3 ms·

It's a tough line to walk. On one hand, if you participate in a system where almost everything is inherently public (the web/internet, since anyone can screensh

It's a tough line to walk. On one hand, if you participate in a system where almost everything is inherently public (the web/internet, since anyone can screenshot anything and publish wherever they want), it's hardly unexpected that information that was once public, can remain public forever. On the other hand, people have some sort of expectation that the data they publicly post online to remain in some sort of semi-private state. Bluesky app might invite only for now, but the underlying protocol and technology makes everything very public, forever, and makes it trivial to cache locally (for good or bad purposes).

btown 3y ago
There's a vast difference between "public" and "actively surfaced." Indeed, blocking someone on Twitter would not prevent them from finding your public profile in an incognito window and seeing your posts - it would simply prevent your posts from being easily and automatically accessible to them in their feed. In practice, this tends to reduce conflict. My concern with Bluesky is that it makes it very possible for tools to make block information easily and automatically accessible - in fact, it would allow a bad actor to create a service that shows a feed of just content from people who want to block you from seeing it. That's a recipe for disaster.
- detaro 3y ago
  I think that anyone can see who-blocked-who is the bigger issue, because that's usually not discoverable and allows a) a lot more large-scale analysis and b) when it comes to "celebrities" of various kinds, their "fanbase" is quite likely a bigger source of harassment etc overall.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Yeah, you're right, there is a big difference. I think one of the changes they're trying to push through is that since you can't really block someone from viewing your content, if they want to, they're turning it around a bit. So don't think of blocks as "You won't be able to see my content" but more like "I won't have to see anything of you anymore, and you can't interact with me", which is more accurate on how blocks actually works, even if platforms tell you otherwise.

btown 3y ago

There's a vast difference between "public" and "actively surfaced." Indeed, blocking someone on Twitter would not prevent them from finding your public profile in an incognito window and seeing your posts - it would simply prevent your posts from being easily and automatically accessible to them in their feed. In practice, this tends to reduce conflict. My concern with Bluesky is that it makes it very possible for tools to make block information easily and automatically accessible - in fact, it would allow a bad actor to create a service that shows a feed of just content from people who want to block you from seeing it. That's a recipe for disaster.

detaro 3y ago
I think that anyone can see who-blocked-who is the bigger issue, because that's usually not discoverable and allows a) a lot more large-scale analysis and b) when it comes to "celebrities" of various kinds, their "fanbase" is quite likely a bigger source of harassment etc overall.
capableweb 3y ago
Yeah, you're right, there is a big difference. I think one of the changes they're trying to push through is that since you can't really block someone from viewing your content, if they want to, they're turning it around a bit. So don't think of blocks as "You won't be able to see my content" but more like "I won't have to see anything of you anymore, and you can't interact with me", which is more accurate on how blocks actually works, even if platforms tell you otherwise.