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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.
To stop all the abusive AC posts!
The apps guy *TRIGGERS* my bad memories of using an Android phone 5 years ago!
"Lalala, I can't hear you, lalalalalala, I can't hear you!"
People who can't defend their positions usually try to shut you up, and when that doesn't work they stick their fingers in their ears. You know, like a 5-year old would do.
Good. Maybe this will limit the microaggressive behavior some cisgender white males and help keep Reddit a safe place so everyone else can express their more valid opinions. They also need to add a hugcircle feature.
Nobody has the right to not pay attention to me, so I am against this tyrannical form of Reddit sensor sheep.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In other words, Reddit is now nothing more than a poor imitation of Facebook.
Just about the time you ensure everyone has the right to feel warm, fuzzy, and never, ever offended by anything they ever come into contact with...
Congratulations!
You have destroyed everyone else's freedom along with your own.
Reddit is a private entity and has no obligation to maintain anyone's freedom of expression.
Furthermore, while the citizens of many nations have freedom of expression, I'm not aware of any nation where there's an obligation for everyone else to listen.
Reddit is just now getting block/ignore? IRC has had /ignore for quite a while. Facebook has block. Even on Slashdot, I can designate different UIDs "enemies" and apply a massive negative score to them.
I don't get the anti-sjw whinging above. Is IRC a hugbox because of the /ignore command? Does IRC's /kick or /ban commands (yeah, technically /mode #channel +b somemask iirc) make IRC a hugbox?
You're all dipshits. This is pretty much all the Slashdot and Soylent communities have to offer any more. Reactionary dipshits who think they're hip because they duckspeak the word cisgendered.
I think a "Block Anyone Who Disagrees With Me" button would be a lot simpler.
It is a local solution, which means it can't be actually used for censorship, but just isolating snowflakes from the community.
It would be dangerous if for example reddit banned people in too many lists or assigned people to put people on block for you, and this block was not removable.
Hugcircle is a better term than hugbox. In a circle everyone is equal distance from the center. Plus there are no sharp corners so it is safer than a box. In the future please use the term "hugcircle" instead so we can be more inclusive of everyone!
Reddit is a private entity and has no obligation to maintain anyone's freedom of expression.
That's what my friend tells queers when they come into his restaurant. "If you want to suck cock, that's fine. But as a private business, I'm not obligated to serve you. So get the fuck out."
No, seriously.
I hope Reddit doesn't pretend this is something new and innovative, since it's been around since the 1980s.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
That's already happened.
If you post in a few certain subreddits, you get blocked from OffMyChest, me_irl, and others that subscribe to the same style of automatic blocking - well before the "block user" feature was added.
Also, abusive moderators are a greater threat to reddit than abusive users, as just one moderator can cripple a community by the simplest of changes (whether performing a hostile takeover, or slowly boiling the frog by making subtle changes over time.) The abusive users can be handled by standard whack-a-mole practices, along with ways to make it harder for non or new users to get a list of what a given user posts.
Does he tell them that AFTER they have sucked his cock, or before?
Who picks the keywords?
Unless Reddit explicitly stated that it was a platform for free speech, then I guess it has some sort of (moral) obligation to stand by that. Has Reddit ever said anything like that?
Looks like the same mistake, that twitter made.
Good thing: You do not need to follow your followers
Mistake: When somebody blocks you, you cannot read his tweets, either. Which is strange, because blocking in an asymmetric medium should just be an ignore list.
Interesting analogy. But, restaurants have to serve everyone
This is only true in states with public accommodation laws. Under federal law, a private secular institution may discriminate on the basis of race, creed, or color (or anything at all, for that matter). But under Colorado law (of the famous gay wedding cake), they may not. So it depends on your state.
