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.

Comments

Slashdot needs this

[Anonymous Coward]

To stop all the abusive AC posts!

The apps guy *TRIGGERS* my bad memories of using an Android phone 5 years ago!

Re:Slashdot needs this

[Flavianoep]

Yeah, I hate apps. My next phone will run Windows, as now it can play Ogg Vorbis files.

Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[clonehappy]

"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.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[RogueyWon]

The headline could just as easily have been "Reddit Launches New Block Tools To Help Reinforce Echo Chamber".

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny. I was expecting that clonehappy would get Frist Psot on this thread with some trollish comment about "Mental Midgets". I wonder whatever happened to that clown.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[ComputerGeek01]

Although there is a facsimile of technical sub-reddits, most of that site is just mindless garbage so there really isn't a position to defend with any real facts. There used to be a very different definition for the "Reddit Effect"; 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. Someone appears to have hijacked the term, but this hasn't changed at all. People on that site don't want to "discuss" anything, they want a place where they can go to feel popular or accepted, regardless of any actual social ability. So posts and comments are geared to what the hivemind will upvote, which if you apply the previously mentioned theory, is nothing ever thought provoking or informative.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Why is it an echo chamber reinforcement, when it is only a personal block filter, you're not blocking anyone else from seeing their posts. You're just filtering out their posts and preventing them from contacting you directly.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[Thanshin]

"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.

So, in the real world, if a drunk hobo starts talking to you about being Jesus Christ Reborn, you feel it's your responsibility, as an adult, to hear him out and respond with clear and well constructed counter arguments until, under the accumulated evidence you've presented, he understands the wrongness in his assertion?

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[gizmo2199]

"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.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[KGIII]

I don't have any experience with Reddit so I don't really know what they'll consider harassment or whatnot but I don't see anything particularly egregious about this tool. Not really, at least not in my current thinking - someone's welcome to try to change that. I don't see why this has to be an echo chamber.

It's possible to hold dissenting opinions and to discuss any topic without being offensive. It's possible to have a conversation that remains civil, regardless of the positions held. I know this is true, I do it nearly every single day. In fact, you might say that my current post is contrarian. I have held meaningful, civil, discussions - even debates, with all sorts of people. Some of those people were the least favored folks on the planet. Some of them have held beliefs that are truly ignorant but the conversations remained civil throughout.

Of course, not every conversation is going to turn out that way. In fact, I'm guilty of being uncivilized in my responses. But, the thing is, it doesn't *have* to be that way. It doesn't have to be an echo chamber. I voice contrary opinions on a regular basis, probably nearly every single day. Hell, I don't even mind systemd (legitimately, I do not mind - it even has come in handy) and I share and defend that position politely. Some of the spittle flecked responders lack the capacity for civil discourse but they're an exception and not the rule.

So, perhaps Reddit is different than every place I've ever been in the real world or online. I'd not know, I've never posted there. I've been there a couple of times but I don't think I've read a full thread there. There is a "KGIII" there but they're not me.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[Grishnakh]

Although there is a facsimile of technical sub-reddits, most of that site is just mindless garbage so there really isn't a position to defend with any real facts.

Oh please, that's a bunch of crap. There's over a quarter-million subreddits last I heard, and most of *every* site is just mindless garbage, this site included. But with that many subreddits, it's easy to find interesting conversation, and about specialized topics. There's a subreddit about my car, for instance, if I just want to chat with people about that; a lot of posts are fairly useless, but there's some real gems here and there. It's just like anyplace else: "95% of everything is crap." (Sturgeon's Law)

People on that site don't want to "discuss" anything, they want a place where they can go to feel popular or accepted, regardless of any actual social ability.

Oh, BS. You're looking in the wrong place. Maybe you were browsing /r/HillaryClinton. Yeah, if you say anything negative about her on there, you'll be banned immediately. Go someplace else like /r/politics and you'll see all kinds of debate (and frequently not friendly...).

Every subreddit is different. They have different mods, different topics, different rules. Some are complete drivel (like Hillary's fan club subreddit), some are full of nasty arguing (/r/politics, but that's understandable given the topic and what's at stake), some are just places where people post pictures of stuff, some are really silly (like /r/PhotoshopBattles) but fun if you're into that kind of thing.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[Grishnakh]

Yep, and not only that, if another drunk hobo starts telling you how he was abducted by aliens, you have a responsibility to hear him out and determine if you think he's telling the truth too!

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[SirSlud]

No, this is a lot more like being able to prevent somebody who wants to join your soccer game from just kicking the ball out into the street out of spite.

