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Being able to share block lists sounds like a perfect formula for an even more extreme version of the social media echo chamber effect we've seen on other platf

Being able to share block lists sounds like a perfect formula for an even more extreme version of the social media echo chamber effect we've seen on other platforms. Now, not only can you subscribe to those with like opinions, but the collective can reject dissenting opinions en masse. What could go wrong?

NewJazz 2y ago
You call it "social media echo chamber" I call it "not exposing myself, family, or friends to gore or lewd content".
numpad0 2y ago
Doubt it, Twitter had that feature years ago and there wasn't a major problem that linked to it. Crazy people can't follow protocols, and most realizes they're in the wrong before blocking million accounts. References to useful contents from blocked accounts will occasionally leak through channels, and that should validate/invalidate choices. It's probably a pain for spammers and an extra processing cost for serving platform, though. edit: if you consider it must to block massive amount of real users(i.e. not script bots and/or third world hired guns trying to destroy a platform) to use a platform normally, that's just not sane.
anon-3988 2y ago
This is solved by blocking everyone by default and invites via some temporary UUID that you can use to add someone.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  I'm sure that blocking everyone by default will really help them attract users...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
toomuchtodo 2y ago
Educated people will remain educated. Ignorant people will remain ignorant. Angry people will remain angry. Block lists aren’t going to make a material difference in winning hearts and minds. The average reading level in the United States is between 7th and 8th grade, for example. Users will pick what they want to read, and they should be able to.
- adolph 2y ago
  I wonder what’s the max lexile score for 144 characters
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Seems to be the wrong measure for the angry dopamine machine. I should’ve mentioned critical thinking and emotional intelligence as well in my first comment. Citations below. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-71263-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-71263-z https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/430608-trending-science-social-media-making-us-angrier-study-reveals https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/430608-trending-science-... https://mitsloan.mit.edu/press/mit-sloan-study-finds-thinking-style-impacts-how-people-use-social-media https://mitsloan.mit.edu/press/mit-sloan-study-finds-thinkin... https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.07779 https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.07779
pixl97 2y ago
The internet is filled with shit. Bots, influencers, spammers, the clinically insane, outright enemies. Why should I listen to the endless amount of slop flat earthers shat upon the internet at large? The early internet was a pretty decent place to talk, debate, and see opinions you didn't agree with. But those days are long gone. He'll, these days the other side of the conversation could just be a bot that will never change its mind, and waste your time you could be talking to an actual human.
- nbittich 2y ago
  The internet of the 2000s was good because it didn't have these "discover" and "for you" algorithms. If you were interested in a subject, you actually had to search and filter results to find what you wanted; no AI choosing for you. If you're not interested in politics, you shouldn't see political content, unless you specifically search for it.
- ianburrell 2y ago
  Usenet had kill files. It was invented before the Internet was widespread. There was even a term, plonk, for adding someone usually as parting message. Kill files were required for reading Usenet. There were less bad posters, but since saw everything in newsgroup, it helped to filter the problems.
- computerthings 2y ago
  > The internet is filled with shit. Bots, influencers, spammers, the clinically insane, outright enemies. And also with people who just add people they consider enemies for whatever reason to all sorts of lists, and others who just subscribe to those lists blindly, without ever checking any. Why would they want to, it's supposedly unsavory. Blocking things as they actually become a problem for you has a way higher chance of success than outsourcing it. Just because it says "list of X" doesn't mean it's a list of X, it just means anyone can title things however they like.
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    depends on the trustworthiness of the source. at some point we have to trust something; could be our own selection process, but it can very well be the opinion of someone who you follow that seem genuine over X amount of time. The false positives are probably a necessary evil, humans will make mistakes, miss sarcasm, etc.
kiba 2y ago
Hacker News is heavily curated. Do you think there's an echo chamber effect? I frequently encountered opinions that differ from mine, sometime completely on the opposite end.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  As much as I like and enjoy HN most of the time, it's very much an echo chamber. Even if we ignore politics and politics-adjacent threads and focus on tech stuff, there are some popular perceptions/opinions that have not earned their popularity, and god help you should you suggest you're not on that bandwagon. The blanket ban on outright politics here may blunt the echo chamber effect a bit, but it exists because echo chamber susceptibility is part of the human condition. We cannot get away from it.
  - bruce511 2y ago
    While there's a ban on overt politics, a lot of social discourse is ultimately political. It's impossible to discuss health care approaches for example. Americans believe in for profit Healthcare, while (most everyone else) tend to favor universal health care (despite its many imperfections. ) And that's before we discuss other tricky topics like the military etc. There are plenty of folk ready to downvote based on opinion rather than discussion. So yes, there's plenty of echo chamber here - but equally plenty of alternate thinkers, not to mention nutters. This is ultimately how human societies work.
    - thrwwawayyay 2y ago
