone who had an account there from the 2000s all through the 2010s.
So you are either misremembering or simply mistaken. I don’t like that model myself. Because it can be abused as much as it can stop abuse. Easily allowing someone to block anyone who has or might dissent to them. Helping them spread misinformation, giving it a false sense of acceptance or at least no vocal pushback. Since they couldn’t just block people that down voted but never commented.
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
I’m touched that you think mid-50s is young, but bi-directional blocking is, and should be, the universal norm. Social media blocks are inherently about preventing harassment. If they don’t go both ways then they aren’t blocking anything. Hiding/ignoring content and blocking a user are two completely different concepts.
desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 49 minutes ago
at best blocking should prevent interaction, “hiding” information that is publicly available is pointless.
johntash@eviltoast.org 6 hours ago
Lemmy is all public. There’s no private timelines, so any 2way block would be superficial anyway right? A blocked user can just log out, or use a different account on a different instance. It’d give people a false sense of security if anyone said bidirectional blocking was a thing.
Something like Twitter could have bidirectional blocking because you can also make all of your posts private.