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Another interesting blog post by the subject of this article: https://blog.blockpartyapp.com/p/what-counts-as-harassment-anyways https://blog.blockpartyapp.com/

Another interesting blog post by the subject of this article: https://blog.blockpartyapp.com/p/what-counts-as-harassment-anyways https://blog.blockpartyapp.com/p/what-counts-as-harassment-a... I think Block Party more or less acknowledges that it's not about blocking actual harassment (though it probably tries to do that, too), and more about insulating people from "unwanted content". What exactly this means is only alluded to, but seems to amount to the exclusion of people who disagree with the poster. Is this actually about stopping harassment or more about the cultivation of echo-chambers? Are "unwanted reply-guys" people who e.g. point out identical male/female disparities among CS graduates in response to allegations that tech is biased against women? And what's the consequence of this kind of blocking? Is isolating people from viewpoints outside an accepted orthodoxy supposed to be a positive for society? If the "reply-guys" followed suit, and configured their Block Party to filter out people with opposing viewpoints, would that be a positive outcome? If Block Party is effective in actually curbing actual harassment, stalking, etc. then that's a great effect and Tracy is right that it's something platforms should do themselves. But I get the sense that it's less about harassment and more about "unwanted content".

lovemenot 6y ago
I dont see the problem. If someone chooses to ignore contrary evidence themselves, they are choosing to be ignorant. Their choice. If someone is forced to wade through offensive crap to see the quality posts, well they had no choice in the matter. The latter scenario is clearly worse and this service is not really flawed.
- sir_bearington 6y ago
  The issue is that Block Party seems to be unwilling to distinguish the latter from the former. Although with the current implementation it looks like it doesn't really matter. All this app seems to do is make it so that all mentions by users outside a whitelist get sent to a spam folder: https://www.blockpartyapp.com/how-it-works/ https://www.blockpartyapp.com/how-it-works/
  - lovemenot 6y ago
    Regardless of current implementation, I still don't understand the problem in principle. Why does Block Party need to distinguish the former from the latter? What is wrong with providing tools to users for filtering unwanted content (by their own definition)?
    - sir_bearington 6y ago
      What's the problem of helping people insulate themselves into an echo-chamber? Increased polarization, diminished empathy for people with different values, greater social-sorting, lower trust in institutions, and plenty of other problems.
      - lovemenot 6y ago
        Yeah, I do get that. Personally, I wouldn't use Block Party nor Social Media in general, for all the reasons that you outline. I don't want those things. Nevertheless, I see no major problem in providing tools to people who have a different set of priorities to myself. Particularly if they purport to solve other social problems, such as harassment. As in all things, there's a trade-off. For me, the social benefit of a functional Block Party outweighs the risks. I take at face-value the founder's claimed issues with abusive content and assume that many others deal with similar. It is a shame that those doing the abuse had insufficient empathy, but that ship has already sailed. At the end of the day, I don't believe you can win this one. Even if your concerns were overwhelming - which I think they are not. Simply, you cannot force people to read content they'd prefer not to. If this abuse is a genuine issue, someone will inevitably provide those tools. Either Block Party or another provider.
pessimizer 6y ago
The problem with opinion bubbles is that you're forced into them algorithmically. I have no objection to people blocking opinions that they don't want to hear, especially the dumb low-effort comebacks that only survive on twitter because it's too difficult to debunk them within the format. If I only want to hear encouragement, there's no reason to feel guilty about it.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
This attitude is frustrating, because the general response to content moderation by fiat is “who are social media companies to decide for us?” Then someone builds a tool to let users decide for themselves, and the goalposts shift to “is creating echo chambers like this good for society?” It really makes me feel like the goal is not freedom of speech, but forcing everyone to listen.

lovemenot 6y ago

I dont see the problem. If someone chooses to ignore contrary evidence themselves, they are choosing to be ignorant. Their choice. If someone is forced to wade through offensive crap to see the quality posts, well they had no choice in the matter. The latter scenario is clearly worse and this service is not really flawed.

sir_bearington 6y ago
The issue is that Block Party seems to be unwilling to distinguish the latter from the former. Although with the current implementation it looks like it doesn't really matter. All this app seems to do is make it so that all mentions by users outside a whitelist get sent to a spam folder: https://www.blockpartyapp.com/how-it-works/ https://www.blockpartyapp.com/how-it-works/
- lovemenot 6y ago
  Regardless of current implementation, I still don't understand the problem in principle. Why does Block Party need to distinguish the former from the latter? What is wrong with providing tools to users for filtering unwanted content (by their own definition)?
  - sir_bearington 6y ago
    What's the problem of helping people insulate themselves into an echo-chamber? Increased polarization, diminished empathy for people with different values, greater social-sorting, lower trust in institutions, and plenty of other problems.
    - lovemenot 6y ago
      Yeah, I do get that. Personally, I wouldn't use Block Party nor Social Media in general, for all the reasons that you outline. I don't want those things. Nevertheless, I see no major problem in providing tools to people who have a different set of priorities to myself. Particularly if they purport to solve other social problems, such as harassment. As in all things, there's a trade-off. For me, the social benefit of a functional Block Party outweighs the risks. I take at face-value the founder's claimed issues with abusive content and assume that many others deal with similar. It is a shame that those doing the abuse had insufficient empathy, but that ship has already sailed. At the end of the day, I don't believe you can win this one. Even if your concerns were overwhelming - which I think they are not. Simply, you cannot force people to read content they'd prefer not to. If this abuse is a genuine issue, someone will inevitably provide those tools. Either Block Party or another provider.

pessimizer 6y ago

The problem with opinion bubbles is that you're forced into them algorithmically. I have no objection to people blocking opinions that they don't want to hear, especially the dumb low-effort comebacks that only survive on twitter because it's too difficult to debunk them within the format. If I only want to hear encouragement, there's no reason to feel guilty about it.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

This attitude is frustrating, because the general response to content moderation by fiat is “who are social media companies to decide for us?” Then someone builds a tool to let users decide for themselves, and the goalposts shift to “is creating echo chambers like this good for society?” It really makes me feel like the goal is not freedom of speech, but forcing everyone to listen.