      Yes try making a comment in favor of bulk data collection by the intelligence agencies, or stating that Snowden's actions caused significant harm and really only helped adversaries - to give two examples. Even if you write a well argued and decently sourced comment, it's very likely to get flagged by people with ideological disagreements to this. And there are a lot of them on HN, so your comment will likely disappear pretty quickly.
      - 2y ago
heavyset_go 2y ago
Yeah, I don't want to see spam and inane posts, it isn't some moral imperative that everyone gets exposed to every thought someone shits out.
burgerrito 2y ago
I noticed that those blocklist on Bluesky tends to have false positives too! I've seen an instance where an innocent user added to a blocklist that blocks Nazi ideology or something like that. Honestly if that happened to me, I'd quit Bluesky instantly
- verdverm 2y ago
  The comments on that post (I saw the same or similar on Reddit) point out that there are very aggressive lists and more discerning lists. Some lists filter out based on links in a profile or certain emojis or if you follow certain accounts. These are 3rd party lists and a user has to opt into them to leverage their blocking choices. If a list blocks 1M accounts but only has 100 followers, it's not such a big deal. When you subscribe to a well built list, you are given options for how like mute vs block, your choice, or label | warn | hide, per label, a subchoice within an opt in labeller. What ATProto gives us as users is choice and competition. Bad lists will not gain subscribers and will be marginalized by the market effect. High quality lists will be shared and gain network effect. We shouldn't expect or want a one-size fits all solution to moderation. Our social graphs in real life and online are not a giant blob where everyone has to listen to everyone. We naturally break down into subgraphs or communities. Online communities or groups should be able to exclude people for any reason they wish. They should be seen similar to a private group in real life. You shouldn't expect to be allowed into or to participate in a group if your going against the group's rules or customs in real life. Online should be no different.
- Kosovid 2y ago
  There are lots of lists like that. Like I stumbled across this one the other day titled "Pedophiles of Bluesky" at https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:zufzme6bw4kqvd7uwff3qfpc/lists/3lewg3m7htw2j https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:zufzme6bw4kqvd7uwff3qfpc/li... Now I had a good look and I'm pretty sure the people added to this list haven't posted anything to warrant this accusation. Yet if you go to their profiles on Clearsky or whatever it will show them in this pedophile list, like https://clearsky.app/messyjhesse.bsky.social/lists https://clearsky.app/messyjhesse.bsky.social/lists That's not right, and the worst thing is you can't see on the app if you've been wrongly labeled that way, you have to use a third-party website to find out.
mrshadowgoose 2y ago
From my admittedly subjective perspective, it's the lesser of two evils. The alternative of having centralized control of "truth" is a far more awful option.
baobun 2y ago
Sounds better than everyone outsourcing the same to Musk, Zuck, spez, or similar.
Starlevel004 2y ago
> Being able to share block lists sounds like a perfect formula for an even more extreme version of the social media echo chamber effect we've seen on other platforms. I like my echo chamber. I like talking to my friends online. I don't want things I don't want to see.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  I get this, and I use bsky. What I don't understand is why some of my more liberal friends have a meltdown when I tell them I successfully use Twitter for what I want to get out of: instant news and commentary, some memes, some Instagram like feeds, and a couple of other things. I don't use the firehouse feed, I just pay attention to those I follow and have almost zero issues.
  - CartyBoston 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
      This is it anywhere near good faith. Also, aren’t you tired of “everyone I don’t like is a fascist”?
      - metabagel 2y ago
        Elon Musk is everyone?
    - likeabatterycar 2y ago
      Because caring about a stranger's political opinions that much, simply to play pretend activist, is mentally and physically exhausting.
nastoy 2y ago
Agreed. Bluesky is useless for this reason and the way that blocking works individually as well. Imagine if HN had a "block" option you could select against a user, that when you click it, it wipes out every comment that this user ever made on a post that you both commented in, past and future - but not just for you, for every other HN user as well. And there's no "showdead" option to see them either, for anyone. Like if I or anyone who replied to you blocked you now, with this hypothetical Bluesky-like feature on HN, no-one at all would be able to see your comment. Except maybe dang if he went poking around in the database. That's basically how Bluesky blocks work. It's absurd.
- verdverm 2y ago
  Musk Social provides some options for you to control who can reply to your posts (like followers only), at least it did before I nuked all my accounts. Bluesky provides a richer set of options. I should be able to choose who interacts with my posts. If that's not your style, fine, there are other options out there. Bluesky users like this feature. It reduces the toxicity and makes it a more enjoyable platform. The culture around "don't engage, just block" the trolls helps keep the discourse more civil. With a fresh start, we can stay ahead of the trolls and bots. It's a group effort
  - nastoy 2y ago
    You have misunderstood. The way Bluesky blocking works is not just about controlling who else can interact with your posts, it affects the posts of others too, and applies to every other user whether they like it or not. See https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/7021 https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/7021 for more detail. A relevant comment from that issue: > As it stands, if 20 people are involved in a discussion, and ONE single person decides to block someone, then all of a sudden, the 19 other people in the discussion (+ any other viewers) are now inconvenienced simply because one person had an issue with someone else. > Bluesky does have a bit of a block culture, and as such, this issue is only going to get worse and worse, and threads are going to get harder and harder to read and follow as more and more people get blocked. > Just the other day I got a notification, and I clicked on it, and once again, the post they were replying to was "blocked", not because of me, but because the person who made the post blocked the person they were