Slashdot Mirror
Reddit Launches New Block Tools To Help Temper Harassment (mashable.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Reddit users can now use the new "block user" feature to better deal with harassment. The new feature was announced Wednesday and while the site has had [a "block user"] feature for quite some time now, the new tool allows users to block other users from replies and comments in addition to private messages, which was what the old tool was limited to previously. If users click the "Block User" button when viewing a reply in their inbox, it will remove replies, comments, messages and posts from that user from your view. Admins will however still see all the messages and replies, and if you're a moderator, you can still see content from users who are blocked on the subreddits you moderate.
In other words, Reddit is now nothing more than a poor imitation of Facebook.
"it was that the fastest to digest and most pedestrian content would be promoted to the front page the fastest whereas any technically involved content will taper off into obscurity."
Also the fact that you can't sort by lowest rated comment, and are artificially restricted to the first 500 comments (on top of the fact that when you 'load more' it only loads like the next 20, so you can't even navigate to the downvoted comments quickly) adds to that hive mentality. It makes seeing dissenting or unpopular comments next to impossible, by design.
This Sig does not Exist.
What I foresee coming from this is exactly what Twitter has enabled through the same functionality: publicized block lists used to silence dissent.
Twitter went further than that, giving a group of people like and including Anita Sarkeesian--self-identified social justice activists--the right to ban people they don't like. Within a couple weeks, most prominent critics of their beliefs were banned. Badthought right down the memory hole.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.