Ah… Would reporting them rather than blocking be more appropriate, then? I recognize reporting isn’t always effective, but the right answer seems to be getting the community to police it rather than hiding your commentary from them.
And I recognize I’m speaking from a dearth of experience, here - this isn’t something I’ve dealt with, so I’m genuinely asking!
I’m generally trying to go off of a conversation I had with someone 2 years ago in lemmy. I was generally of the opposite opinion to my current stance, and they explained how the current “everything is public, dont even try to hide it from people” stance is problematic to persecuted minorities. It was 2 years ago so I’m a bit fuzzy on the details - I had to go look it up because someone didnt believe that the conversation even existed, but i didnt re-read the whole comment section.
their point was that, while total privacy in a federated service is likely impossible, you want to make it non-trivial for harassers to do harassment.
reporting is absolutely more appropriate than blocking, but blocking has a few advantages:
its immediate, you dont need to wait for mods/admin.
you don’t need to prove to an admin that something that the harasser said about you is actually a lie.
mods/admins don’t need to be up-to-date on all the current dogwhistles
it doesn’t need to actually affect the harasser beyond you. they dont need to get banned from the whole community or instance, unless the community or instance feels like they should be. its lower impact. This is important for lemmy communities that represent real communities, like classes or teams or neighborhoods.
They can spread lies about you to those same people anyway. People who are just bad actors specifically ought to be banned from the community as a whole ideally. In reality not all bad behavior will rise to the level of banning and you will sometimes have to engage with people who are negative towards you if you want to counter their narrative.
Right, not all bad behavior rises to the level of banning. That’s why I want to block. It’s less than banning, but still let’s me keep my own yard clear.
It’s like… I’d rather people burn me in effigy down the street, rather than in my front yard, when I have guests over. I cant stop them, but can I at least make them do it away from me and my guests? We don’t have to kick them out of the neighborhood or send them to prison, just let me kick them off my front yard.
Ah… Would reporting them rather than blocking be more appropriate, then? I recognize reporting isn’t always effective, but the right answer seems to be getting the community to police it rather than hiding your commentary from them.
And I recognize I’m speaking from a dearth of experience, here - this isn’t something I’ve dealt with, so I’m genuinely asking!
I’m generally trying to go off of a conversation I had with someone 2 years ago in lemmy. I was generally of the opposite opinion to my current stance, and they explained how the current “everything is public, dont even try to hide it from people” stance is problematic to persecuted minorities. It was 2 years ago so I’m a bit fuzzy on the details - I had to go look it up because someone didnt believe that the conversation even existed, but i didnt re-read the whole comment section.
their point was that, while total privacy in a federated service is likely impossible, you want to make it non-trivial for harassers to do harassment.
reporting is absolutely more appropriate than blocking, but blocking has a few advantages:
If you can’t see the replies how can you possibly be harassed by it?
Because they can spread lies about me that I can’t see, to people who come to engage with me.
Not everyone is a stranger, you can have communities for real world groups.
They can spread lies about you to those same people anyway. People who are just bad actors specifically ought to be banned from the community as a whole ideally. In reality not all bad behavior will rise to the level of banning and you will sometimes have to engage with people who are negative towards you if you want to counter their narrative.
Right, not all bad behavior rises to the level of banning. That’s why I want to block. It’s less than banning, but still let’s me keep my own yard clear.
It’s like… I’d rather people burn me in effigy down the street, rather than in my front yard, when I have guests over. I cant stop them, but can I at least make them do it away from me and my guests? We don’t have to kick them out of the neighborhood or send them to prison, just let me kick them off my front yard.