responding to. I was trying to make sense of their post, but now I couldn't as I had no idea what the hell they were replying to... then I think I found the post they replied to; it showed "1 reply", but when I clicked on it, no replies were shown. > Now, this functionality was probably done with good intentions - but you know what they say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Another comment explaining the problem: > This is working as intended but I agree it should be reassessed. For example: > 1. In a popular thread, User A posts some nonsense > 2. User B replies to that reply explaining why it's nonsense > 3. User A blocks User B > 4. Now User A has successfully hidden the rebuttal to his comment from everyone. The only defense against this is if the thread OP happens to block User A. > This is a pretty serious downside of the "nuclear block" system imo. It creates an escalation ladder of blocking where the first user to hit "block" is advantaged. On the other hand it causes me personally to avoid blocking where I otherwise would, because I want the conversation to still be visible for others. > There should at least be a "show reply" button on posts that are hidden for this reason IMO. Otherwise you've given every user the unilateral power to hide a reply, for everyone, permanently. If I hide a reply the normal way, it's not deleted for everyone! There is a "show hidden reply" button! The effect of hiding someone else's reply should be consistent across these two ways to do it.
yfw 2y ago
Echo chamber or filtering out noise?
frontalier 2y ago
the "collective" has been able to block out toxic shit for a while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Anti-Cheat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Anti-Cheat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Safe_Browsing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Safe_Browsing https://web.archive.org/web/20250107144929/https://blocktogether.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250107144929/https://blocktoge... https://web.archive.org/web/20241230160146/https://gardenfence.github.io/ https://web.archive.org/web/20241230160146/https://gardenfen... folks just get riled up when their diatribes don't get traction
rsynnott 2y ago
Shared blocklists are older than social media; in particular see USENET killfiles, which were often shared. More recently, you had user-made shared blocklists on Twitter until Musk broke the API. There’s nothing particularly new about them, though having them as a convenient first-class feature is somewhat new. They help make Bluesky usable; for instance I subscribe to one which nukes transphobes, because, really, I do not have the patience to listen to their One Joke anymore, thanks. And another which warns on people with AI-generated profile pics (these are virtually always some form of scammer, or, worse, AI evangelists). The blocklists are not mandatory.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago
  Interesting how the concept of blacklisting was so horrifying to people that they immediately changed their vocabulary, code, and even broke APIs (despite the origins predating unrelated current events by hundreds of years) only to immediately turn around and justify the newly christened "blocklist" as a great thing we should all embrace.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    [flagged]
continue-100 2y ago
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-why-we-hate-each-other/ https://sites.google.com/view/sources-why-we-hate-each-other... § The Myth of the Filter Bubble
KaiserPro 2y ago
Everyone in life has a blocklist, and they are shared. You have a list of public people that piss you off and avoid, when you are asked about them you say "ugh I don't like x because". Now, you might get someone say "dont be mean about x, they had y, which is why they did z" and you might accept or reject the point they made. However that person is unlikely to blast you with content or facts to do with said public figure, unless they want to drive you away. It is part of human nature, infact its the basis of society. The only way we can function is by having effective way to have some shared core "principles" (formally around religion, feudal chiefs, now around semi cult leaders) This means rejecting other ideas as heretical. (see civil rights marches, universal suffrage, silver/gold standard the fracturing of protestantism)
AndyNemmity 2y ago
Twitter had shared block lists for a long time before they were removed. Twitter was better then. We don't have to guess how that works, it existed.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Better for you? Better for discourse? Better for protecting your echo chamber from things that might challenge you?
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    See, the thing is, I do not wish to hear from idiots. Life is too bloody short. This is how normal in-person social interaction works too, by the way. If you’re in a pub and someone comes up and starts ranting at you about how the pizza restaurant basements are turning the frogs gay, you’re probably not going to engage them. And if they keep at it, they’ll probably get kicked out. The internet is full of people who (a) insane, and (b) insane in a very boring, same-y way. Filtering these people out is _fine_. There is no moral obligation to listen to every ranting idiot who comes along.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      Yeah this is the thing. I see the same here in Holland since the extreme-right won the elections. People are constantly dragging up topics like transsexuality in completely unrelated discussions. I completely disagree with their opinion and I like challenging them on it (for example, what is it to them what other people do with their bodies?). They've never been able to give me a good answer to that so far. But they're constantly derailing topics about completely different things. They seem so obsessed with this topic. It's also getting so tediously repetitive. Always the same slurs without any kind of actual discussion. The thing is, here in the Netherlands we used to have 'echo chambering' as the foundation for the country. We used to call it 'verzuiling' (literally translated "pillarification"). After the war the country was made up of several groups that didn't get along so well so each had their own newspapers, social circles, TV and radio broadcasters etc. There were the Catholics, the super-strict Calvinists, the Labour/progressive atheist crowd etc. They basically lived alongside without really interacting. And really, lately I'm starting to think this was not such a bad idea at all.

