4 ms·

Content blocking on platforms works mostly in a political manner now based on my experiences... The most aggravating thing about Twitter for me is that their m

Content blocking on platforms works mostly in a political manner now based on my experiences... The most aggravating thing about Twitter for me is that their mute controls don't work. On the other hand, blocking and muting can have adverse effects as well... Like preventing access to vital news. I want to believe that platforms have the best intent in mind, but once overhead, employee attrition, and investor pressure (etc) takes over, I think platforms always choose the easier path of evil to placate all those problems. The concept of following accounts now is functionally contradictory to how platforms promote content... Almost immediately after following a major or popular account (e.g. The Rock or NBC News) you get flooded with their posts and the users you'd normally follow all get pushed aside// This is a contradiction that nobody wants, whereas if posts were shown in chronological order on something like Twitter, timelines would be a lot better. Too many bad features are all running at the same time, and it's jarring. I end up not following any popular accounts, and popular posts STILL end up being recommended in my timeline on IG and Twitter now too... I think most platforms are recklessly plowing through trying to keep up with competition and making profit now to the point where they lose track of how new features will totally break core functionality. Using these platforms now, it's painful to observe the desperate and strange struggle towards their end of life.

notacoward 4y ago
> preventing access to vital news HN isn't Twitter, nor is it Facebook. Unlike tweets or posts respectively, blocking comments here from people who have trolled you repeatedly before would in no way prevent you from seeing any of that vital news.
- winternett 4y ago
  I don't disagree, but that's just one particular scenario. But on platforms like blocking a news source, because they posted a spammy article 3 years ago can end up preventing you from seeing the valid posts they make now after firing their editor. I am not at all against blocking features, but there are logical ways to better manage these features, like perhaps creating an additional view/page where you can view recent posts from accounts and people you've blocked (with controls to unblock them embedded next to posts). Another possible solution to the blocking conflict is to be able to completely block posts based on keywords in addition to being able to block user accounts... Blocking users should be a nuclear option rather than the only option available, and it should work consistently across the platform.
  - notacoward 4y ago
    Agreed. There are better blocking/muting/filtering systems, and worse ones. Implementations also vary widely. For example, I think the design of filtering on Tumblr is perfectly fine, including keywords, but the implementation is garbage and stuff from blocked users "leaks through" in reblogs. It would be great if there were a widely agreed-upon set of principles (preferably not a formal standard) for how such features should work, but I'm not aware of any. Then again, it's very far from what has ever been my professional specialty so maybe I'm just missing something.

notacoward 4y ago

> preventing access to vital news HN isn't Twitter, nor is it Facebook. Unlike tweets or posts respectively, blocking comments here from people who have trolled you repeatedly before would in no way prevent you from seeing any of that vital news.

winternett 4y ago
I don't disagree, but that's just one particular scenario. But on platforms like blocking a news source, because they posted a spammy article 3 years ago can end up preventing you from seeing the valid posts they make now after firing their editor. I am not at all against blocking features, but there are logical ways to better manage these features, like perhaps creating an additional view/page where you can view recent posts from accounts and people you've blocked (with controls to unblock them embedded next to posts). Another possible solution to the blocking conflict is to be able to completely block posts based on keywords in addition to being able to block user accounts... Blocking users should be a nuclear option rather than the only option available, and it should work consistently across the platform.
- notacoward 4y ago
  Agreed. There are better blocking/muting/filtering systems, and worse ones. Implementations also vary widely. For example, I think the design of filtering on Tumblr is perfectly fine, including keywords, but the implementation is garbage and stuff from blocked users "leaks through" in reblogs. It would be great if there were a widely agreed-upon set of principles (preferably not a formal standard) for how such features should work, but I'm not aware of any. Then again, it's very far from what has ever been my professional specialty so maybe I'm just missing something.