Ask Lemmy

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.

There's this streamer I sort of follow who did some reaction streams to proximitychat videos. If you don't know, it's basically this guy in VRchat who joins public lobbies and trolls the people in there - most of them crazily obsessed with the game and roleplay to the point of basically living in VR.

This guy will be in a public lobby for maybe hours, constantly trolling, and all they do is ask him to stop. Maybe they'll threaten to remove him as a friend (which is such a common occurrence that it might almost seems like capital punishment to these terminally online dweebs), but they almost never kick or block him outright.

In the reaction streams the question is always, why not just kick and block the guy? Sure, don't block everyone who makes an annoying remark outright, but as I said, this guy is in there for hours without seemingly any attempt to actually get him to stop. It seems that the easiest thing is to just talk a bit, find out he's there in bad faith and then block him, but they never do.

What I'm getting at is, people should block more. Not that, again, you should block everyone who slightly annoys you or challenges your viewpoint, but as soon as you find out they are there in bad faith, just block and move on. I feel ancient for saying this but as they say: don't feed the trolls.

Why would you read someone you don't want to? Why would you use a feature of the platform?

Blocking is self-care. Just with the added teeth of "get tf out of my phone."

That's it.

It's maintaining your personal peace, and frankly I find it weird that it's even a conversation let alone as stigmatized as it is. People still have a litany of ways to reconnect outside digital. It's literally what people had to do before blocking was a thing.

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

Blocking is a VERY GOOD THING.

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

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.

Bots, trolls, egomanics, thin skinneds.

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.