NewJazz 2y ago

You call it "social media echo chamber" I call it "not exposing myself, family, or friends to gore or lewd content".

numpad0 2y ago

Doubt it, Twitter had that feature years ago and there wasn't a major problem that linked to it. Crazy people can't follow protocols, and most realizes they're in the wrong before blocking million accounts. References to useful contents from blocked accounts will occasionally leak through channels, and that should validate/invalidate choices. It's probably a pain for spammers and an extra processing cost for serving platform, though. edit: if you consider it must to block massive amount of real users(i.e. not script bots and/or third world hired guns trying to destroy a platform) to use a platform normally, that's just not sane.

anon-3988 2y ago

This is solved by blocking everyone by default and invites via some temporary UUID that you can use to add someone.

wakawaka28 2y ago
I'm sure that blocking everyone by default will really help them attract users...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Educated people will remain educated. Ignorant people will remain ignorant. Angry people will remain angry. Block lists aren’t going to make a material difference in winning hearts and minds. The average reading level in the United States is between 7th and 8th grade, for example. Users will pick what they want to read, and they should be able to.

adolph 2y ago
I wonder what’s the max lexile score for 144 characters
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Seems to be the wrong measure for the angry dopamine machine. I should’ve mentioned critical thinking and emotional intelligence as well in my first comment. Citations below. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-71263-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-71263-z https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/430608-trending-science-social-media-making-us-angrier-study-reveals https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/430608-trending-science-... https://mitsloan.mit.edu/press/mit-sloan-study-finds-thinking-style-impacts-how-people-use-social-media https://mitsloan.mit.edu/press/mit-sloan-study-finds-thinkin... https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.07779 https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.07779

pixl97 2y ago

The internet is filled with shit. Bots, influencers, spammers, the clinically insane, outright enemies. Why should I listen to the endless amount of slop flat earthers shat upon the internet at large? The early internet was a pretty decent place to talk, debate, and see opinions you didn't agree with. But those days are long gone. He'll, these days the other side of the conversation could just be a bot that will never change its mind, and waste your time you could be talking to an actual human.

