They shouldn't be able to do that!
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
333 points (89.2% liked)
Ask Lemmy
34471 readers
1610 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It... Makes perfect sense?
YOU blocked them. They didn't block you.
It's like when you were a kid and told to ignore the kid bullying you; except that it actually works.
I love you, but I hate you!
If I block them, I want to stop them from engaging with me.
I don't want to let them continue to engage with me and other people in my comments, but just lose my ability to see what they're saying about me.
That's like saying the purpose of a locked door isn't to keep people out, it's to prevent you from seeing what they're doing in your house
The engagement between the two of you is over. He's saying stuff to other people now, not to you.
You want to control what they see and do? No, you don't get to decide that for other people.
If you don't want to lose your ability to see what they're saying then don't block them.
That's not how harassment works.
I think you know that, too.
Consider it a restraining order.
A restraining order is something a judge grants. That'd be a moderator or administrator in the context of the Threadiverse, and they do have the ability to prevent people from posting. Bringing something to their attention is what the "report" link is for, it's their decision after that.
I remain firm in my opinion that giving everybody the ability to unilaterally apply restraining orders to everybody they want to for whatever reason they want to leads to bad outcomes. That's how Reddit does it and it's pretty badly broken over there.
It being broken over there doesn't make it not broken over here.
Report is good, but why should I have to let other people read my content? Why is this a hill you want to die on?
This is a public forum. If you post to a public forum, you should expect your posts to be public. If you're posting something you don't want to be public, all I can say to you is that this isn't the right platform for that.
thats exactly the take i used to have, until it was explained to me how harmful that is to persecuted minorities and drives them off the platform.
I evidently cannot do a good job of explaining why that would be the case and (apparently) why thats even a problem, but I believe it is.
Well, you haven't even tried to explain it. You've just been saying "but minorities" over and over while refusing to elaborate.
there are so many threads.
its not but minorities its "based on this discussion I had about privacy and anti-harassment needs that minorities need".
harassment is bad. minorities are especially vulnerable to harassment.
reporting is good, but reporting is only one tool
the current "block" tool doesn't actually blocks, it mutes
that is confusing to users, who are surprised when they block a harasser that the harasser is still harassing them out of sight.
It'd be nice if, in addition to the report tool, and the mute tool, if there was a tool that could stop someone who is causing you mental anguish from doing so directly in your comments.
because people who are scared of the comments aren't going to post\
we need more tools to combat harassment
a tool where you can stop someone from commenting on your content is a good self-service tool that is low-enough-impact that a mod doesn't need to be involved, because it doesn't affect the community itself.
and at the very least, what OP is saying is reasonable. that is confusing AF, the person you've blocked isn't blocked from doing anything, the blocker is just hamstrung
Just telling us "but someone else told me it's bad" contributes nothing to the current conversation if you cannot tell us anything about that discussion.
Giving every user access to a type of power that is known to be abusable is not a good solution. As I said at the start, we've seen this with Reddit. We've seen why this is not the right way.
Why should you have to let other people read what you post on a public site?! Is that really the hill you want to die on?
Yes, it is.
Because it's my content.
Because it's not just a public site, public/private is a false dichotomy.
Because social networks need to provide effective anti-harassment tools, and if admins/mods are too overworked then that needs to be self-serviced.
Defederation exists
Instance bans exist
Community bans exist
Why are all of those good, but individual bans aren't?
Why are all of those effective (at least partially), but not for individuals?
Or is the argument that all of those should be disposed of, too?
No, it is not.
Because as soon as you post, it is not your content. Because it is a site build around public discourse, there is no dichotomy here let alone a false one. Because there are anti-harassment tools in place, you just want a new way to harass.
Because they are not done by end users in a vacuum. You can go and make your own instance and do all of these things, and are encouraged to do so.
I think that's what this all boils down to. That user seems to want to have access to admin tools like banning users but doesn't want to go through the hassle of actually administering an instance server.
Yeah, this is just a wild take so far. They keep rolling out that it needs to happen to protect minorities from harassment, but don't elaborate, at all. Not how having clearly abusable tools in the hands of every user would help, not on who the minority group is and how they are being harmed (just that they are! and are upset about it!), and instead of elaborating in anyway on this they just keep making up augments against them that no one has made.
They need to just make there own community at the very least. Its not hard, and would give them all the power they want and are asking for. But I assume since it would not give them the people automatically they will not.
i just want a new way to harass?
naw fam, i think you're looking to protect your existing way to harass people.
the fact that youre suggesting someone just goes and makes their own instance shows that you're being astronomically disingenuous.
Please show me where I am harassing someone, this would be valuable information.
And yes, I do think that what you are purposing would be abused and used for harassment.
You can go make a community right now, its not hard and very much encouraged. You can also make an instance but that is harder, and also encouraged.
