Lemmy

All the more reason to rename the function from block to mute so that users don't get a false sense of security.

Mastodon still implements privacy and blocking to an extend: https://nerdschalk.com/make-mastodon-account-private/

So it's still possible even within the Fediverse to have more granularity.

On other platforms like Twitter and Mastodon the block functionality is pretty helpful. Using block lists improves the experience of those that get most often targeted tremendously.

The simple fact of the matter is, the Fediverse is public. It’s a space specifically built on sharing.

You're thinking about it wrong, a good blocking system doesn't need to hide the content but rather block interaction from the offending user, like a softer form of a ban, but only for that specific user. They can still see all content from the user but they just aren't allowed to interact anymore. Could they bypass it with alt accounts? Yes but they can also bypass bans as well using that same method, so it's not a good argument against something like that.

Yeah, I block a lot of people. Mostly because I don't ever want to get roped in an exchange with them again.

Lots of them follow me around and keep replying, but who cares?

I don't see anything from them, which is what blocking is supposed to do.

It never made sense on Reddit where you'd block someone and still see their comments but they can't see yours.

Agreed. If anything, if someone gets muted enough times, lemmy should generate a report to the mods and admins for review. That way serial bullys can be blocked from a community or instance, which is far more effective.

If a server is going so far as to modify their code to better enable harassment, then that is a bad server and should probably be defederated from.

A good two way blocking system should mainly focus on preventing interaction from the blocked user (The specs of Activitypub mention interraction, as opposed to viewing), even if they don't hide it, the interactions from the blocked user wouldn't be federated as if they were a banned user.

ActivityPub implementations generally don't allow this.

This comment will, when I click 'Reply', be sent to your instance (dormi.zone), that instance should then run it's filter/block checks on it and if it's happy it will forward it onto the lemmy.ml instance for further disemination amongst the subscribers of the group.

If you were to have blocked me then my reply will appear on my instance only (which is admitedly tiny - at 1 user) and go no further. This kind of falls apart if I were to be on a bigger instance as more people would see the reply.

That said, Lemmy may not be doing that quite right as the whole Groups/Communities thing is sort of an extension of the main protocol. I hope it's doing it the right way.

Yup this happened a lot on Reddit. As much as people complain about the newer two way blocking system on Reddit this type of harassment disappeared basically overnight when that rolled out. It largely was a good thing because for every user who was legitimately being abused by it, there were a lot who were benefiting from it by stopping harassment from others.

That's what "subscribed" is for, no?

On the other hand blocks/mutes are there for a reason, and I can't think of a good reason outside digital self-harm to remove them.

Create a new account to do so, interact in a way to spur aggression from other users (lying in comments you can't read, being aggressive to supporters of your content, etc.), using the info you post in an attempt to dox you or otherwise stalk you, screenshot everything you post and send it to a discord that's made to harass people like you, an quite a few more.

You'de be surprised how quietly never seeing a person again stops this interaction, but just no longer engaging won't as the person will be constantly reminded of your existance. Simply disengaging while they still see your posts will quite often make then get more violent or direct in order to get a responce fron you. I've seen this before from kiwifarm members.

A real block feature may not stop all harrassment as they can still create a new account, but it's less likely to prompt it's continuation as the other user simply sees a quiet end to your existence.

A person on reddit once cried to me that "blocking is only for when people are harassing you" and I just laughed and blocked them. If reddit's mods/admins would rather ban people calling out nazis than the nazis themselves, than you're well in your right to so for yourself.

There is no such thing as following users on Lemmy

Now Lemmy can implement anything but nothing could ever prevent blocked/muted user to create another account in order to continue harassment.

Not a great argument because the same could also apply to community and site bans.

I think that having more tools to fight harassment is ultimately a good thing, are these tools perfect? Of course not, but they are still better than having nothing.

I think the only way to prevent such issue would be a system which would require to prove identity in some way in order to create a single account. But this is completely against the openness of a federated network.

Indeed it is, plus it doesn't stop those malicious enough to commit a felony just to harass someone but that is neither here nor there, this discussion is about protective measures that can be done before ban evasion.