nbittich 2y ago
The internet of the 2000s was good because it didn't have these "discover" and "for you" algorithms. If you were interested in a subject, you actually had to search and filter results to find what you wanted; no AI choosing for you. If you're not interested in politics, you shouldn't see political content, unless you specifically search for it.
ianburrell 2y ago
Usenet had kill files. It was invented before the Internet was widespread. There was even a term, plonk, for adding someone usually as parting message. Kill files were required for reading Usenet. There were less bad posters, but since saw everything in newsgroup, it helped to filter the problems.
computerthings 2y ago
> The internet is filled with shit. Bots, influencers, spammers, the clinically insane, outright enemies. And also with people who just add people they consider enemies for whatever reason to all sorts of lists, and others who just subscribe to those lists blindly, without ever checking any. Why would they want to, it's supposedly unsavory. Blocking things as they actually become a problem for you has a way higher chance of success than outsourcing it. Just because it says "list of X" doesn't mean it's a list of X, it just means anyone can title things however they like.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  depends on the trustworthiness of the source. at some point we have to trust something; could be our own selection process, but it can very well be the opinion of someone who you follow that seem genuine over X amount of time. The false positives are probably a necessary evil, humans will make mistakes, miss sarcasm, etc.

kiba 2y ago

Hacker News is heavily curated. Do you think there's an echo chamber effect? I frequently encountered opinions that differ from mine, sometime completely on the opposite end.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
As much as I like and enjoy HN most of the time, it's very much an echo chamber. Even if we ignore politics and politics-adjacent threads and focus on tech stuff, there are some popular perceptions/opinions that have not earned their popularity, and god help you should you suggest you're not on that bandwagon. The blanket ban on outright politics here may blunt the echo chamber effect a bit, but it exists because echo chamber susceptibility is part of the human condition. We cannot get away from it.
- bruce511 2y ago
  While there's a ban on overt politics, a lot of social discourse is ultimately political. It's impossible to discuss health care approaches for example. Americans believe in for profit Healthcare, while (most everyone else) tend to favor universal health care (despite its many imperfections. ) And that's before we discuss other tricky topics like the military etc. There are plenty of folk ready to downvote based on opinion rather than discussion. So yes, there's plenty of echo chamber here - but equally plenty of alternate thinkers, not to mention nutters. This is ultimately how human societies work.
  - thrwwawayyay 2y ago
    Yes try making a comment in favor of bulk data collection by the intelligence agencies, or stating that Snowden's actions caused significant harm and really only helped adversaries - to give two examples. Even if you write a well argued and decently sourced comment, it's very likely to get flagged by people with ideological disagreements to this. And there are a lot of them on HN, so your comment will likely disappear pretty quickly.
    - 2y ago

heavyset_go 2y ago

Yeah, I don't want to see spam and inane posts, it isn't some moral imperative that everyone gets exposed to every thought someone shits out.

burgerrito 2y ago

I noticed that those blocklist on Bluesky tends to have false positives too! I've seen an instance where an innocent user added to a blocklist that blocks Nazi ideology or something like that. Honestly if that happened to me, I'd quit Bluesky instantly

verdverm 2y ago
The comments on that post (I saw the same or similar on Reddit) point out that there are very aggressive lists and more discerning lists. Some lists filter out based on links in a profile or certain emojis or if you follow certain accounts. These are 3rd party lists and a user has to opt into them to leverage their blocking choices. If a list blocks 1M accounts but only has 100 followers, it's not such a big deal. When you subscribe to a well built list, you are given options for how like mute vs block, your choice, or label | warn | hide, per label, a subchoice within an opt in labeller. What ATProto gives us as users is choice and competition. Bad lists will not gain subscribers and will be marginalized by the market effect. High quality lists will be shared and gain network effect. We shouldn't expect or want a one-size fits all solution to moderation. Our social graphs in real life and online are not a giant blob where everyone has to listen to everyone. We naturally break down into subgraphs or communities. Online communities or groups should be able to exclude people for any reason they wish. They should be seen similar to a private group in real life. You shouldn't expect to be allowed into or to participate in a group if your going against the group's rules or customs in real life. Online should be no different.
Kosovid 2y ago
There are lots of lists like that. Like I stumbled across this one the other day titled "Pedophiles of Bluesky" at https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:zufzme6bw4kqvd7uwff3qfpc/lists/3lewg3m7htw2j https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:zufzme6bw4kqvd7uwff3qfpc/li... Now I had a good look and I'm pretty sure the people added to this list haven't posted anything to warrant this accusation. Yet if you go to their profiles on Clearsky or whatever it will show them in this pedophile list, like https://clearsky.app/messyjhesse.bsky.social/lists https://clearsky.app/messyjhesse.bsky.social/lists That's not right, and the worst thing is you can't see on the app if you've been wrongly labeled that way, you have to use a third-party website to find out.