I didnt say you were harassing someone, i said you were protecting the means by which to harass people.
go make a community? you've already been accusing me of being a power hungry mod, and now you're telling me to go make a community to mod?
i dont want to be a mod, being a mod sounds miserable, like ive repeatedly said.
and lemmy doesn't have enough users to be splitting up communities anyways. its built to do it, but practically you can't, despite it being "encouraged"
LOL at standing up an instance as being a reasonable solution to anything for a normal user or small community.
No I am saying you don't sound like you would be good at it, and then actively encouraged you to do so anyway.
You have not but I get it, you don't want the responsibility, just a bit of the power.
Do you think the people who host instances are some special class? That it is some unattainable goal? Its not as much work as you think, I might spin up one myself this year.
😐
It being different over here is what makes it not broken over here. The effects that makes Reddit's block system suck so badly are not present here.
It's hard to tell exactly what you mean, but there are different sucky effects.
Nah, in a public discussion, you/authorship isn't the primary concern, the text & interest of the public is primary. Whether you want to see that text is your liberty. The liberty of the public, however, is to likewise decide for themselves whether to read the text no matter who authors it regardless of petty disagreements between authors. Your disagreements aren't ours.
Just like in offline public discussions, no one should decide whether the public gets to see a marvelous takedown of text you happened to write just because you disagree with the author of that spectacular takedown.
I disagree that all content on lemmy should be treated as strictly public. I think that there are (or should be) nuance to that.
I realize that federation creates technical challenges to meet that strictly, but a best effort is better than no effort.
for example, I think its reasonable to have communities that are invite-only. AFAIK thats not currently possible in lemmy, but giving a best-effort to make that happen would be better than nothing. Instances known to ignore it could be defederated, clients known to ignore it could be blocked. swiss cheese defense.
Acknowledging your disagreement, it's observable fact that it is. It's readable to the public & open to public input. That input may be more concerned with responding to ideas (eg, as a criticism or corroboration) and presenting that to the public reader than for communicating specifically to the author of the text that inspired it. I certainly read primarily for content & ideas and respond accordingly like I'm trying to show the public something. Anyone can respond.
Comments I release to the public I treat as the public's & not really mine. If that's not for you, then I don't think you're identifying a technical limitation but a disagreement with design goals: the design of lemmy makes much sense for public discussion.
With private, direct messages, you may have a better argument.
so just a point here - the OP never actually said that the blockee shouldn't be able to see what the blocker posted, they weren't actually complaining about visibility of their own content.
they were complaining that when they blocked someone, the blockee could continue the harassing behaviour and the blocker would just be ignorant of the slander being said of them. if the blockee escalated to doxxing or something, they wouldn't even know, and the blockee could do it and would be unlikely to be reported since reporting on behalf of someone (i expect) is much less common unless the offense is both egregious and trivially verifiable.
They were complaining the blockee could write any public response even an impersonal one.
Doxxing & other issues likely already violate rules & I don't see how that would happen, since we don't reveal much about ourselves. I don't see how defamation would happen without a real identity. Harassment likely wouldn't fit the legal definition: at most, some call being incredibly annoying harassment.
I've seen threatening replies I didn't report (because I consider online threats vacant hyperbole) result in bans.
That's exactly what happens. They can no longer engage with YOU because YOU no longer see THEM.
It's a curtain, not a door.
Engaging with me is more than my ability to respond.
Them replying to my content is still engaging with me, no matter if I can see it. Them telling misinformation to other people in my thread is still engaging with me.
You are (I know this is a shock) not the centre of the internet. Your inability to police what other people say is not a bug, but a feature.
you are (I know this is a shock) not the center of society. your ability to harass people without repercussion is a bug, not a feature.
This is not harassment. If you feel otherwise please use the tools provided and report.
whats not harassment?
My statements here, but you knew that. Once again if you feel other wise, please use the report feature.
i didnt say you were harassing anyone. i said you were protecting the ability to harass people. which is a really strange thing to do. kinda like American 2nd amendment freaks.
More 1st amendment (not that I am american). I think I made it clear that what you propose will do more harm and that what I am protecting is the ability for everyone to post on a public site based on the idea that it is what it was built for. I don't think that lemmy has no harassment, but reporting and having much more private communities ran by members of that community is a better choice then giving every single person (the harassers included) the ability to police what is typed everywhere.
You don’t get to make that decision.
you dont get to make that decision
I didn’t say I do - the software developers of Lemmy did. If you don’t like it go back to Reddit where they do exactly what you are asking for.
I've never been on reddit, fucking crazy puritan.
and guess what: the developers of lemmy can change it if they want to.
but meanwhile here you are, insulting people for having differing opinions, and discussing why they have those reasons. huh, funny.