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The point of blocking is to prevent harassment, no? Hiding the blocker's posts from the blockee puts up an additional barrier to interaction. Even if it can b

The point of blocking is to prevent harassment, no? Hiding the blocker's posts from the blockee puts up an additional barrier to interaction. Even if it can be circumvented, it still requires some effort and may dissuade the person from continuing the harassment. There is a reason why this is the standard implementation for almost every social media site, and petulance has nothing to do with it.

bigstrat2003 2y ago
I would say that the point of blocking is to prevent someone from contacting you. Not to prevent harassment.
- cocacola1 2y ago
  Seems like a distinction without a difference.
- pjerem 2y ago
  The point is that contacting you isn’t always needed to harass you if the opponent have enough influence (or bots under his control) to harass you with its minions. Of course it could be bypassed but it requires effort and most harassers are in fact pretty stupid people who just happen to have an influence over a group of people as stupid as them.
ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
The point of blocking is to prevent harassment, no? No, the point is "I don't like this person for whatever reason so I don't want to see their posts". "I don't want this person to see my public posts" can be done by making an account private, or not posting the posts publicly. Otherwise it opens the door to trollish behavior like reply-and-block-to-prevent-retort. To stop harassment, reach out to the platform, assuming it cares about harassment, and if it doesn't, contact law enforcement, or file a lawsuit.
- chii 2y ago
  > can be done by making an account private, or not posting the posts publicly but not the criteria where you _want_ other people to see your posts publicly. aka, the ask is to allow individuals to "excommunicate" a particular user, not just blocking. I'm glad, tho, that twitter does not allow this. I think having this feature allows for echo chambers...(tho, this is currently already true so may be it's moot...?)
  - Jordrok 2y ago
    > I'm glad, tho, that twitter does not allow this. It does though? That is exactly what blocking does both before and after this change.
- swiftcoder 2y ago
  > To stop harassment, reach out to the platform, assuming it cares about harassment, and if it doesn't, contact law enforcement, or file a lawsuit Your wording suggests that you seem to be aware that none of these avenues actually work in the real world, which is precisely why platforms have the ability to block.
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    > Your wording suggests that you seem to be aware that none of these avenues actually work in the real world, which is precisely why platforms have the ability to block. You may personally infer that, but the precise reason platforms have the ability to block someone is, "I don't like this person for whatever reason so I don't want to see their posts or replies". Maybe you don't want to see their posts or replies because you feel they are harassing. Blocking/ignoring them stops you from seeing them. It shouldn't affect anyone else's ability to see their posts or replies to you. Honestly, in what other public, online discussion forum can anybody without admin powers, arbitrarily and unilaterally ban others from publicly replying to public posts?
    - swiftcoder 2y ago

bigstrat2003 2y ago

I would say that the point of blocking is to prevent someone from contacting you. Not to prevent harassment.

cocacola1 2y ago
Seems like a distinction without a difference.
pjerem 2y ago
The point is that contacting you isn’t always needed to harass you if the opponent have enough influence (or bots under his control) to harass you with its minions. Of course it could be bypassed but it requires effort and most harassers are in fact pretty stupid people who just happen to have an influence over a group of people as stupid as them.

ImPostingOnHN 2y ago

The point of blocking is to prevent harassment, no? No, the point is "I don't like this person for whatever reason so I don't want to see their posts". "I don't want this person to see my public posts" can be done by making an account private, or not posting the posts publicly. Otherwise it opens the door to trollish behavior like reply-and-block-to-prevent-retort. To stop harassment, reach out to the platform, assuming it cares about harassment, and if it doesn't, contact law enforcement, or file a lawsuit.

chii 2y ago
> can be done by making an account private, or not posting the posts publicly but not the criteria where you _want_ other people to see your posts publicly. aka, the ask is to allow individuals to "excommunicate" a particular user, not just blocking. I'm glad, tho, that twitter does not allow this. I think having this feature allows for echo chambers...(tho, this is currently already true so may be it's moot...?)
- Jordrok 2y ago
  > I'm glad, tho, that twitter does not allow this. It does though? That is exactly what blocking does both before and after this change.
swiftcoder 2y ago
> To stop harassment, reach out to the platform, assuming it cares about harassment, and if it doesn't, contact law enforcement, or file a lawsuit Your wording suggests that you seem to be aware that none of these avenues actually work in the real world, which is precisely why platforms have the ability to block.
- ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
  > Your wording suggests that you seem to be aware that none of these avenues actually work in the real world, which is precisely why platforms have the ability to block. You may personally infer that, but the precise reason platforms have the ability to block someone is, "I don't like this person for whatever reason so I don't want to see their posts or replies". Maybe you don't want to see their posts or replies because you feel they are harassing. Blocking/ignoring them stops you from seeing them. It shouldn't affect anyone else's ability to see their posts or replies to you. Honestly, in what other public, online discussion forum can anybody without admin powers, arbitrarily and unilaterally ban others from publicly replying to public posts?
  - swiftcoder 2y ago