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  • My blocklist is 30~40 users long. [For reference, my blocklist in Reddit reached 400 or so.]

    To keep it short, I typically block people who, egregious or consistently:

    • show lack of reasoning, even if I agree with the conclusion
    • misrepresent what others say
    • take things off context to judge them, even if I agree with the judgement
    • vomit lots of "hard" certainty on things that they cannot reasonably know (e.g. the others' emotional states over the internet)
    • engage in passive aggressiveness (note that I tolerate some clear hostility, just not pass-aggro)
    • show clear signs of sealioning (e.g. "I don't understand" + misrepresentation of what someone else said)
    • tell others shit like "trust me" = "I expect you to be a gullible piece of rubbish"

    Note that "egregious or consistently" are key words here. Like, I'm not going out of my way to block someone out of a brainfart; this is not some sort of petty revenge, it's just removing from my sight people who I believe to not contribute with my overall Lemmy experience. I also don't take issue when people block me, for whatever reason they might have.

    • I'll reply to myself to avoid editing the above. The other user made me realise that what I said about pass-aggro is unclear - since the expression is used with multiple meanings.

      In this specific context, by passive aggressiveness, I mean "an utterance showing politeness as a disguise for rudeness".

      I'll give you guys an example. Imagine that Alice says "I saw a potato tree today". And Bob replies to Alice one of the following:

      1. "Potatoes do not grow on trees."
      2. "Potato tree? Are you braindead or what?"
      3. "Yeah sure, and I saw some unicorns today. Because you know, potatoes totally grow on trees, right?"
      4. "Oh dear perhaps you're a bit confused, so let me enlighten you. Potatoes do not grow on trees. I understand that this might be a bit too complex for you to understand, but put on some effort, okay?"

      The first three are not pass-aggro. #1 is simply dry (no attempt at politeness or rudeness); #2 is simply rude (I'm typically OK with that within limits). #3 uses irony and sarcasm in such an obvious way that it comes off as simply rude, there's no attempt to use the irony to disguise the insult. Only #4 is pass-aggro, as it calls Alice stupid and lazy in a disguised way.

      I tend to block people who do this because they rub me off the wrong way - it shows a lack of dignity to be upfront that you don't see in plain rudeness.

    • Sealioning is a made up term by those too lazy to explain a concept and looking to antagonise others because they "cannot possibly be unaware of X fact that I care so much about".

      Funnily enough saying someone is sealioning falls within the passive-aggressive behaviour you seem to despise so much.

      • Sealioning is the discussion equivalent of a DoS (denial of service) attack. In both, the content of the reply is irrelevant; the goal is to flood the person/machine with multiple requests, until they reach a limit and stop dropping drop the requests altogether.

        And while the concept has some problems because it handles some esoteric babble called "intentions" (see: "goal"), it's still useful when you focus on the behaviour instead.

        Funnily enough saying someone is sealioning falls within the passive-aggressive behaviour you seem to despise so much.

        Pass-aggro is about tone, not content. You can state something like "you're sealioning" in a passive aggressive way, or a rude way, or under a bald-on record, so goes on.

        [Edit reason: phrasing.]

  • I have 85 people blocked. Most of them for spamming, probably. The rest for harshing my mellow by aggressively being assholes to others or just because I've realized my personal experience is more pleasant with their absence.

    I don't owe my attention to anyone. I see lots of comments here about refusing to censor alternate points of view, but that's not it. I can enjoy healthy disagreement, but some folks make some agenda their entire identity and I just get tired of them constantly injecting it into every conversation.

    On the other hand there've been many people I've disagreed with, engaged with, found some common ground, and continue to enjoy their presence even knowing we don't see eye to eye. Or, if they post about other things, I just ignore the rants I disagree with. It's not filtering out points of view, it's filtering out people whose presence makes Lemmy a source of stress rather than an interesting, vibrant community. That's obviously very subjective, but it's my block list and my peace of mind.

    • The people who constantly post about Gaza in every single thread are the worst in this regard. While yes, the genocide isn't okay and it should be discussed, there's a time and place and it doesn't need to be brought up everywhere in every discussion. Many of them are needlessly hostile when this is brought up to them and you just get labeled a genocide supporter. Sometimes I just want to scroll and read threads without hearing about children dying all the time. Gaza is their entire personality and it seems like nothing else matters to them in their lives.