That's funny: every board I've seen where the users have no tools to manage what they see, it's the loudmouth vulgar fuckwits who drown out the conversation and turn the board into an echo chamber.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Truth be told, the majority of my fellow Brazilians have shit between the ears (is the origin of the "HUEHUEBR"), so a tool that allows me to take no notice of their comments is an absolute must. It is the best way to get rid of a troll: make his efforts useless, even the dumbest of the trolls will realize at some point that no one listens to him (for not even seeing what he's posting).
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Indeed. It is surprisingly how only a few few dedicated malcontents can completely poison a community. By being able to ignore them completely, the total level of idiocy is significantly reduced.
Of course, some people will just block everyone they disagree with, but then it becomes a self-sustaining solution. The one-track fuckwits block everyone else, which in turn has the effect of blocking themselves off from the majority of the community. It's beautiful in its elegance.
Eat the rich.
Reddit is a private entity and has no obligation to maintain anyone's freedom of expression.
Nobody is making the argument that private companies have a legal obligation to maintain everyone's freedom of expression. They are simply making the argument that it's bad practice for a forum built on public discussing to start limiting the public's ability to discuss. This falls into the "just because you have the right to do something doesn't make it right" category.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Facebook? It reminds me of the killfilter feature of Usenet.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Did this also happen to Slashdot when it implemented friends and foes?
I mean, yeah, Slashdot eventually faded into relative obscurity, but I'm pretty sure that was a decade or so after friends and foes were implemented.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
With this tool, it sounds as though users would need to manually block each offending user.
Indeed. The best-case scenario is that the feature is only used against the trolls, but that creates a situation where new users will need to block all the same people as the 'community' before they can get value out of the forum.
So I propose blocking-collectives. Users can agree to group up and adopt each others block lists. They are free to join and leave these collectives at any time. Anyone can create a collective, and collectives themselves can adopt other collectives block lists.
The consequences is one collective to rule them all, tho. We can call that collective 'moderator.'
"His name was James Damore."
I guarantee you that it will quickly spiral into a bunch of dingbats talking to themselves
Isn't that better then said dingbats talking to everyone else?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The worst abusers of this are the powermods, those are the ones that moderate hundreds of subs. There's no shortage of them, and there's no shortage of subs that they've taken over either. It's very rare that a sub that gets someone like that in a position of power is able to recover from it either. The only one off the top of my head that has is /r/canada, and even at that it's still suffering from when DavidReiss666 was there.
What's funny is that the users that follow these power mods around have a huge overlap in very specific subs, and once the takeover is complete you have a userbase that posts in all the same subs, and the content and quality simply hits free fall and eventually dies as people move to less authoritarian subs.
Om, nomnomnom...
Hmm... Are you sure about that?
I guess, it might be different as they're a business but I'm not entirely sure that it is. I don't think it's been tested anywhere and things default to legal and not illegal?
I'm almost completely certain that I can start a site that bans anyone who discloses they're gay - and only bans those who discloses they're gay. Obviously, I'd have no way of telling if they're gay. I guess I could have a 'real name' and 'sworn affidavit' policy. But yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't have to let people use my site if I don't want to. Is Reddit publicly traded or anything?
Heck, I could probably start a site and say, "NO WHITE PEOPLE!" if I wanted. Or, maybe, one that disallowed black people, Jewish people, gays, and Gypsies. I kind of want to do something like that now and see what happens. I'm thinking a good test would be a site that disallows women and a sibling site that disallows men. Then we can see which one gets more hate mail or who takes what to court.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Are you saying that trolls don't teach "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me?" And that people don't need to learn this lesson? And it's not better to learn it on-line where you can't get your face busted for retaliating?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Has Reddit ever said anything like that?
Yes, up until Pao became CEO. Last year, when they suddenly decided that they'd ban people and subs to protect users feelings, even if the content wasn't illegal. Then they fully double down on the "reddit isn't about free speech." Even though it has self-styled ads to create your own subrredit like "....because everyone wants a voice" "...and for free speech" those are still out there to this day. Roughly two years ago they were shadowbanning users if they didn't believe in global warming.
Om, nomnomnom...
