Taggart :donor: on Nostr: I've been trying to reason out exactly why X's choice to nerf blocking is bad, beyond ...
I've been trying to reason out exactly why X's choice to nerf blocking is bad, beyond a knee-jerk reaction. Here's what I got:
Imagine I'm a troll/stalker/harasser/awful reply-guy. Now imagine I engage with one of your posts, and it results in a block. Maybe I notice, maybe I don't. But if I see your response, and perhaps a name-and-shame afterwards, I am now enraged. What further action might I take?
While it is true that a different account or logged-out accounts can see public posts, the block reduces (not eliminates) visibility that is a mitigation to the behavior of bad actors. In this case, out of sight/out of mind really does matter.
Besides, if such a bad actor is logged in and sees a post that triggers them, nothing stops them from screenshotting it and responding in their own way. Now again, this is certainly doable with alts, etc., but you first have to take that action of engaging on an alternative account. So again, it is an imperfect measure, but nonetheless a valuable one, and its loss will result in:
1. More harassment/harm
2. More Masto/Bsky/Threads accounts
3. Ironically, a suppression of "free speech" for fear of what will be seen.
Imagine I'm a troll/stalker/harasser/awful reply-guy. Now imagine I engage with one of your posts, and it results in a block. Maybe I notice, maybe I don't. But if I see your response, and perhaps a name-and-shame afterwards, I am now enraged. What further action might I take?
While it is true that a different account or logged-out accounts can see public posts, the block reduces (not eliminates) visibility that is a mitigation to the behavior of bad actors. In this case, out of sight/out of mind really does matter.
Besides, if such a bad actor is logged in and sees a post that triggers them, nothing stops them from screenshotting it and responding in their own way. Now again, this is certainly doable with alts, etc., but you first have to take that action of engaging on an alternative account. So again, it is an imperfect measure, but nonetheless a valuable one, and its loss will result in:
1. More harassment/harm
2. More Masto/Bsky/Threads accounts
3. Ironically, a suppression of "free speech" for fear of what will be seen.