mrshadowgoose 2y ago

From my admittedly subjective perspective, it's the lesser of two evils. The alternative of having centralized control of "truth" is a far more awful option.

baobun 2y ago

Sounds better than everyone outsourcing the same to Musk, Zuck, spez, or similar.

Starlevel004 2y ago

> Being able to share block lists sounds like a perfect formula for an even more extreme version of the social media echo chamber effect we've seen on other platforms. I like my echo chamber. I like talking to my friends online. I don't want things I don't want to see.

EasyMark 2y ago
I get this, and I use bsky. What I don't understand is why some of my more liberal friends have a meltdown when I tell them I successfully use Twitter for what I want to get out of: instant news and commentary, some memes, some Instagram like feeds, and a couple of other things. I don't use the firehouse feed, I just pay attention to those I follow and have almost zero issues.
- CartyBoston 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    This is it anywhere near good faith. Also, aren’t you tired of “everyone I don’t like is a fascist”?
    - metabagel 2y ago
      Elon Musk is everyone?
  - likeabatterycar 2y ago
    Because caring about a stranger's political opinions that much, simply to play pretend activist, is mentally and physically exhausting.

nastoy 2y ago

Agreed. Bluesky is useless for this reason and the way that blocking works individually as well. Imagine if HN had a "block" option you could select against a user, that when you click it, it wipes out every comment that this user ever made on a post that you both commented in, past and future - but not just for you, for every other HN user as well. And there's no "showdead" option to see them either, for anyone. Like if I or anyone who replied to you blocked you now, with this hypothetical Bluesky-like feature on HN, no-one at all would be able to see your comment. Except maybe dang if he went poking around in the database. That's basically how Bluesky blocks work. It's absurd.

verdverm 2y ago
Musk Social provides some options for you to control who can reply to your posts (like followers only), at least it did before I nuked all my accounts. Bluesky provides a richer set of options. I should be able to choose who interacts with my posts. If that's not your style, fine, there are other options out there. Bluesky users like this feature. It reduces the toxicity and makes it a more enjoyable platform. The culture around "don't engage, just block" the trolls helps keep the discourse more civil. With a fresh start, we can stay ahead of the trolls and bots. It's a group effort
- nastoy 2y ago
  You have misunderstood. The way Bluesky blocking works is not just about controlling who else can interact with your posts, it affects the posts of others too, and applies to every other user whether they like it or not. See https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/7021 https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/7021 for more detail. A relevant comment from that issue: > As it stands, if 20 people are involved in a discussion, and ONE single person decides to block someone, then all of a sudden, the 19 other people in the discussion (+ any other viewers) are now inconvenienced simply because one person had an issue with someone else. > Bluesky does have a bit of a block culture, and as such, this issue is only going to get worse and worse, and threads are going to get harder and harder to read and follow as more and more people get blocked. > Just the other day I got a notification, and I clicked on it, and once again, the post they were replying to was "blocked", not because of me, but because the person who made the post blocked the person they were responding to. I was trying to make sense of their post, but now I couldn't as I had no idea what the hell they were replying to... then I think I found the post they replied to; it showed "1 reply", but when I clicked on it, no replies were shown. > Now, this functionality was probably done with good intentions - but you know what they say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Another comment explaining the problem: > This is working as intended but I agree it should be reassessed. For example: > 1. In a popular thread, User A posts some nonsense > 2. User B replies to that reply explaining why it's nonsense > 3. User A blocks User B > 4. Now User A has successfully hidden the rebuttal to his comment from everyone. The only defense against this is if the thread OP happens to block User A. > This is a pretty serious downside of the "nuclear block" system imo. It creates an escalation ladder of blocking where the first user to hit "block" is advantaged. On the other hand it causes me personally to avoid blocking where I otherwise would, because I want the conversation to still be visible for others. > There should at least be a "show reply" button on posts that are hidden for this reason IMO. Otherwise you've given every user the unilateral power to hide a reply, for everyone, permanently. If I hide a reply the normal way, it's not deleted for everyone! There is a "show hidden reply" button! The effect of hiding someone else's reply should be consistent across these two ways to do it.

