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It provides friction for further misbehaving. Imagine you blocked someone who has serious issues with people who #foobar. It's better for you if they can't easi

It provides friction for further misbehaving. Imagine you blocked someone who has serious issues with people who #foobar. It's better for you if they can't easily find you and repost your content to their community who also hate #foobar. It's not perfect, but the friction helps prevent drive-by bad behaviour.

trompetenaccoun 2y ago
It's the opposite. People with serious issues (i.e. stalkers, trolls etc.) will continue following on a second account or proxy. Meanwhile regular accounts with legitimate criticisms (for example pointing out misinformation, calling out bias, and so on) get blocked by bad actors and those will not find them anymore and repost because they don't invest time in it. Blocking mainly prevents regular normal users from seeing tweets. Best example is Lex Fridman who's blocked a million people for no apparent reason. Say something he doesn't like: You're blocked. Never even interacted with him but commented on a topic he doesn't approve of: Blocked. You under-cook fish: Believe it or not, he blocks you.
- bragr 2y ago
  Those are all issues as well, but brigading is absolutely a thing.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - trompetenaccoun 2y ago
    Just to be clear they still won't be able to interact with you after they're blocked. The only change is they can keep seeing your tweets directly in their account, as opposed to having to log out.
    - orwin 2y ago
      This I think is good. I don't really care about what is shown, because in my opinion, twitter discussions are rarely worth anything, but I get the point of 'more visibility = good'. I just dislike brigading. And I don't follow anything political on Twitter, I used to follow cybersec and US sports, still there you had brigading (and sometimes attacks got _really_ personal, like a bunch of people making dogwhistle comments about someone who criticized their favorite basketball player because he looks ashkenaz. I think he's a tv personality now btw).
  - miki123211 2y ago
    Blocking doesn't really fix the brigading problem, regardless of whether people need to log out or not. Most X users will just post a screenshot of the tweet, breaking accessibility in the process and disassociating the original author from the thread against their will. This isn't always a good thing, as it leads to people being surprised by crowds of strangers suddenly screaming at them and not being able to see the source of their anger. Some people do this as a "preventative measure", so that their post still makes sense when the original tweet is deleted.
    - raydev 2y ago
      > Blocking doesn't really fix the brigading problem Automated blocking absolutely solved most of the problem. In the late 2010s it was common for political accounts to use scripts that went through follower graphs for their worst repliers and blocked everyone, or went through the list of people liking a certain tweet and blocked all those accounts. They were quite fond of that approach and were happy with the outcome pre-Elon. Even if someone in the "bad group" screenshotted a tweet from their target to make fun of it, the target didn't really get bothered by it because they walled themselves well enough. The screenshotter is incentivized to not interact with their target so they don't get blocked again, and no one excited by all the dunking cared enough to go harass the target anyway. Now as someone who found themselves in a few blockchains during peak Bernie-mania, I like the proposed change. I've been blocked by several popular accounts because of who I followed, and I will enjoy being able to reliably read someone's content even if I'm not allowed to interact.
      - pyuser583 2y ago
        I enjoy your irregular use of the word “blockchain.”
    - viraptor 2y ago
      > Most X users will just post a screenshot of the tweet, breaking accessibility in the process and disassociating the original author from the thread against their will. But that means the blocking worked. Another person will now have to go to the extra effort of either finding that tweet or going directly to the profile to interact with them. And those extra steps were exactly the feature the blocking provided. It changes "click reply, type 'kill yourself you <slur> <slur>'" into "login into non-blocked account, retype part of the text from the screenshot, search, find the matching tweet, reply, type". And that's a lot of work for a quick response. Sure, it won't stop everyone. It reduces the effects though.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  Not to mention people attempting to slander others behind a block (so the person being slandered has no idea until the damage is already done), or temporarily unblocking to say something to someone, and then blocking again.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Not to mention people attempting to slander others behind a block (so the person being slandered has no idea until the damage is already done) I saw someone once post about their outrage over the practice of criticizing someone on Twitter without tagging the person you're criticizing in your tweet. ("Subtweeting.") Apparently the thinking goes that if anyone anywhere says something about you, you have the right to be notified.
    - dotnet00 2y ago
