this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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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.

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[–] PillowTalk420@lemmy.world 49 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (17 children)

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.

[–] Character_Locked@lemm.ee 3 points 11 hours ago (8 children)

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?

[–] PillowTalk420@lemmy.world 8 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Character_Locked@lemm.ee 1 points 11 hours ago

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 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.

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