TIL blocking users on Lemmy is nothing but a placebo

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Character_Locked@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

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.

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PillowTalk420@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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- BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
  
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  - johntash@eviltoast.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
    
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  - desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    at best blocking should prevent interaction, “hiding” information that is publicly available is pointless.
    
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- Character_Locked@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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?
  
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  - Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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  - PillowTalk420@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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  - Fizz@lemmy.nz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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- JASN_DE@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That’s how it works on Reddit, which is likely the only forum-like website many users are used to.
  
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  - PillowTalk420@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It does not work that way on Reddit, unless it is a recent change.
    
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AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m not sure how or why it hasn’t been mentioned yet, but one reason blocking is the way it is, is because in a public forum like this, blocking somebody else from seeing your content is extremely open to abuse, while providing no real benefit from a protection perspective. As accounts are essentially free and unlimited, any malicious user can logout or spin up a new account to bypass your block.

On the abuse issue, it was previously shown with some testing on Reddit that by posting something offensive and controversial, then blocking everybody who responded in a negative manner, you could within 3 - 5 rounds of blocking reach the point where you could post practically anything and have it seen like a popular opinion, since everybody who disagreed with you and was willing to call out your bullshit couldn’t see it any more. Hence technical reasons aside, there are very good systemic reasons the blocking mechanism works the way it does.

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- sit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This made me realize a similar effect works on whole communities. People block a community, that makes the content of said community seem more popular than it is.
  
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  - AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, it’s one of the factors causing echo chambers to form online.
    
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Stamets@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Oh you were new to even reddit. The thing you want is something that was only added there a few years ago. Before it worked the exact same way as it does here.

Sorry, we just expect you to be an adult and not care about the numbers. That’s why there isn’t a count on your page. Do you know how often I have people follow me around in my comments to downvote me? A lot. Know what I do? Nothing because I’m over 30.

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- Character_Locked@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Ah if only I could be tough and brave and cool like you.
  
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  - Stamets@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Exactly. You just have to try harder to be a better person, that’s all
    
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  - modifier@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m not sure how long you’ve been here - not assuming how long you’ve been lurking, or that this is your first account, but I think it really is easier not to care here. All kidding aside, try it. You don’t have this whole upvote/award dopamine cycle here, and in many cases, anyone can see the number of downvotes a comment has vs upvotes - something that reddit long ago “fuzzed” along with actual vote counts.
    
    For instance, the comment I’m replying to has 3 upvotes (one of them mine), and 1 downvote as of right now. This ratio may stay the same, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you got more downvotes, because your comment was a kind of dismissive reply to a comment that probably represents what a lot of folks who’ve been here a while feel, which also came from a user that is very active and generally well liked. I could not begin to tell you their upvote count (can’t even see my own) as a proof of their popularity, so I just have to go by what I observe in my day to day, and this place is still small enough that you see familiar usernames in a variety of communities.
    
    This is still kind of a small town, and you may come to see this bug as a feature in time. I did.
    
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- shaggyb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  40 here. Pretty much what I was thinking.
  
  The way you behave in public is visible by the public, kids. No matter how you feel about it. If you don’t want it read, don’t post it.
  
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zecg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You use “stalk” for “see what you publicly publicized”. You block people to not be annoyed, not to be safe. Consider that AN UNLOGGED, ANONYMOUS user can also see your posts. How is blocking supposed to work in this case?

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- ms_lane@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I guess the answer would be that an unlogged user can’t vote.
  
  But the points didn’t matter on Reddit and they’re even less of a consideration on Lemmy.
  
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  - zecg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    an unlogged user can’t vote.
    
    But an unlogged user can create a new account, no problem.
    
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iii@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This is an obscure forum with fake internet points 🙄

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- Character_Locked@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Ah there it is. The “it’S oNlY imAGiNAry iNteRneT pOInts” smart ass comment. I knew it was coming, glad it’s out the way.
  
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  - iii@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    (1)
    
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- Eldritch@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  While that is true. It can still bury or hide valuable discussion. Not that this advocates for bidirectional blocking. But it would be nice if there were some method or mechanism to look for people doing such behaviors and weight their inputs less.
  
  I’ve seen banal and innocuous comments from myself and whole chains including others get down voted for no real apparent reason. Personally I see that and I choose to smile. Knowing that that person is so seething and ineffectual that that is the best they can figure out to do. But not everyone sees it that way. It’s definitely something that will have to be tackled at some point if the system is going to grow. Because whether or not you agree that it’s manageable now. It certainly won’t be if there is a huge growth spurt.
  
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melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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, 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.

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russjr08@bitforged.space ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Aside from the rest of the discussion that has already occurred here, I’m not actually sure how this would work from a technical perspective.

You and I are on two completely different instances, if I were to block you, how is your instance supposed to know this in order to stop you from reading my comment?

The only way I could see that working is if the list of users you blocked were federated too, and effectively made public (like votes currently are) - which seems counterproductive to the problem at hand.

Then what happens if you post in a community where someone you’ve blocked is a moderator? Or if you block the admin of another instance? If you can “cloak” yourself from being moderated by just blocking them, that seems like an exploit waiting to happen. As far as I’m aware, on Reddit blocking a user doesn’t hide your comments from them - but they can no longer reply to them, and I assume this is why that is the case. Unless that has very recently changed.

The biggest difference between Lemmy (and all software within the Fediverse - for example, I’m pretty sure Mastodon is this way as well), is that there is not one singular authoritative server. Actions like this need to be handled on all instances, and that’s impossible to guarantee. A bad actor running an instance could just rip out the function that handles this, and then it’s moot. I mean, they wouldn’t even need to do that - they’d have the data anyways.