      I'd argue that it really depends on the kind of criticism. What I had in mind was more along the lines of accusing someone of wrongdoing rather than just criticizing them. I think tagging someone when you're accusing them of wrongdoing is the fair thing to do, considering how quickly that sort of thing can whip others into a frenzy. I see a lot of this sort of thing, where someone will accuse someone of heinous things like pedophilia from behind a block, and by the time the person being accused understands what's going on, they're being hounded by people who get off to drama about why they haven't denied the accusations yet. On the other hand, tagging when simply criticizing someone often feels like attention-seeking to me. I see this a lot with space stuff, where someone will offer (often completely ignorant) criticism, while pinging Musk, Bezos and/or other figures in the space discussion community.
      - thaumasiotes 2y ago
        https://reason.com/volokh/2019/11/20/academic-subtweeting/ https://reason.com/volokh/2019/11/20/academic-subtweeting/ "You can talk to me, but it's unethical to talk about me."
        2y ago
celdon25 2y ago
No it doesn't. The people who are malicious about it will be using multiple accounts. The block button doesn't stop them. If anything, it provides them ammunition to go "See, this person is a sensitive one, let's add them to the list". Either your posts are public or they're not. There's a pretty clear distinction between the two, and anyone who thinks otherwise is sorely mistaken. The risk of people re-posting your content is a natural consequence of your aspirations to be popular on social media, and we shouldn't be giving people a false sense of security.
- chomp 2y ago
  Yes it does and I can tell that you have never been piled on by followers of large accounts. Blocks aren’t perfect but they make a huge difference.
- dtjb 2y ago
  Blocks are (were) an easy line of defense for most of the lazy trolling. People could get around it but few bothered. It might have not been ideologically consistent but it was effective.
- viraptor 2y ago
  > The block button doesn't stop them. No and nobody claimed it does. Making it just a bit harder and making the other party jump through an extra hoop reduces it though. The extra friction has been implemented on many platforms and it works. Instagram adds friction in a different way, but also claims it has a positive result: https://builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/key-better-social-media-ecosystem-friction https://builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/key-be... You can also see people migrating to other platforms who raise the lack of search / being easily found as a feature. It's not black and white and it's not public or not. There's a whole range of how accessible your content is to parties who will attack you.
  - m3kw9 2y ago
    They can’t comment that’s the main point after blocking
  - 2y ago
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> repost your content to their community who also hate #foobar This is valid. I don't think it rises to the level of preventing them from seeing my public content. But perhaps a brake on their ability to repost it would be courteous.
- EnigmaFlare 2y ago
  How about if you're publicly saying things that offend a whole community, take personal responsibility for that and accept whatever offensive things they say about you in response. People have this dumb idea that everyone else should respect them for what they say in public but they have the right to disrespect others. If you can't handle that, stop saying inflammatory things to the whole world.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    Have you ever dealt with harassment? Do you think someone should take responsibility for posts that cause them to be harassed?
    - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
      Yes and yes. It's called picking your battles. If you're not equipped to stand up for yourself or have anyone else do that for you, you're going to get hurt when you insult someone else's beliefs they they've linked to their identity or even their purpose in life.
      - saagarjha 2y ago
        Some people tie their beliefs to rejecting your identity. What are you going to do in that case? Stop being gay? Not put pictures of yourself online?
        EnigmaFlare 2y ago
        Stop publicizing it to the whole world, yes. The world is chock full of homophobic people and some of them are going to see it if you share it with all of them. What if you're a holocaust denier? What are you going to do? Somehow not share your belief with the world? Yes! Either that or accept the hateful responses you're bound to get if you do share it. Don't forget this is all about public posts. Not anyone's private life or stuff they only share with people they trust. There's always going to be a Muslim somewhere who wants to kill you for being a practicing gay, or a holocaust believer who wants to punish you for disagreeing with their it-did-happen belief. What about an ashiest who ties their belief to rejecting the identities of Christians? There's no end to what people vehemently disagree on. By the way, you can always change your identity if you really want to. Just because you're gay doesn't mean that has to be your identity. You might primarily see yourself as a citizen of your country or what your job defines you as or your personality or religion or just simply yourself if you don't want to be part of a bigger group.