yfw 2y ago

Echo chamber or filtering out noise?

frontalier 2y ago

the "collective" has been able to block out toxic shit for a while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Anti-Cheat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Anti-Cheat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Safe_Browsing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Safe_Browsing https://web.archive.org/web/20250107144929/https://blocktogether.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250107144929/https://blocktoge... https://web.archive.org/web/20241230160146/https://gardenfence.github.io/ https://web.archive.org/web/20241230160146/https://gardenfen... folks just get riled up when their diatribes don't get traction

rsynnott 2y ago

Shared blocklists are older than social media; in particular see USENET killfiles, which were often shared. More recently, you had user-made shared blocklists on Twitter until Musk broke the API. There’s nothing particularly new about them, though having them as a convenient first-class feature is somewhat new. They help make Bluesky usable; for instance I subscribe to one which nukes transphobes, because, really, I do not have the patience to listen to their One Joke anymore, thanks. And another which warns on people with AI-generated profile pics (these are virtually always some form of scammer, or, worse, AI evangelists). The blocklists are not mandatory.

likeabatterycar 2y ago
Interesting how the concept of blacklisting was so horrifying to people that they immediately changed their vocabulary, code, and even broke APIs (despite the origins predating unrelated current events by hundreds of years) only to immediately turn around and justify the newly christened "blocklist" as a great thing we should all embrace.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  [flagged]

continue-100 2y ago

https://sites.google.com/view/sources-why-we-hate-each-other/ https://sites.google.com/view/sources-why-we-hate-each-other... § The Myth of the Filter Bubble

KaiserPro 2y ago

Everyone in life has a blocklist, and they are shared. You have a list of public people that piss you off and avoid, when you are asked about them you say "ugh I don't like x because". Now, you might get someone say "dont be mean about x, they had y, which is why they did z" and you might accept or reject the point they made. However that person is unlikely to blast you with content or facts to do with said public figure, unless they want to drive you away. It is part of human nature, infact its the basis of society. The only way we can function is by having effective way to have some shared core "principles" (formally around religion, feudal chiefs, now around semi cult leaders) This means rejecting other ideas as heretical. (see civil rights marches, universal suffrage, silver/gold standard the fracturing of protestantism)

AndyNemmity 2y ago

Twitter had shared block lists for a long time before they were removed. Twitter was better then. We don't have to guess how that works, it existed.

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Better for you? Better for discourse? Better for protecting your echo chamber from things that might challenge you?
- rsynnott 2y ago
  See, the thing is, I do not wish to hear from idiots. Life is too bloody short. This is how normal in-person social interaction works too, by the way. If you’re in a pub and someone comes up and starts ranting at you about how the pizza restaurant basements are turning the frogs gay, you’re probably not going to engage them. And if they keep at it, they’ll probably get kicked out. The internet is full of people who (a) insane, and (b) insane in a very boring, same-y way. Filtering these people out is _fine_. There is no moral obligation to listen to every ranting idiot who comes along.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Yeah this is the thing. I see the same here in Holland since the extreme-right won the elections. People are constantly dragging up topics like transsexuality in completely unrelated discussions. I completely disagree with their opinion and I like challenging them on it (for example, what is it to them what other people do with their bodies?). They've never been able to give me a good answer to that so far. But they're constantly derailing topics about completely different things. They seem so obsessed with this topic. It's also getting so tediously repetitive. Always the same slurs without any kind of actual discussion. The thing is, here in the Netherlands we used to have 'echo chambering' as the foundation for the country. We used to call it 'verzuiling' (literally translated "pillarification"). After the war the country was made up of several groups that didn't get along so well so each had their own newspapers, social circles, TV and radio broadcasters etc. There were the Catholics, the super-strict Calvinists, the Labour/progressive atheist crowd etc. They basically lived alongside without really interacting. And really, lately I'm starting to think this was not such a bad idea at all.