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I think it's getting lost that this isn't a one-way street. For trolls, putting additional barriers in their way is a good thing. But not all blockees are trol

I think it's getting lost that this isn't a one-way street. For trolls, putting additional barriers in their way is a good thing. But not all blockees are trolls, and not all blockers are using the block to fight trolls. Some may even be using it as a form of trolling themselves. There isn't an easy way to differentiate an abusive blockee from an abusive blocker. If there were, it would make sense to provide additional incentivize against both anti-social behaviors. But there isn't. Invisible posts are not a good thing for the health of the platform. It's not just blocker and blockee—everything is connected. Say you have a very large account that blocks on a whim, accumulating many thousands of blocks, and regularly interacts with posts from other large accounts. That account has hurt the capacity to have meaningful interactions, not with it but with other accounts it interacts with, by eliding chunks of context from conversations for some portion of the community that was blocked on a whim. Obviously, if that sort of attitude were to spread wide enough, then eventually having posts hidden would make the platform become noticeably worse. It seems that some of the most vocal opponents of post visibility for blockees are precisely from accounts that block maliciously. Worth mentioning that having a hair trigger is not necessarily malicious. But if a hair trigger blocker really cares that their posts are hidden, then they are most likely a malicious actor—Why else would they care if their posts are visible to the non-trolls they've blocked?

MeetingsBrowser 2y ago
What on earth is “malicious blocking”? I cannot think of a case where an entity decides they don’t want someone to see their tweets “maliciously”. The ability to control who does and does not see your content seems like the bare minimum for a social media platform.
- hurleybird 2y ago
  You can precisely control "your content" with subscriptions. Otherwise, "your content" is intermingled with everyone else's. Content is probably the wrong word. Conversation is a better one. Malicious blocking is blocking a non-troll as an anti-social form of aggression. It could be: "I block people who disagree with me because I know it makes them angry." or "I block people because I get a lot of interaction, and not being able to see my posts in those interactions so that they are missing context or are forced to log into an alt will worsen people's experience, and knowing that makes me happy." Imagine how terrible X could become if Musk had the motivation above. He would be able to significantly impact not just your interactions with him, but with a large chunk of the largest and most important accounts—because all roads lead to Musk. Just blocking with a hair trigger, even blocking non-trolls, is not necessarily malicious. It's malicious if harm is the point of the block and not just a side-effect.
  - MeetingsBrowser 2y ago
    So malicious blocking is when the one doing the blocking is trolling? Is it really better if you are able to continue viewing “conversation” from someone who is acting maliciously towards you? Social media is like a relationship. If either person decides they don’t want to be in the relationship, the healthiest thing is for both to leave the relationship. It doesn’t make sense for one person to leave but the other person to stay
    - hurleybird 2y ago
      Well, I don't think it's a good analogy in a few ways. It's probably closer to a restraining order than a breakup, even though that analogy isn't perfect either. And there's a significant power imbalance between large and small accounts. A small account blocking a large account doesn't impart any noticeable second order effects on the large account. But a large account blocking a small account absolutely can impart negative second order effects on the small account. (And large accounts can certainly develop a sense of self importance or arrogance that leads to liberal blocking behavior) The problem is that it isn't just two accounts interacting. The blocker may interact with someone else you follow, or who follows you, which then elides context from conversations. Hypothetical: Let's say John Carmack starts a discussion about Voxel Octrees, and Jonathan Blow comments on that. And Carmack comments back, and this goes on once or twice. You also have something to say on Voxel Octrees, maybe you're working with them in your project, so you want to join the conversation. Unfortunately, Jonathan Blow has blocked you. You don't have any desire to interact with him. You would comment on Voxel Octrees even if Blow wasn't involved. But he has inserted himself into a conversation that you want to be a part of so now parts of that conversation are missing to you, and you have to log into an alt to get the full context of what is being discussed. Hiding the blocker's posts from the blockee doesn't just damage the ability of the blockee to interact with the blocker, but also to interact with accounts that the blocker interacts with... and accounts that interact with that interaction, and so on. That's clearly damaging the blockee's user experience. And there's a contingent of pro-block users who want to make the block even more repressive, such as hiding content with an IP ban.

MeetingsBrowser 2y ago

What on earth is “malicious blocking”? I cannot think of a case where an entity decides they don’t want someone to see their tweets “maliciously”. The ability to control who does and does not see your content seems like the bare minimum for a social media platform.

hurleybird 2y ago
You can precisely control "your content" with subscriptions. Otherwise, "your content" is intermingled with everyone else's. Content is probably the wrong word. Conversation is a better one. Malicious blocking is blocking a non-troll as an anti-social form of aggression. It could be: "I block people who disagree with me because I know it makes them angry." or "I block people because I get a lot of interaction, and not being able to see my posts in those interactions so that they are missing context or are forced to log into an alt will worsen people's experience, and knowing that makes me happy." Imagine how terrible X could become if Musk had the motivation above. He would be able to significantly impact not just your interactions with him, but with a large chunk of the largest and most important accounts—because all roads lead to Musk. Just blocking with a hair trigger, even blocking non-trolls, is not necessarily malicious. It's malicious if harm is the point of the block and not just a side-effect.
- MeetingsBrowser 2y ago
  So malicious blocking is when the one doing the blocking is trolling? Is it really better if you are able to continue viewing “conversation” from someone who is acting maliciously towards you? Social media is like a relationship. If either person decides they don’t want to be in the relationship, the healthiest thing is for both to leave the relationship. It doesn’t make sense for one person to leave but the other person to stay
  - hurleybird 2y ago
    Well, I don't think it's a good analogy in a few ways. It's probably closer to a restraining order than a breakup, even though that analogy isn't perfect either. And there's a significant power imbalance between large and small accounts. A small account blocking a large account doesn't impart any noticeable second order effects on the large account. But a large account blocking a small account absolutely can impart negative second order effects on the small account. (And large accounts can certainly develop a sense of self importance or arrogance that leads to liberal blocking behavior) The problem is that it isn't just two accounts interacting. The blocker may interact with someone else you follow, or who follows you, which then elides context from conversations. Hypothetical: Let's say John Carmack starts a discussion about Voxel Octrees, and Jonathan Blow comments on that. And Carmack comments back, and this goes on once or twice. You also have something to say on Voxel Octrees, maybe you're working with them in your project, so you want to join the conversation. Unfortunately, Jonathan Blow has blocked you. You don't have any desire to interact with him. You would comment on Voxel Octrees even if Blow wasn't involved. But he has inserted himself into a conversation that you want to be a part of so now parts of that conversation are missing to you, and you have to log into an alt to get the full context of what is being discussed. Hiding the blocker's posts from the blockee doesn't just damage the ability of the blockee to interact with the blocker, but also to interact with accounts that the blocker interacts with... and accounts that interact with that interaction, and so on. That's clearly damaging the blockee's user experience. And there's a contingent of pro-block users who want to make the block even more repressive, such as hiding content with an IP ban.