trompetenaccoun 2y ago

It's the opposite. People with serious issues (i.e. stalkers, trolls etc.) will continue following on a second account or proxy. Meanwhile regular accounts with legitimate criticisms (for example pointing out misinformation, calling out bias, and so on) get blocked by bad actors and those will not find them anymore and repost because they don't invest time in it. Blocking mainly prevents regular normal users from seeing tweets. Best example is Lex Fridman who's blocked a million people for no apparent reason. Say something he doesn't like: You're blocked. Never even interacted with him but commented on a topic he doesn't approve of: Blocked. You under-cook fish: Believe it or not, he blocks you.

bragr 2y ago
Those are all issues as well, but brigading is absolutely a thing.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- trompetenaccoun 2y ago
  Just to be clear they still won't be able to interact with you after they're blocked. The only change is they can keep seeing your tweets directly in their account, as opposed to having to log out.
  - orwin 2y ago
    This I think is good. I don't really care about what is shown, because in my opinion, twitter discussions are rarely worth anything, but I get the point of 'more visibility = good'. I just dislike brigading. And I don't follow anything political on Twitter, I used to follow cybersec and US sports, still there you had brigading (and sometimes attacks got _really_ personal, like a bunch of people making dogwhistle comments about someone who criticized their favorite basketball player because he looks ashkenaz. I think he's a tv personality now btw).
- miki123211 2y ago
  Blocking doesn't really fix the brigading problem, regardless of whether people need to log out or not. Most X users will just post a screenshot of the tweet, breaking accessibility in the process and disassociating the original author from the thread against their will. This isn't always a good thing, as it leads to people being surprised by crowds of strangers suddenly screaming at them and not being able to see the source of their anger. Some people do this as a "preventative measure", so that their post still makes sense when the original tweet is deleted.
  - raydev 2y ago
    > Blocking doesn't really fix the brigading problem Automated blocking absolutely solved most of the problem. In the late 2010s it was common for political accounts to use scripts that went through follower graphs for their worst repliers and blocked everyone, or went through the list of people liking a certain tweet and blocked all those accounts. They were quite fond of that approach and were happy with the outcome pre-Elon. Even if someone in the "bad group" screenshotted a tweet from their target to make fun of it, the target didn't really get bothered by it because they walled themselves well enough. The screenshotter is incentivized to not interact with their target so they don't get blocked again, and no one excited by all the dunking cared enough to go harass the target anyway. Now as someone who found themselves in a few blockchains during peak Bernie-mania, I like the proposed change. I've been blocked by several popular accounts because of who I followed, and I will enjoy being able to reliably read someone's content even if I'm not allowed to interact.
    - pyuser583 2y ago
      I enjoy your irregular use of the word “blockchain.”
  - viraptor 2y ago
    > Most X users will just post a screenshot of the tweet, breaking accessibility in the process and disassociating the original author from the thread against their will. But that means the blocking worked. Another person will now have to go to the extra effort of either finding that tweet or going directly to the profile to interact with them. And those extra steps were exactly the feature the blocking provided. It changes "click reply, type 'kill yourself you <slur> <slur>'" into "login into non-blocked account, retype part of the text from the screenshot, search, find the matching tweet, reply, type". And that's a lot of work for a quick response. Sure, it won't stop everyone. It reduces the effects though.
dotnet00 2y ago
Not to mention people attempting to slander others behind a block (so the person being slandered has no idea until the damage is already done), or temporarily unblocking to say something to someone, and then blocking again.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Not to mention people attempting to slander others behind a block (so the person being slandered has no idea until the damage is already done) I saw someone once post about their outrage over the practice of criticizing someone on Twitter without tagging the person you're criticizing in your tweet. ("Subtweeting.") Apparently the thinking goes that if anyone anywhere says something about you, you have the right to be notified.
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    I'd argue that it really depends on the kind of criticism. What I had in mind was more along the lines of accusing someone of wrongdoing rather than just criticizing them. I think tagging someone when you're accusing them of wrongdoing is the fair thing to do, considering how quickly that sort of thing can whip others into a frenzy. I see a lot of this sort of thing, where someone will accuse someone of heinous things like pedophilia from behind a block, and by the time the person being accused understands what's going on, they're being hounded by people who get off to drama about why they haven't denied the accusations yet. On the other hand, tagging when simply criticizing someone often feels like attention-seeking to me. I see this a lot with space stuff, where someone will offer (often completely ignorant) criticism, while pinging Musk, Bezos and/or other figures in the space discussion community.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      https://reason.com/volokh/2019/11/20/academic-subtweeting/ https://reason.com/volokh/2019/11/20/academic-subtweeting/ "You can talk to me, but it's unethical to talk about me."
      - 2y ago