Or you could just troll the trolls for your own entertainment while doing a public service. No need for censorship - put all the ugly stuff out in the open instead of hiding it in dark corners. Cockroaches don't like strong light They run away.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
"Reddit users can now use the new "block user" feature to better deal with harassment."
TRANSLATION:
"Reddit social justice warriors can now use the new "block user" feature to better shut down disagreement or speech they don't like."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
As it should be.
I fucking hate it when I go somewhere and get shit service or else have the cops called on me after I've fucking paid. Your friend is doing it right. Of course, I'm free to give the response, "If you're a delusional idiot who doesn't want my money, that's fine. But as a private individual, I'm not obligated to give you any money. I'll even tell everyone I know you don't want LGBT customers just because I'm such a nice person. Have a nice fucking day."
It would be even better if he posted on the door and advertised his position.
I'm being absolutely serious. You can't legislate against stupidity. It's best to let the market sort it out.
I don't want to give my money to your friend. Your friend doesn't want to cook for me. Everybody wins.
produce that the current generation needs protection from that which makes us stronger and better adjusted?
If it weren't for being harassed, made fun of, and being generally dragged through the mud I'm not sure I would have ever toughened up and become so well adjusted. It's like they want to make sure the next generation is even worse crop of spineless jellyfish than the current.
Well as somebody who has been on Usenet since before "Eternal September", this is no different Usenet kill-files. In any forum you get people who contribute to the debate in a civil and constructive manner (though you may not agree with them). And then you get people who are neither constructive nor civil, who just shout their own narrow opinions and shower gratuitous abuse on anybody who disagrees with them.
Kill-files are a very effective way screening out the jerks while still seeing posts from people who have something useful to say.
Every generation thinks the next generation are spineless.
Every generation makes stupid generalizations as they get old, and lose control of the future.
Go ask one of the few surviving WWII vets if their parents thought they were spineless.
Go ask one of the few surviving WWII vets about anything, and see if they're making "stupid generalizations" or not.
Go ask yourself about making stupid generalizations about every generation.
The funny thing is that your point is essentially irrelevant. This isn't even about Reddit as an entity blocking anyone/anything, it's about users choosing to block people for whatever the reason might be.
Can this be used for people to ignore opposition and differing opinions? Yes- but by that token, so can "just not reading the post." Don't need a block feature built in for that. However, "not reading the post" isn't so useful when someone starts following and harassing you online. That's where the block feature starts to really shine.
In the hands of the users, the way the block tool will be used will be a reflection of Reddit's community, rather than the company of Reddit itself. A prime example of this is the upvote/downvote system. It can indeed be used as a method of saying what posts contribute to discussion and what do not- but many times it ends up being used as a "agree/disagree" button that ends up silencing anyone sufficiently with an opinion that is sufficiently unpopular. Sometimes this happens to trolls and bigots... other times to people who call out that same bigotry.
People love to complain about how Reddit is no longer an open platform for free speech... but with systems like that? It never was, despite what Reddit itself claimed.
I have the privileged of having two WWII vets as in-laws. I will make certain I ask one in particular (the one who really likes to talk) those questions this summer.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Or even digg.
The blocking stuff really got out of hand on Twitter when they went to block lists. There are large groups of people on twitter who will never hear an opinion they disagree with because they subscribe to such block lists. Blocking trolls makes a certain amount of sense, but there are a lot of people who think anyone who disagrees with them is a troll, and these are the people who tend to maintain the lists.
" a bunch of dingbats talking to themselves"
Actually Reddit has always tended to be that, other than a few little niches of sanity and openness.
It's not about the users, it's about the appeasing the leftists in the name of "civility". Modbombing doesn't change that a bit =)
Let the alt-creation begin!
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Reddit has gone above and beyond the dreams of Digg's efforts. Not only does Reddit get to do the purges, they didn't have to remove the comments.
