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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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[–] danhakimi@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What you're saying makes sense, but I think the big issue here is that blocking as it currently works on Reddit is harmful because it's too easy to abuse.

This is really not a problem on reddit, especially in the face of rogue moderators doing the same thing, except on the scale of a subreddit. Nobody

So, why does any platform even need this, besides familiarity?

I explained it many, many times throughout this thread. Harassment is bad. People's expectation to be able to block harassers is not just familiar, it's good. People should be able to free themselves from harassment—not just from knowing they're being harassed.

Right now, the assholes I blocked could, for all I know, be chasing me around the fediverse commenting on everything I say. They could be stalking me. They could be doxxing me. This is too easy to abuse.

On top of that, these threats make it dangerous to even use the muting feature against those real assholes. Muting only makes sense for people you find mildly annoying. I'm afraid when I mute a harasser, afraid that their harassment will continue, that I won't be able to reply to it, and that people will believe every nasty, bigoted thing they say about me. My only chance at safety comes from blocking them.

Shutting down an argument or badmouthing someone without giving them a means to respond or defend themselves.

Muting serves the same function, only punishing the person who uses the mute function instead. Thereby discouraging use of the mute function and perpetuating toxic debate. Toxic debates need to end, they should be shut down—not for a winner or a loser, but because they make everybody's lives worse and really don't enhance access to the truth. Insults should be shut down, rather than going back and forth ad infinitum. Harassment should be shut down. These are not free speech—you can speak freely anywhere. Persistently talking to somebody who doesn't want to hear your bullshit is harassment.

Like, if it's to avoid stalkers, this would do literally nothing to achieve that. They can just log out and continue doing what they were doing.

This will do a lot to prevent stalkers, because even if the stalkers realize they need to log out to stalk the user, they now lose every "follow" function, every logged-in function, and have to stalk the user manually. Most stalkers will never do that—they will lose steam the second they realize they've been blocked, and go worry about something else.

I don't think kbin should be blindly adopting bad ideas even if everyone else does them.

"blindly" while I've explained the issue throughout the thread? This is exhausting.

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

Thanks for the writeup, it helped me see things from your perspective. I don't fully agree, but I get now why you're asking for this.

What I'm wondering now is, does the fediverse actually support the kind of block that's being asked for here? Like, is there precedent on this being implemented on other platforms like Mastodon or Lemmy? The issue here is that kbin isn't in control of who sees your posts, I wonder if it's actually possible to implement this in the first place.

This will do a lot to prevent stalkers, because even if the stalkers realize they need to log out to stalk the user, they now lose every "follow" function, every logged-in function, and have to stalk the user manually.

If you actually believe this, you're a bit shortsighted. This is the fediverse, people can just jump onto a different instance. And even on Reddit multiple accounts for the same person were allowed.

People can also run their own personal instance which doesn't honor those blocks.

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

Yeah, Mastodon has separate block and mute functions. Somebody just accused me of "playing the underdog card" for saying that babies should have their heads attached to their necks, in a whole long chain of comments where he frequently mischaracterized my points, so yes, I blocked him.

If you actually believe this, you're a bit shortsighted. This is the fediverse, people can just jump onto a different instance. And even on Reddit multiple accounts for the same person were allowed.

well, multiple reddit accounts to get around a block or ban were specifically forbidden, but you're right, it's possible.

the thing you're still confused about is thinking that it's something everybody does the second they get banned. There is a limit to the amount of work people actually end up doing to troll others on the internet. Some trolls have an iron will and are stubborn to no end; the vast majority will lose steam eventually and just go do something else.

If you set up your own instance just to troll people more effectively, and somehow manage to stay federated with your victims' servers, you might just be a corner case.

[–] e569668@fedia.io 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, Mastodon has separate block and mute functions.

Ah, good to know. I'll have to look into it a bit more, but reading https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moderating/#block

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.

It looks like the limitation that Pamasich and I sort of expected is there. Blocks are basically only possible at your own instance. If the user is on another instance, there's no way to stop them in the fediverse. And that includes it going out to all other instances they federate with too.

I sort of just experienced how this would work if implemented, in a way. A kbin social user posted to a beehaw org magazine. I replied to it, but my post does not seem to have made it to kbin social. However, it's on my instance, beehaw's, lemmy one, etc, because my instance federates with all of those instances. That's sort of what blocking would be like if the original page refused an incoming comment due to a block, all other instances would still accept it. It's possible there's something I'm missing as I'm not super knowledgable on activity pub or the fediverse, so I'll try to learn more about it

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

ah, that sucks. feels like it shouldn't be too hard to honor blocks across instances, but idk.

and, yeah, theres' something super janky about the way kbin handles federation...

[–] e569668@fedia.io 1 points 1 year ago

does the fediverse actually support the kind of block that's being asked for here?

Yea, that's where I'm thinking the hangup on this might be. A block could be implemented, but it'd come with the caveat of that all it's doing is giving you the idea they aren't continuing to engage with you on your instance. On their instance, and any instance that federates with them, they and others will continue to see the replies.

Personally, I would like to see block renamed to mute to be more accurate and a block from replying added with the note about the drawbacks of them being able to tell you blocked them and their posts still going out everywhere else. That at least empowers the user to make the decision themselves on what they're most ok with. My reasoning is: changing the UI for, let's say an aggressor, gives them a reason to retaliate. To me, either blocking method is a lose-lose; either it doesn't stop engagement which some users clearly want it to, or it makes it obvious someone is being blocked which start aggressors down the retaliation path. That's kind of why I'd want users to make their own risk assessment on actions.

Anyways, that's all very unlikely to happen. Most of all I'd like the bug about notifications fixed because that is clearly not working as intended.