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.
Edit: watching you all upvote the person talking shit about how this works on other platforms while downvoting the actual correct information that comes with a source has certainly taught me a thing or two about this platform and the people on it. You all actually prefer misinformation to fact as long as it suits your vibe or opinion more. Like a bunch of fkn MAGAs. I really wish there was a way to disable notifications for this post (another feature missing here) because watching you people upvote misinformation is enough to make me no longer give a flying fuck what anyone here says or thinks.
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. This is the most common way blocking works, with very few sites working the way OP thinks it should.
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.
at best blocking should prevent interaction, "hiding" information that is publicly available is pointless.
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.
just because it doesn't typically work that way doesn't mean it shouldn't. blocking should absolutely be a two person thing. block from contact and communication, and block the person from being able to stalk and retaliate or harass you in return.
why is it bad to want that?
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 accessed 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 user 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.
Part of the adoption of the dual-side block method is because large corps want automation and don't really care about quality (all about engagement).
See that's my problem here. I just came from a heavily moderated instance because I thought that I could moderate my own experience instead. But it turns out that I have to rely on admins and moderators anyway.
Yeah I don't buy this. To me, it makes perfect logical sense that if I block someone, they're actually blocked and not just hidden from my view. Maybe this wasn't a problem for forum sites used by a couple of hundred people at most but it's not 1999 anymore and there's a lot of psychos out there. It's nice to know that you can actually protect yourself to some extent on an online platform these days.
As I said, I see where you are coming from and you do have a point.
I am just trying to explain the reasoning behind the opposing arguement. It's not just being old school for the sake of being old school.
The forums of old weren't not just a few hundred users. Some of the bigger ones had DAUs in the tens of thousands.
Literally every forum, chatroom, and social media site outside of TikTok, and I think Imgur, 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.
Information from https://www.howtogeek.com/896008/what-happens-when-you-block-someone-on-facebook/
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.
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.
From https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4413520308372-How-does-blocking-work. 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.