Having standards doesn't make you 5 years old. There are plenty of people who deserve to be filtered out of a discussion, especially in so far as it's clear that often time the goal of a person is to simply derail or make discussion impossible in the first place.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[Jason Levine]

It's possible to hold dissenting opinions and to discuss any topic without being offensive. It's possible to have a conversation that remains civil, regardless of the positions held. I know this is true, I do it nearly every single day. In fact, you might say that my current post is contrarian. I have held meaningful, civil, discussions - even debates, with all sorts of people. Some of those people were the least favored folks on the planet. Some of them have held beliefs that are truly ignorant but the conversations remained civil throughout.

Exactly. The block feature wouldn't be for "I disagree with you and here are my reasons why." It would be for "you're an idiot if you believe X and just to reinforce this I'll track down every post of yours and make and insulting reply." There's a small, but vocal, group in pretty much any forum who thinks that the way to win an argument is to make threats and insults until the other side is driven out of the forum. Then they win. The best tactic against these people is to ignore them. This tool simply makes ignoring them easier.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[lgw]

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.

Re:Typical Response from Mental Midgets

[lgw]

No death threat here. These were very public figures, not anonymous, and their "harassment" was only disagreement.

Good

[110010001000]

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.

Re:Good

[110010001000]

Also, some of you may say that my previous comment wasn't even a proper sentence. Just remember: everything is relative and there is no "right" or "wrong". So stop your microaggresive thoughts right there Mister!

Re:Good

[Bengie]

While I don't actively participate in Reddit, it seems to be a large enough community to have stalker trolls. Being a troll is one thing, but if you stalk someone, you've targeted someone.

Re:Good

[110010001000]

I'm not adding you to my hugcircle!

Re:Good

[110010001000]

I'm a bit surprised they didn't have this feature already. It seems kind of basic functionality to be able to ignore posts from people you don't like and can be easily implemented. I never ignore anyone because I enjoy all the frothing at the mouth of all my enemies.

Re:Good

[alvinrod]

The feature isn't as useful as it sounds considering that anyone can just make a new account and they've essentially circumvented any blocking. I suppose the admins can start IP banning people at that point, but any really dedicated troll is probably already using a proxy or VPN. Normally that would be where you turn matters over to police, but they tend to be horribly inept when it comes to dealing with internet crime or the troll is located in a country that doesn't give two shits about what someone in the U.S. or some other country is complaining about.

I suppose it stops the low effort trolls, and if that's 99% of the trolling on reddit it's probably sufficient, but I don't think it does much of anything for the really egregious cases.

Re:Good

[AmiMoJo]

You know, you can use the Slashdot friend/foe system to do something similar. Just mark someone as your foe, set foes to -6 here and you won't even see them unless you browse at -1.

It's a pretty basic feature for discussion forums. Personally I don't use it though. Imagine if someone doxed you but you had them on the ignore list, you wouldn't even know it happened. I'd prefer to know so I can do something about it.

Re:Good

[BarbaraHudson]

And they never notice how labeling something as a micro-aggression is itself a micro-aggression. As are "safe spaces" (saying that whole classes of people can't be trusted with other classes of people) and "trigger warnings" (about as useless as writing ***SPOILER ALERT***, it just makes people more curious).

Political correctness needs to die.

Re:Good

[Halo1]

Yeah, I already figured that was the kind of non-answer I'd get. You might want to figure out why you are so obsessed with it though (or maybe you already know, and this is your way of dealing with it).

Ban the Block

[PopeRatzo]

Nobody has the right to not pay attention to me, so I am against this tyrannical form of Reddit sensor sheep.

Re:Ban the Block

[110010001000]

Your use of double negatives is a perfect example of microaggressive behavior. Off to the reeducation camps for you!

Re:Decline Is Imminent

[Teancum]

In other words, Reddit is now nothing more than a poor imitation of Facebook.

Re:A more efficient solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a "Block Anyone Who Disagrees With Me" button would be a lot simpler.

Re:While this WILL be used to reinforce hugboxes..

[110010001000]

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!

Re:Decline Is Imminent

[Sigma 7]

I guarantee you that it will quickly spiral into a bunch of dingbats talking to themselves, as everyone else will be blocked.

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.

Re:IF harassment = anything offensive

[jimbolauski]

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.

Re:IF harassment = anything offensive

[Mashiki]

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.

Re:IF harassment = anything offensive

[vel-ex-tech]

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.