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Comment by zzo38computer | Hacker News Reader

I do not use The X Formerly Known As Twitter, but if I write a message that is intended to be public (regardless of what service it is on), I would intend that people I had blocked are still able to see the message (and make copies of it) if they wish; I would block them because I don't want to see their messages and I do not want to allow them to send messages to me. I would also not want the number of users who blocked someone to have an effect on moderation; if something is enough abuse to be reported that should be done separately than blocking, I think.

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Reddit does it similar. When someone blocks you, you can't see their comments. You can't even respond to other people who wrote on your threads.

For example if you would block someone, they could not reply on this/my post here, because it's based on yours.

Helps things from escalating I guess.

I've found in some communities the most caustic, snappy, and prolific commentors will block you the moment you disagree with them. The result is that everyone who disagrees with them is eventually blocked, and their snappy comments sit at the top of threads, uncontested.

yeah on their screen? How can blocking influence the ranking?

I guess all the people that could disagree and downvote just do not see the comment.

i think there should be an option, where you automatically downvote a blocked user's post/comment, even without seeing it.

If that user doesn't have many people blocking them, then this will barely affect the votes. If they have tonnes of blockers, then would indicate that they probably deserved it, and the downvotes would make sense anyway.

It would prevent echo chambers from forming.

On small sub-reddits even something like -5 votes will have a huge impact.

If you are on a bigger forum, block a few because you just don't want to see their posts. Or they are bots. Suddenly you have huge problems on small subreddits.

And I don't see a huge benefit to it. People clean up their block list maybe? But for what.

> -5 votes will have a huge impact.

if the sub is small, then 5 blockers might be significant.

I suppose the arguments regarding the bot accounts are valid, as it allows for manipulation. Presumably reddit should be blocking bots, but of course that's wishful thinking.

How would that fix the problem ? Echo-Chambers such as Reddit exist because there is a single opinion coming out of it. It's a pool of people aligning with themselves and frying out anybody that is not following their opinion.

This would also create a tool to cast target people to oblivion.

The real question is to ask what is the real problem. I understand that an online places can be gritty because of incivilities, but a dogme is much more scarier to me than an online idiot.

Alone, it doesn't grant upvotes. What blocking does is silence anyone who would make a counterpoint. Sometimes a thoughtful response can clip the wings of a snappy but shallow comment. Blocking opposition prevents the interference of thoughtful comments.

and this is when you leave that echo chamber, and hope for greener pastures elsewhere.

On reddit, people use it to pretend to "win" arguments by appearing to get the last word (post a reply then immediately block).

I've def seen that in Twitter as well

It's the same on HN. If you say something controversial with a conclusion people dislike but debatable it will be disproven then downvoted. If the undesirable comment can be greyed out or the writer discredited they'll allow the comment to stand, smugly declaring a public victory.

However if it can't be disproven and you actually convince some people, it will be flagged. And maybe even some people stalk your account and bait you into getting frustrated and then getting your account nuked.

This is why 4chan etc are more intellectually honest imo as you can't nearly as easily censor or rule ban someone who makes a vile but persuasive argument.

So you don't see any problem in yourself? Only in other people?

Oooooooooooohhh. This is how they do that. This is absolutely rampant on Reddit and Twitter.

So many argumentative and divisive people who seem to get the last word all the time. Now I know what I'm looking at. They just answer and block. Makes me think even less of them.

Maybe it's just me, but I imagine most normal people stop replying if you get an aggressive/stupid comment, no blocking needed.

A lot of people get baited. But it depends on if the comment is obviously unhinged or not.

That is what the comment edit function is for.

Or was last I used it. Maybe that has changed.

Edit parent comment to indicate the block. Add it to a few for bonus points.

Rage blocking. Is deffo a thing!

> Helps things from escalating I guess.

I imagine its to stop someone from stalking the list of recent comments the person made, and immediately reply to every one.

It seems that blocking wields way too much power in that case. It explains some of the behavior on reddit.

You can use it as a way to evict people from the discussion.

This. There is no such thing as blocked on a public platform. Everyone has always known viewing the site incognito allows you to see blocked content.

That was the case a few years ago, now there's an AI system that decides if you're allowed to view it or if you have to sign in.

"AI system"? I think it’s

   if Referer != ''

"AI supported by expertly crafted heuristics for the edge cases" would be the slide title for the investor pitch deck about this if condition.

You're not able to view profiles when logged out.

Which sucks honestly. I don't have an account on Twitter and don't want to have one, but people ofter refer to Twitter threads, and it would be great to see them. Not to say about indexing

You can use Nitter to view content - list of servers here: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances

True, but Nitter is a bit hit and miss, and wasn't working for a while. No guarantee that it'll always remain available.

You can make alt accounts easily enough, there's no draconian "new internet" rules like forced SMS verification. I created a few for different reasons and haven't had trouble with them

If something remains possible but with a little friction, a lot (not all, but a lot) of it actually stops happening.

a large portion of twitter posts actually require a logged in account to view.

> X Formerly Known As Twitter

Xitter for short.

> I would intend that people I had blocked are still able to see the message (and make copies of it) if they wish; I would block them because I don't want to see their messages and I do not want to allow them to send messages to me

I don't. There are different reasons to block and musk only sees the political one. On personal level I may want to have a public account for something but also don't want some person I know to see it and connect the dots that it is me. Maybe just because it's awkward or maybe be more than that

Imagine you are in an abusive relationship or just have a stalker. If you are the victim you want to escape and built relationships with other people. You create an alt with another name and block your abuser in advance so there is no way of finding out whose account it is unless you are betrayed by a friend. But now twitter will betray you. Unless you go private account and then no one talks to you.

They could use another account or no account. Remember your posts are public. If you are trying to hide from an ex or stalker posting your thoughts publicly will expose you by default. Trying to change names but keep a public friend list of contacts known to ex (and maybe stalker) is not going to turn out well.

> They could use another account or no account

It's true they could also create an alt, it's a weapons race

> but keep a public friend list of contacts known to ex

Well in my case I add almost no one from the other life, very selective. But me is not about abuse or anything, just trying a new thing. If I could not block certain people fully I would not use that platform for this.

I agree blocking can also be used in unseemly ways though

And now imagine that you are small city governor or fire department, person who manages profile blocked certain individuals because of inappropriate messages, spam, whatever - now potentially important local news cannot be delivered to that person. Yeah, I know, I know public institutions shouldn't use and empower private platforms but this is reality we live in.

Isn’t that illegal, for elected representatives?

If proprietary platform like twitter being official channel for government is a dream of Musk he should give official accounts special status where blocking is disabled both ways but we know he'll never do that

Why would he never do something like that if it's a dream of his?

Free speech maximalism and anti establishment stuff against Twitter as official channel generating loads of money

> On personal level I may want to have a public account for something but also don't want some person I know to see it and connect the dots that it is me.

Blocking them isn't going to help right? They might see they're blocked and wonder why and log out to see the posts. This doesn't make sense to me...

If they don't see the tweets they will almost totally never discover the account to even know they are blocked

It’s simple. Don’t post anything personal on X. There are better platforms for that.

True but it's not always about personal stuff. Like if you start a new creative thing and don't want some particular friends (or whoever) to know about it.

agree, plus since it's trivially easy to get around the block it's almost pointless

that person no longer exists to me, their opinion of me doesn't exist, whether non-person reads my posts or not is uninteresting to me

It's not about others reading your posts. It's about stuffing the posts of people you have blocked down your throat.

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