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Why doesn't blocking work? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by danhakimi@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

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I had to block a few users yesterday. Today, I noticed about ten notifications from users I've blocked—they replied to me, continued to make up lies about my heritage, and I continued to see their comments in my notifications.

It seems that the only effect of my blocking them is that I can no longer see their comments in context—although I am still notified of their harassment. This is quite the opposite effect from the one I was going for—I mean, I'm happy to spend less time engaging with them, but the block feature seems to be guaranteeing these bigots the "last word" and preventing me from even reporting them. They can then follow me anywhere on kbin and continue to harass me, the block function is only stopping me from doing anything about it.

At least one of these users is on the same instance as I am, kbin.social.

Why doesn't blocking work?

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[–] Pamasich@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It used to be possible on Reddit, and people didn't like the change to how it is now. Because of how it can be (and is being) abused.

[–] danhakimi@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A blocked user could never respond to a blocking user on Reddit, to my knowledge. I believe you're confused.

[–] Pamasich@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I've never been blocked, so I might be wrong there. But the last word problem was the main reason I've seen people hate the move to the current blocking system, so I assumed it didn't exist before.

Edit: Reddit's official announcement for the new system does explicitly mention they're changing it so you can't interact with users that blocked you anymore. Which implies you could before.

[–] danhakimi@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I've never been blocked, so I might be wrong there. But the last word problem was the main reason I've seen people hate the move to the current blocking system, so I assumed it didn't exist before.

Yes, it's very annoying when the person you're harassing stops you from harassing them, I'm sure. You have all the steam of somebody being wrong on the internet and it just ends, without you being able to vent over four more days as you go back and forth pestering each other with thousand-word comments nobody will read. Trolls must hate it when they get cut off from that.

Reddit's official announcement for the new system does explicitly mention they're changing it so you can't interact with users that blocked you anymore. Which implies you could before.

What I recall is this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/p2ezy4/bringing_more_visibility_to_comments_from_blocked/

The comments are all complaining about how blocking people doesn't block them, explicitly complaining that this change doesn't do the thing that blocking is, which is not to mute, but to block.

Looking through the history of changes, it seems you're referencing this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/s71g03/announcing_blocking_updates/

And the comment section there is much more mixed, although I do see more people complaining. I suppose people complain to reddit announcements no matter what, but to be fair, they are almost always bad.