You could enforce it if both users are on the same instance I suppose, but this just seems like it would only land with the blocking feature being even more inconsistent.

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- Character_Locked@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  According to another user in here, blocking on Mastodon actually works. So seems like it is possible to do in the Fediverse.
  
  The only way I could see that working is if the list of users you blocked were federated too, and effectively made public
  
  I actually thought blocks were public already. And personally I don’t see how it would be an issue if people that I haven’t blocked can see who I’ve blocked.
  
  As far as I’m aware, on Reddit blocking a user doesn’t hide your comments from them
  
  According to Reddit themselves on their support page: “Redditors you block won’t be able to access your profile or see or reply to your posts or comments”
  
  Then what happens if you post in a community where someone you’ve blocked is a moderator?
  
  Let moderators see comments from users that have blocked them in communities that they moderate but nowhere else. Or do whatever Reddit does in this case.
  
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  - russjr08@bitforged.space ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    According to another user in here, blocking on Mastodon actually works. So seems like it is possible to do in the Fediverse.
    
    I was not aware of this, but their implementation of how they do this does bring up the limitation I mentioned. The other user cannot see your posts only if you are on the same server:
    
    If you and the blocked user are on the same server, the blocked user will not be able to view your posts on your profile while logged in.
    
    I actually thought blocks were public already.
    
    They’re not, well - the operator of your instance could go into the database and view it that way in the same way that they can see your email address. But aside from someone who has database access to your instance, blocks are not public. What is public is the list of defederated (“blocked” so to speak) instances for an entire instance (this can be viewed by going to /instances of any instance), which might be what you were thinking of?
    
    And personally I don’t see how it would be an issue if people that I haven’t blocked can see who I’ve blocked.
    
    How exactly would you enforce that, though? If your blocks were public, all the person who you’ve blocked would need to do is open a private browsing window and look at your profile to see that they’ve been blocked.
    
    If we’re looking at blocks as being a safety feature, I would think that having your blocks broadcasted to every single instance would be classified as harmful and a breach of your privacy. This is why although an instance that you register with has to have your email address that you signed up with, they don’t broadcast it to all other instances (same with the encrypted value of your password) - because otherwise it would effectively be public.
    
    Perhaps I’ve just got the wrong stance, but considering that you can never block someone from viewing your content with an absolute guarantee (if the blocks were broadcasted, you still couldn’t prevent someone from just simply logging out, or standing up their own instance and collecting the data anyways) I would not consider that tradeoff to be worthwhile. Not that my stance has any weight since I’m not a maintainer for Lemmy (or any of the Fediverse software), but I wouldn’t be surprised if that has at least come up to those who are developing the various Fediverse software.
    
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shaggyb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I mean, okay.

If I already said something publicly, I expect it to be read publicly.

The block tool is because I’m tired of dealing with their bullshit, not because I’m afraid of them reading what I’ve posted.

Still nice to know though, I guess.

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Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Piefed seems to implement bidirectional blocking

✅ blocking – users, communities, domains, instances. bi-directional.

join.piefed.social/roadmap/

@rimu@piefed.social @Snoopy@piefed.social @fxomt@piefed.social

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- fxomt@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Hi :wave: Indeed it does. I can block whole instances, domains and all that stuff; and they won't see me at all. If i blocked a user, they will not know i exist. It's great.
  
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  - AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    How does that work from a technical perspective? Do non-piefed users still see you?
    
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- Character_Locked@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - fxomt@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Interstellar is a good app, it supports mbin/lemmy and now, piefed :D
    
    The thunder/voyager/tesseract devs are interested in a port later on.
    
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  - Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Lots of people are waiting for app support, fingers crossed 🤞
    
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  - Snoopy@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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. It 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. :)
    
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cyborganism@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I understand your frustration and I, too, thought that blocking went both ways before seeing your post.

If you encounter someone who is harassing you and attacking your reputation without your knowledge and down voting your whole history, you should gather the proof and contact your instances mods. There’s a very good chance they’ll ban them either temporarily or permanently from the instance. Or contact the mods from their instance as well.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

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Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Your post comes off pretty aggressive, phrase it as a feature request or bug report and you would get a nicer reception. As it is your post feels more like a rant than anything.

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- Character_Locked@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Lol I’m not interested in begging for a nicer reception from people that upvote blatant misinformation as long as it suits them. I wasn’t that ticked off when I started but this thread has taught me that this place can be a fkn clown show.
  
  Seriously, the fact that the “it’s always been this way even on Facebook and Reddit” guy is the top comment here means that people’s opinions here are worth less than shit. And I might as well be trying to convince MAGA manosphere people to be decent human beings. Because I’m dealing with the same kind of delusion here.
  
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FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Be that as it may, I love seeing a reply to one of my posts from someone I’ve blocked.

Let’s me know that whatever bullshit they wrote is going to go eternally unanswered, and I hope it frustrates them.

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regdog@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
That is how blocking works on most platforms.

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Crumbgrabber@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I never heard of redit. Is that like ribbit? Or some new fangled app or something?

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atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
So, there’s a inherent problem with blocking working both ways on a forum style site or platform like Lemmy.

When you block someone and the block goes through, if it works both ways, that means your comments or exchanges with that person disappear. The problem with that? They disappear for you and the person you blocked. Anyone else who comments can see the thread. But you both no longer can. So say someone comes along and responds to you on that thread. Or to the other person on that thread? Will their comment go through? Will you be able to see their comment? Will you be able to reply to their comment?

It becomes more complicated and further can affect users not related to or involve with the block depending on how it’s handled and for the most part that’s problematic.

I think we should be differentiating a “block function” (and neither the twain shall meet) from a “mute function” (a one way filter).

I feel like this might genuinely just be better than giving people a false understanding of what the filter they are using does.

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