celdon25 2y ago

No it doesn't. The people who are malicious about it will be using multiple accounts. The block button doesn't stop them. If anything, it provides them ammunition to go "See, this person is a sensitive one, let's add them to the list". Either your posts are public or they're not. There's a pretty clear distinction between the two, and anyone who thinks otherwise is sorely mistaken. The risk of people re-posting your content is a natural consequence of your aspirations to be popular on social media, and we shouldn't be giving people a false sense of security.

chomp 2y ago
Yes it does and I can tell that you have never been piled on by followers of large accounts. Blocks aren’t perfect but they make a huge difference.
dtjb 2y ago
Blocks are (were) an easy line of defense for most of the lazy trolling. People could get around it but few bothered. It might have not been ideologically consistent but it was effective.
viraptor 2y ago
> The block button doesn't stop them. No and nobody claimed it does. Making it just a bit harder and making the other party jump through an extra hoop reduces it though. The extra friction has been implemented on many platforms and it works. Instagram adds friction in a different way, but also claims it has a positive result: https://builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/key-better-social-media-ecosystem-friction https://builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/key-be... You can also see people migrating to other platforms who raise the lack of search / being easily found as a feature. It's not black and white and it's not public or not. There's a whole range of how accessible your content is to parties who will attack you.
- m3kw9 2y ago
  They can’t comment that’s the main point after blocking
- 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> repost your content to their community who also hate #foobar This is valid. I don't think it rises to the level of preventing them from seeing my public content. But perhaps a brake on their ability to repost it would be courteous.

EnigmaFlare 2y ago
How about if you're publicly saying things that offend a whole community, take personal responsibility for that and accept whatever offensive things they say about you in response. People have this dumb idea that everyone else should respect them for what they say in public but they have the right to disrespect others. If you can't handle that, stop saying inflammatory things to the whole world.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Have you ever dealt with harassment? Do you think someone should take responsibility for posts that cause them to be harassed?
  - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
    Yes and yes. It's called picking your battles. If you're not equipped to stand up for yourself or have anyone else do that for you, you're going to get hurt when you insult someone else's beliefs they they've linked to their identity or even their purpose in life.
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      Some people tie their beliefs to rejecting your identity. What are you going to do in that case? Stop being gay? Not put pictures of yourself online?
      - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
        Stop publicizing it to the whole world, yes. The world is chock full of homophobic people and some of them are going to see it if you share it with all of them. What if you're a holocaust denier? What are you going to do? Somehow not share your belief with the world? Yes! Either that or accept the hateful responses you're bound to get if you do share it. Don't forget this is all about public posts. Not anyone's private life or stuff they only share with people they trust. There's always going to be a Muslim somewhere who wants to kill you for being a practicing gay, or a holocaust believer who wants to punish you for disagreeing with their it-did-happen belief. What about an ashiest who ties their belief to rejecting the identities of Christians? There's no end to what people vehemently disagree on. By the way, you can always change your identity if you really want to. Just because you're gay doesn't mean that has to be your identity. You might primarily see yourself as a citizen of your country or what your job defines you as or your personality or religion or just simply yourself if you don't want to be part of a bigger group.