If anything, Digg's only mistake was that they launched too early. Had they still existed in their pre-4.0 form, they'd have faithfully followed Nick Denton's "Kassie Washington" request for vengeance - just like about every major forum (Reddit, Fark, various gaming forums) did in 2012-2014+.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If moderators misuse their privileges, that will be problematic.
But they could already do this by banning people normally, so it's really no different.
And there is no guarantee of free speech on a private website. Their website, their rules.
Eat the rich.
I fully support people who want to annoy trolls and harassers, but I can't be bothered to fight that fight anymore, I have more interesting things to do.
So I'll just block the shitheads, and the Brave Internet Warriors can continue to counter-troll them as much as they like.
Eat the rich.
That's cute, but the person in the first link isn't me, by a long shot. My name isn't Stephen, it's Stevn. I actually live ~6300km from Toronto, and I do crossfit and weightlifting, not MMA. So stop with the pathetic wannabe stalker act.
If you'd actually taken the time to read my comments, you'd know I probably hate advertising more than any other person in the world. I just prefer to use good blocking tools, rather than mediocre ones.
Eat the rich.
I've always been under the impression that if you are "given" those things you're a cultist and not really stronger than when you started. I believe you have to develop those tools for yourself to be truly healthy.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Don't be too harsh - this one likes following me around and trying to tick me off. Sad, really. :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I know what you mean - I'd really like an app for that :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
OOO can I?
8.) Protect vs. spam
Does it protect against your spam? How does it protect against email spam?
9.) Protect vs. phish
No it doesn't.
10.) Protect vs. caps
We all wish it would protect against your abuse of caps, but it seems to keep failing
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You can feel free to block Reddit.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
If moderators misuse their privileges, that will be problematic.
They already do misuse it, and ask for more when there's some edge case where the user has some advantage.
But they could already do this by banning people normally, so it's really no different.
The trouble is that it can be stacked with modmail mutes. It creates a wall between users and powermods.
[hurr durr, private site excuse]
That doesn't affect the validity of my statements thus far, and is generally a weak cop-out. Besides, Reddit was known for being the user-driven alternative to an authoritarian Digg; we now see them acting like the very Digg that drove people to Reddit.
Reddit would do well if someone bought it up, purged the powermods, SOCJUS, narrative control tools, and other components that have negatively affected the site.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The open secret is that Reddit has always sucked. Dumbass users, dumbass mods, dumbass layout, dumbass policies. It's amazing that it's actually lasted this long.
Eat the rich.
Believe what you will, but that guy ain't me. And if you could actually be bothered to read my previous posts, you'd know my stance on ads isn't exactly positive.
Eat the rich.
It's actually kinda funny how you don't even realize that the worst enemy of your little host file utility is actually yourself and your method of advertising.
Does your host file utility block nonsensical APK spam?
Eat the rich.
Does it protect against APK spam?
Eat the rich.
Can you please explain why you think I'm that guy? We honestly couldn't be any more different, it's actually kinda ridiculous :-)
You certainly haven't "gotten the better of me", and you never will.
Eat the rich.
Oh wow, 9 whole people. Your mother must be so proud. Unless of course they're all just parachute accounts, which is more than likely.
Does your host file utility protect against nonsensical APK spam? I'm not even remotely interested until it does.
Eat the rich.
You haven't answered my question.
Eat the rich.
You still haven't answered why you think I'm that random guy who works in advertising.
Or for that matter, how in the world you could ever think I was pro-advertizing if you've read through my posting history.
Eat the rich.
Hah, you talking about manners, that's rich.
You still haven't answered my question.
Eat the rich.
You still haven't answered my question. Are you going to answer it? Or are you just going to continue spamming?
Eat the rich.
Eat my words? I'm eating mashed potatoes with a delicious chicken+tomato sauce right now, there are no words being eaten here.
All I see is a pointless spammer who can't even answer a simple question of why he insists on mistaking my identity and motives.
Oh well, I guess you won't come to your senses today, either. Have a nice one.
Eat the rich.