Is Blocking Users Problematic to the Platform?
There was an issue on Reddit a while back where people would post some hateful stuff, and of course lots of people blocked them.
After a while, anti-trans, racist, and far-right-wing stuff were only seen by non-logged in users, other bigots, or new people, and they weren't getting the downvotes they deserved.
Is this going to be a problem on Lemmy too? I'm worried that if we're all blocking shitty users that we're just hiding the problem from ourselves, not fixing it.
I know for my instance they get full bans. It's a small instance, but make sure you report people. Mods see it and will ban them from entire instances. They can go be angry trolls on someone else's server.
"Sorry queer folk, you can't block the people who want you dead, because it's important that you see their hate so you know it exists" (as if they we didn't already know)
Imo blocked users get less engagement, therefore it helps to some degree.
Also, unlike reddit, it's somewhat difficult to browse the Fediverse without being logged in.I'd guess that if any problematic content does slip through, it reaches a much smaller audience than if it were to slip through on reddit just because of how things are decentralized here.edit: I tried it again and I now agree that it is easier to browse with an account. I saw a lot more content than the first time I tried it ~2 months ago
I strongly disagree with that part
Indeed. I find the inverse to be true. It's getting harder and harder to browse Reddit without being logged in, but Lemmy is no problem.
I like to use old.reddit when I browse it now. I saw others mention it, and after giving it a try, I can see why people like it more than the 'updated' reddit.
I've never given it more than a few minutes at a time, but I didn't like it as compared to my 3rd party clients. Those are dead now, so... I just don't browse Reddit. 🤷‍♂️
I hope you're right. Just seeing a sharp increase in hate speech on here, and I'm worried it's going to be tricky to manage.
Your concerns are valid. That's something to be expected as the platform grows, but it's alarming nonetheless.
I'd say be sure to report them and then block them
That way the mods can see them to do something about them and you don't have to see their hateful stuff before they earn a ban
The vast majority of users I block don't break the rules. It's usually that I see a low-effort comment so I open their profile and if their post history indicates they're providing nothing of a value here I block them to improve the noise to signal ratio on my feed. It's not about wether I agree with them or not but are they making any sense.
There's some hate speech and also tons of propaganda. I've stopped recommending the fediverse to people while there's so much authoritarian propaganda.
That is one thing that strikes me. Whenever I look at All, I mostly see bad memes and political “hot takes”. I guess it’s good for engagement, but it’s nothing I’d recommend to anyone yet.
So far I've only blocked users whose names and posts indicate they're just here to post porn. Nothing against them, I just want to look at All once in awhile without accidentally (clumsy old-lady fingers) opening someone's vulva or ass. Nazis I downvote and/or report and/or yell at.
I've been blocking everyone with a stupid argument, and it feels great. If we're really worried about this, just quarantine anyone with a high block rate.
I like having better control over what content people can push at me. An issue on other platforms is they all want to force things on me -- things that they make money from, or things they think will annoy me (to keep me "engaged"). This makes them really annoying for me to use, and generally results in me giving up on the idea of sharing the things I study with others, and maybe also helping people with their projects.
I'm really mostly here to share science and engineering stuff, and maybe help other immigrants to Vietnam (I mean, there will probably be another one eventually...).
So really, I don't think it's a problem. I'm already painfully aware of the various weird things people think about me in daily life (yay, being an immigrant!). I don't need that to define every single thing I do. Sometimes I just want to log on and post some nice words about optimizing assembly language, without having to deal with a bunch of strange and often inappropriate requests from strangers.
Why does it need to be managed? They come out with this beautiful social media platform free of slimy corporate intentions and you complain there's not enough banning and censorship? I'm sorry the fediverse isn't advertiser-friendly enough for you.
Let people see for themselves that those people are assholes. Trying to obliterate all opposing views from existence is not how to make things better.
Do you even hear yourself?
“I’m concerned that there’s gonna be a lot of Nazi stuff on here.” “Step off with your advertiser friendly BS”
Agreed. This has nothing to do with advertisers. It's about creating a community where hate speech is not allowed. Free speech doesn't include nazi, transphobes and the likes.
Why not though? If you put conditions on free speech then where does it stop?
It stops when we run out of Nazis and tankies.
Mipadaitu actually has a point. They shouldn't be blocked if that's just hiding the issue. People should just disagree with them and say so. That way everyone can see there's only two hateful dickheads in the thread and 500 caring people. What's wrong with that approach?
The problem with that approach depends on the issue we’re talking about. To continue picking on the Nazis: allowing them to “just ask questions” for example is a great way to allow them to spread their ideology in a way that thoughtful moderation could prevent.
If someone reads a few posts and comments and suddenly becomes a Nazi, then that person would have already been a psycho. If you read some ideology then is that going to happen to you?
That’s nonsense - bad ideologies take hold in “normal” people all the time! I’m sure we all have that one uncle who was taken in by all the Q-anon talk, or that one friend who ended up joining a cult.