Why is blocking so common nowadays?
-
I have done this a few times, for me it was just that I was writing a reply and 80% through I realized that I didn't want to argue any more, so I blocked the guy after posting it, just so I wouldn't get any more crap to deal with.
So I get this feeling— and I don’t mean to say your mode of operation is not valid— but why not just stop replying? I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had an argument in a thread and one side stopped talking and it continued for more than two posts or something.
-
I use it to curate my lemmy experiance. 99% of the users/communities I block aren't for anything personal, they're just clogging up my ALL feed with things I dont care about (for example, sports ball or foreign language comms).
Why are you subscribed to them? No need to block just curate.
-
Counterpoint- why hasn't blocking been more common?
I'm a millennial, so I've basically grown up with the internet. Blocking has been a feature on basically any website, app, etc. that lets you interact with other people for as long as I can remember.
And I've never been afraid to use it. I've blocked probably hundreds of people across countless platforms over the last 2 decades or so, and I think my Internet experience has been better for it.
When I was in school, and I assume still to this day, one of the big things that always seemed to have people's feathers ruffled was "cyberbullying" and other sorts of online harassment.
Now I'll admit, somehow I ended up a reasonably well-liked, maybe even popular dude, (no idea how my weird, antisocial, probably-autistic ass pulled that off) so I was never really the target of it myself.
But it always baffled me how people let it be a thing. A whole lot of those problems always seemed like they could have been solved by just hitting the block button.
Not all of them of course, but a lot of them. Blocking someone of course doesn't stop them from talking about you to someone else, but at that point a lot of it can just be out of sight and out of mind.
Back when I still had a Facebook, I had probably half of my town blocked because they were always posting dumb shit in the local groups. I had a bunch of businesses blocked because they spammed advertisements everywhere. I had actual friends who I hung out with IRL blocked or at least unfollowed because they flooded my feed with shitposts. Half of my family was blocked because I just didn't want to deal with them on social media. I preemptively blocked people I work with or otherwise knew casually because they don't need to see what I'm doing online.
I have never blocked any one on the internet. And I probably have been in online conversations for longer than you have been alive.
I find it so strange that people do that. We learned in the 80's that people are probably liars and there are trolls. So just ignore them.
Turns out a lot of people may have something that gets you annoyed while at the same time have something worthwhile to say about a different topic.
And how are we ever going to learn from each other if we just block each other all the time?
-
I dunno I haven’t blocked anyone and I don’t know if anyone has blocked me.
If you want, I'll block you so you can feel included.
-
There may be an age or generational explanation for this, but I especially notice this behavior on Reddit while not nearly as much here on Lemmy (though maybe that's also a mater of implementation).
It seems many are so quick to assert overly-confident positions, but then hit-and-run with some smarmy remark at even the slightest challenge, then quickly block. Like, not even crazy stuff. Just basic, civil disagreements. I can pretty well predict when it will happen, and it always feels like such a petty ego-sparing fingers-in-ears denial thing to do, and to me if anything shows they were not very confident in their views being challenged.
I think I've only blocked a handful of people over a decade who were actively spamming, stalking, or spewing extremely hateful rhetoric and I just reported them simultaneously. You have to cross a pretty extreme and irrational line for me to do that.
The reason I ask is to see if I'm missing something; to better understand the mindset of those who do.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I've been online since BBS days. Never blocked anyone. Never could understand why people do that. Just ignore them, whatever.
So many people, later on down the road have something to say worthwhile that I wouldn't have known if I just blocked them. Gotta give some leeway on the internet, no one really knows tone or intent most of the time.
-
Why are you subscribed to them? No need to block just curate.
I subscribe to ones I'm interested in. But sometimes I browse all to stumble across new interesting communities. I block the ones I see repeatedly and aren't interested in. I block mass posters, I block bots, I block tankies, I block mods/admins of larger communities. It just makes my all browsing time more efficient.
-
I use it to curate my lemmy experiance. 99% of the users/communities I block aren't for anything personal, they're just clogging up my ALL feed with things I dont care about (for example, sports ball or foreign language comms).
wrote last edited by [email protected]next you'll tell me you don't like incredibly low effort political memes reposted from (social media site you specifically joined lemmy to avoid), smh
-
So I get this feeling— and I don’t mean to say your mode of operation is not valid— but why not just stop replying? I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had an argument in a thread and one side stopped talking and it continued for more than two posts or something.
In situations where I do this, I am annoyed at the other guy, and the last comment they made was so glaringly wrong that it was far more important for me to reply and block and just to block.
I know it is stupid, but that is the feeling of the time.