    • Genocide denial
    • Fascism
    • Racism
    • Bad-faith arguments
    • Really really stupid & low effort
    • Consistently really really negative
    • Vote manipulation
    • Spam, CSAM

    I've banned 1074 accounts from the instance I run, most of them for boring reasons like spam. Usually between 1 and 10 per day.

  • I usually tag problematic users (usually those who constantly discuss in bad faith, are needlessly hostile or rude towards other users, or push dis/misinformation and propaganda) so I know who are repeat offenders with consistent bad behaviour, but I rarely block people unless it's very clear that they have no interest in participating in good faith or are so irritating that I can't deal with them anymore. A lot of problematic users still have valuable things to say and I'd rather not make my feed an echo chamber, even if those people often piss me off with their nonsense. But with some of them it sure is tempting.

  • I’m blocking a couple of bots but no actual people.
    Though I guess I would block someone if they were being persistently trying to harass me. I can take offensive internet behavior, but not if you’re coming after me as a person.

    1. Spam
    2. CSAM/defending posting CSAM
    3. incessant hornyposting on unrelated topics. Not like making a sex joke a couple of times, but a persistent history of pornbrain comments in non-NSFW communities. It's just annoying.

    My blocklist (outside of spam accounts) is like 5-6 people on Lemmy. But it's definitely larger on other social media sites because there are a cesspool of people doing #2 and 3.

    • defending posting CSAM

      WTF where did you even see that

      • Yeah I don't really see any of this stuff on their list, not even when I used reddit. I mean yes technically I have seen it, but extremely rarely

      • I should clarify to say I've never been in a space where CP was being distributed.

        But one of the times it was on reddit (just before the blackout, actually). One of the "recommended" posts to me was a post with a collection of pictures of random screenshots of naked babies and toddlers in bathing suits from random instagram accounts/family vloggers maybe. It had low double digit upvotes but a hundred comments, the top level ones being just...really creepy, and the replies calling them out (I'm assuming these were people who also got the post "recommended" to them, like me).

        I reported it and tried to block it from my memory. It freaked me out how many people were in the post defending it as innocent post of just "kids having fun", when like...it clearly was not. I remember the OP's profile having a bunch of posts like that too, even though it was a very new account.

        Anyone reading this , please don't post your babies/toddlers on social media 🙏

    • What is CSAM? It is an abbreviation for many things apparantly. Are you referring to 'Child sexual abuse material'? Did you encounter such things on Lemmy?

      So far I luckily didn't come across anything like that but I also blocked all porn-related instances that I saw so far.

    • If you see the first two things you need to report them, especially the second one. Honestly when it comes to the second one not reporting it is irresponsible. That shit is highly illegal and you need to report that to instance admins so that it can be taken care of ASAP.

      Spam isn't as much of a problem but you do need to report it as well, bystander effect is not an excuse either. When it comes to reporting content you need to think about it like you are the only one who ever saw it or the only one who will see it. That's how it is sometimes.

      Again if you report before you block that's largely fine. I mainly say this because there are people who block without reporting, and that absolutely is not fine.

  • I try not to block people, but if you prove to me you want nothing but to put me down with shit you made up in your head about me, that's usually what does it. Also tankie assholes or just people who want to gin up an argument where there shouldn't be one.

    I have blocked a LOT of communities because I don't want my feed to be half porn and images of weirdly sexualized anime girls who appear to be children. That shit is insanely creepy and besides not enjoying it, I don't want people who glance at my phone to think I'm a pervert.

  • Trolling, posting disgusting and horrifying pictures in imageai community (nothing to report, just not what I'm there for), and that one person who keeps making new accounts to complain about their life and be hostile to anyone who tries to offer advice or hope.

  • Everyone here talking about blocking for political reasons and bad behavior while I'm over here blocking because you post unfunny memes.

    I blocked several users who post far-left memes because they just sucked and weren't even funny in the slightest, they just wanted to get their point across rather than make a funny memr

  • Constant harassment or spam bots. I don't care if people disagree with my politics or something. I sometimes forget you can block people.

  • I block people when I see the porn posts from the same account like every one or two posts in new.

    I don't why lemmy.world has so much porn

167 comments