Ask Lemmy

Life is too short to deal with weirdos treating lemmy as their blog. Some are overzealous but you have to curate your own space on federated platforms

I block the moment I realize someone is a troll, or worse. No exception.

Like already mentioned, life is way too short to waste one more second of it with those people desire to be as harmful as they can be or with their constant need for attention and validation.

Edit: typos

People are trying to 'win the argument' for personal satisfaction. They're not trying to self-correct or seek the truth.

I think I’ve only blocked a handful of people over a decade

I'm the opposite; I have hundreds of people blocked, mostly because they are bores.

I used to agree with you. Ever since I started just blocking anyone that was being annoying my experience on the web has been great.

Trolls have no right to any of my time.

I've got better things to do than read a load of horseshit from bad-faith weirdos, so I block them. No point engaging with them and reading their opinions makes my day measurably worse.

I use it to curate my lemmy experiance. 99% of the users/communities I block aren't for anything personal, they're just clogging up my ALL feed with things I dont care about (for example, sports ball or foreign language comms).

Counterpoint- why hasn't blocking been more common?

I'm a millennial, so I've basically grown up with the internet. Blocking has been a feature on basically any website, app, etc. that lets you interact with other people for as long as I can remember.

And I've never been afraid to use it. I've blocked probably hundreds of people across countless platforms over the last 2 decades or so, and I think my Internet experience has been better for it.

When I was in school, and I assume still to this day, one of the big things that always seemed to have people's feathers ruffled was "cyberbullying" and other sorts of online harassment.

Now I'll admit, somehow I ended up a reasonably well-liked, maybe even popular dude, (no idea how my weird, antisocial, probably-autistic ass pulled that off) so I was never really the target of it myself.

But it always baffled me how people let it be a thing. A whole lot of those problems always seemed like they could have been solved by just hitting the block button.

Not all of them of course, but a lot of them. Blocking someone of course doesn't stop them from talking about you to someone else, but at that point a lot of it can just be out of sight and out of mind.

Back when I still had a Facebook, I had probably half of my town blocked because they were always posting dumb shit in the local groups. I had a bunch of businesses blocked because they spammed advertisements everywhere. I had actual friends who I hung out with IRL blocked or at least unfollowed because they flooded my feed with shitposts. Half of my family was blocked because I just didn't want to deal with them on social media. I preemptively blocked people I work with or otherwise knew casually because they don't need to see what I'm doing online.

For me personally, I just don't feel like dealing with yet another source of garbage that I don't want to read.

In happier times, I felt a different way about blocking. Nowadays, the fucking potus forces the country to match some phony fucking Fox News image, and I don't really care about reading some dumb assholes dumb rant anymore. Not blocking people and "dialog" and "debate bro" shit isn't fixing this crap anyway, so I'm going to go ahead and make my own life contain a little less hassle.

That's also why I'm only really here and on mastodon. I know they're basically left wing safe spaces. I frankly don't give a fuck.

I value my time, patience and sanity. There had been too many instances where I've poured way too much investment into things or people that just were not worth a single minute. The moment I feel someone gives me a snarky remark, wants to be a prick, wants to gaslight and whatever petty and bitter levels of engagement they want to bother me with. Fuck them, they'll be blocked.

It does not make you weak or petty, that's just them making up bullshit to excuse themselves when they knowingly were the problem.

Now in some cases it can be a little stupid to block people, like knowing you're the one starting shit or deciding to get into debates you aren't fitted to handle. Why would you do that to yourself? If you can't handle it, don't do anything. Lesson learned.

Damn if there was a function in real life where I can block someone and their existence disappears where other people can see them and I can't? Fuck, dude, sign me up.

Blocking is a VERY GOOD THING.

The internet is a cesspool. You need to curate it.

Like another commenter said, polarization and cemented, frequently extreme, views. You're not going to change their mind on anything, but they're constantly trying to change your mind on everything. I consider them shills and hit that block button.

I also block people who are here "on a mission" for whatever cause. Social media has enough activists, and even if I agree with them, I'm still thinking "will you shut up, man?".

I also block people who intentionally take others out of context as an excuse to attack them or inject drama into every interaction. There's plenty of that to go around, and thankfully, there doesn't seem to be a limit on the number of blocks I can issue.