-
I've been online since BBS days. Never blocked anyone. Never could understand why people do that. Just ignore them, whatever.
So many people, later on down the road have something to say worthwhile that I wouldn't have known if I just blocked them. Gotta give some leeway on the internet, no one really knows tone or intent most of the time.
Yeah I have a similar mindset. I honestly have a lot of people tagged on here from some pretty rough debates at times. But weeks, months, years later I still up vote some of their stuff.
-
There may be an age or generational explanation for this, but I especially notice this behavior on Reddit while not nearly as much here on Lemmy (though maybe that's also a mater of implementation).
It seems many are so quick to assert overly-confident positions, but then hit-and-run with some smarmy remark at even the slightest challenge, then quickly block. Like, not even crazy stuff. Just basic, civil disagreements. I can pretty well predict when it will happen, and it always feels like such a petty ego-sparing fingers-in-ears denial thing to do, and to me if anything shows they were not very confident in their views being challenged.
I think I've only blocked a handful of people over a decade who were actively spamming, stalking, or spewing extremely hateful rhetoric and I just reported them simultaneously. You have to cross a pretty extreme and irrational line for me to do that.
The reason I ask is to see if I'm missing something; to better understand the mindset of those who do.
I blocked pretty freely on Twitter till I left the site around when I got the Bluesky invite. I still block freely on there, but not Reddit or Lemmy. I didn't on Reddit cause there was a cap on how many accounts you can have blocked and Lemmy doesn't handle blocks in a way I like so I just don't bother. I like being able to curate my experience and the experience others that interact with me have. I got no energy for shit stains so blocking is easier than constantly knowing they exist.
-
I dunno I haven’t blocked anyone and I don’t know if anyone has blocked me.
Yeah how do you even know when someone has blocked you?
-
There may be an age or generational explanation for this, but I especially notice this behavior on Reddit while not nearly as much here on Lemmy (though maybe that's also a mater of implementation).
It seems many are so quick to assert overly-confident positions, but then hit-and-run with some smarmy remark at even the slightest challenge, then quickly block. Like, not even crazy stuff. Just basic, civil disagreements. I can pretty well predict when it will happen, and it always feels like such a petty ego-sparing fingers-in-ears denial thing to do, and to me if anything shows they were not very confident in their views being challenged.
I think I've only blocked a handful of people over a decade who were actively spamming, stalking, or spewing extremely hateful rhetoric and I just reported them simultaneously. You have to cross a pretty extreme and irrational line for me to do that.
The reason I ask is to see if I'm missing something; to better understand the mindset of those who do.
wrote last edited by [email protected]For me personally, I just don't feel like dealing with yet another source of garbage that I don't want to read.
In happier times, I felt a different way about blocking. Nowadays, the fucking potus forces the country to match some phony fucking Fox News image, and I don't really care about reading some dumb assholes dumb rant anymore. Not blocking people and "dialog" and "debate bro" shit isn't fixing this crap anyway, so I'm going to go ahead and make my own life contain a little less hassle.
That's also why I'm only really here and on mastodon. I know they're basically left wing safe spaces. I frankly don't give a fuck.
-
Sometimes things are not as they seem due to language barriers or different people from neurotypicals.
Completely agree (even more so, not being a native English speaker myself). If there was any doubt, 'the moment I realize' doesn't mean I instantly block anyone not agreeing with me or publishing something I would consider rude, or useless. Only that, the moment I made up my mind on who the person is, there is no hesitation.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yes, I noticed that important part. Hence the likelyhood is high but still with a margin of error and not to anybodys fault.
I've also had situations where I gave second chances and was stumped, just confirming my prior judgement.
I'm not fully sure what I am trying to add but maybe just being human really is a dilemma and surprisingly hard.
-
There may be an age or generational explanation for this, but I especially notice this behavior on Reddit while not nearly as much here on Lemmy (though maybe that's also a mater of implementation).
It seems many are so quick to assert overly-confident positions, but then hit-and-run with some smarmy remark at even the slightest challenge, then quickly block. Like, not even crazy stuff. Just basic, civil disagreements. I can pretty well predict when it will happen, and it always feels like such a petty ego-sparing fingers-in-ears denial thing to do, and to me if anything shows they were not very confident in their views being challenged.
I think I've only blocked a handful of people over a decade who were actively spamming, stalking, or spewing extremely hateful rhetoric and I just reported them simultaneously. You have to cross a pretty extreme and irrational line for me to do that.
The reason I ask is to see if I'm missing something; to better understand the mindset of those who do.
I never block anyone but I do get blocked a lot by both hardcore right wingers and hardcore left wingers. I've also gotten blocked by scammers by being such an incredible pain in the ass.