Basically, I'm not here for drama or activism or circle-jerking any political cause or to suffer immature edgelords. I just wanna talk about cool stuff with rational people. Blocking helps separate the wheat from the chaff in that regard. Anyone who has a pattern of making this place unenjoyable gets blocked

I'm 31 now but I've always been pretty quick with a block button, i don't mind people disagreeing with me, but some people are just overly aggressive and I find life's better to just not care about them and block.

I also block trolls because you know don't feed the trolls.

Blocking is tempting when someone actively ignores arguments but keeps coming back with the same thing over and over, or can't avoid ad hominem attacks.

That said, my block list is empty, but I have tagged people so I know if I'm running into them again.

People don't like being forced to engage with belligerent reactionaries.

Bots, trolls, egomanics, thin skinneds.

If someone isn't convinced by a reasonable explanation, they aren't worth engaging with.

You find this out pretty quick when trying to interact in good faith on the internet.

I have blocked more in the last year than I have in the last 20 combined. There are far, far too many people arguing to troll, arguing in bad faith, threatening, or insulting that will do everything they can to bait you, derail your argument, DM you with insults, etc.

It’s probably because I’ve become far more critical of anti-science, shitty politics, and shitty people, so I’m sure that’s part of the reason, but nonetheless I don’t have the time or patience anymore to waste on the pigeons knocking pieces over and shitting on the chessboard declaring victory, so I block them.

I also have been blocked outright when presenting any objectively factual rebuttal. Facts are often strictly disallowed in the narrative, particularly political and anti-science ones. People don’t want their flow of internet “likes” interrupted.

I think it's more of a space curation thing. As a tumblr user mentioned, "I pressed a button to get rid of an annoying guy and I would do it again".

Views, positions have gotten more extreme and cemented at that. Probably due to algorithms of "traditional" social media, that focus on them to raise clicks. (This trend to extreme positions and freaking out on the slightest trigger is also noticeable in real life behaviour, imho.) I sometimes block folks because I know there will not be a frank exchange of views but pure hate, extremism.

Plus spammers.

I constantly block both users and communities on Lemmy. Mostly because they are spouting doomer nonsense, and I ain't got no time for their bullshit.

It depends what you're on (social media) for.

If you're there to get some positive social interaction and read some articles or funny pictures, it completely makes sense to block agitators or regular shitposters.

If you're there to have political arguments and engage with rage bait then you leave everyone unblocked.

Its really not that complicated.

I think there is a difference between different people - and maybe it has changed generationally too. I can think of some obvious potential reasons though:

1. the number of people who are being horrible is increasing. The increasing division in society is reflected online. That means people have more reason to block people.
2. the proliferation of social media bubbles makes people less used to encountering opinions that differ significantly from their own.

I usually find myself blocked by people who just disagree with me. I (increasingly) rarely lose my rag online, but people find it annoying to have someone reply to them who disagrees on certain things and who doesn't just shut up and go away quickly.

I have a pretty high tolerance for that kind of irritation but after a few dozen replies back and forth I'll also use the block button. It's less about not seeing their posts in the future, more as a way to force myself to disengage and get annoyed again.

It's been common advice for a while now to block people you are about to tantrum at. I do like that it's finally catching on.

last I checked I had over 220 users blocked. now it's probably 250.

I block people who are willfully ignorant or trolls.

I think it's related to echo chamber behaviour. A way to filter out any dissenting voice because any one that disagrees is as annoying a spammer and as hurtful as a bully.

And at the same time is not that different from walking away from any rando from the street that most probably I won't see ever again. Lol.

I don't know, I personally don't block people, instead I use lots of tags to remember past interactions.

Personally, I block people who espouse things I believe are genuinely spiteful, hateful, or shitty. Generally, I use the block button to "curate" my experience with the intention that I can use Lemmy as brief escapism when I'm in the bathroom or on the train without having my mood affected by somebody posting something shitty.

I don't block anyone for normal disagreements, because I'm a relatively normal adult and as such that sort of thing doesn't bother me.

You say "civil disagreements" but from what I've seen blocking mostly happens when they sidestep the issue with a personal attack or ad hominid response.

Also I've seen some blocking just on people being associated with known bad actors like hatemongers or somebody's stalker

I've been online since BBS days. Never blocked anyone. Never could understand why people do that. Just ignore them, whatever.

So many people, later on down the road have something to say worthwhile that I wouldn't have known if I just blocked them. Gotta give some leeway on the internet, no one really knows tone or intent most of the time.