If you block everything you don't like, you end up in an echo chamber with no possibility of new perspective. Learning and Insight require thesis and antithesis. If there's anything you should block, it's rude, agitating, insulting rageladen discussions or users. Those also hinder Insight and new perspectives.
I agree, but with so many bots around I think there has been a concerted effort to obfuscate the truth, so it’s a balance for sure
If you find an unlabeled bot, most admins will ban them.
So far every time I've seen someone claim Lemmy is full of bots, they haven't been able to identify 1 unlabled bot.
And its not even hard, there are users that AI slop in arguments, so I think its literally just people wanting an excuse to dismiss viewpoints they don't like.
I block US politics because it's same whining every day, that by and large has nothing to do with me. Even though I'd like to learn occasionally what new entertaining stuff the pedofascist came up with, I don't think I'm missing much, and I'm getting closer to the last frame from the OP.
Let no one tell you that blocking people means that you lost some arbitrary debate with some idiot online. I have proudly blocked my fair share of idiots and racists on all social media platforms (not before insulting them of course).
Any argument I've ever had online amounted to little in not nothing productive. If you think me blocking someone means I lost an arbitrary argument with a stranger online, you can think that all you want, I'm moving onto something else with my time.
Bingo. Honestly, i block people because i have better things to do than debate with morons.
Blocking doesn't stop them from propagandizing others.
True but sometimes you have to pick your battles for your own mental health.
Very true, but be careful not to end up in an echo chamber
oh no my echo chamber of funny comics and cat pictures aaa oh nooooo
Echo Chambers are great. You just think they're horrible because you're in an echo chamber that says they're horrible.
Not sure arguing with them really does either. I think this was true in simple chronological message boards, but anything that boosts content due to engagement is just going to make it worse...
But interacting with them will be interpreted as "engagement" and lead the algorithms to push them into more feeds and rank them higher.
Well not on lemmy I don't think they use algorathms to rank content and are open about how they rank comments and such. Not entirely sure though I am not a computer guy.
Sorting by ‘active’ takes into account the time of the last comment, and/or the number of comments. And it's the default sorting option in the default UI and apps that I've seen.
I’ve blocked a shit ton of people here. I don’t care about open discussion when people are not interested in discussing in good faith in the first place. Also it’s just Lemmy I’m here for entertainment I don’t care about your whack ass opinion. The real discussions are done IRL face to face where people can’t hide behind an username. It’s not like the opinion of a permanently online basement dweller on the other side of the planet is important for the development of my world view when they don’t know anything about my country.
I've stopped engaging with most people online because im sure 99% of users are just bots.
Meh. I've learned some interesting things from some people I found a bit annoying.
It's how I've come from card-carrying Republican to more or less fitting the label "progressive."
I think this is for people who are less "annoying" and more "actively lying and being bad faith." If someone says the elections were stolen, vaccines cause autism, and liberals hate America, I have other things I would rather do than investigate every one of the infinite conspiracy theories that I already know many others have debunked. It's essentially an exercise in bad faith rhetoric at that point, which is just so incredibly boring. I'll look into a few to see the patterns of how they lie, and then I'm good.
I think this is for people who are less “annoying” and more “actively lying and being bad faith.”
It can easily be co-opted by people willing to block either, as evidenced by the flame war in the comments here; the post suggests "I don't like this" -> Block. I don't like annoying people. I also don't like people arguing in bad faith.
This is further complicated by the fact that a lot of people misconstrue good faith arguments from very different points of view with bad faith arguments. I can't tell you how many times I've been labeled as someone arguing in bad faith because my view differed from theirs and I didn't immediately reverse my stance when confronted, or someone simply can't read very well (literacy rates being what they are these days).
In part, this is because trolls sometimes like to be very subtle and drag a conversation out for 50 comments.
In part, this is because people are dumb and/or paranoid and don't understand that people with other apparent viewpoints might not be trolls.
Well it's truly pretty rare that I block people, and maybe people do do that for things that they just disagree with, but I took it as the "block negative things out of your life."
Lots of crazy people on the internet, I just try to remember that sometimes I'm the one being smugly incorrect (and was that way up until like 25) so I can't get too mad at other people for it. It's why I heavily err on the side of caution, only when someone does the maga loop back to something they already agreed is false that I'm like ehhhh...
That's a very heavy lifting interpretation of the comic. It literally says "I don't like this thing". Not "this person is arguing in bad faith". This is how echo chambers form, and lemmy is a textbook example of one.
Well maybe bad faith wasn't the right term, I think for me it's just that if someone disagrees with me, my response is almost never even close to "I don't like this," unless they're being hateful, unreasonably rude, saying proven false conspiracies, etc. Most of the time it's "oh I think they don't realize or haven't considered xyz" and most of the time either they didn't know or they correct me on something.
For things I would block, if a racist maga person comes in and says something, I gain absolutely nothing from hearing how climate change is fake, how libs are the real racists, how we hate trump for no reason. It's just negativity conspiracy brainrot and it's a huge waste of my time. Same for posts about what random out of touch billionaire #45 said, same for people generally being mean or super negative towards others, that's what I actually don't like and am happier having blocked it to never see again.
Over the years I've realized the futility of engaging with idiocy online. It's either trolls, bots, or morons, and I'm not convinced any interaction is worth it to me, all it does is piss me off, and I'm just enabling their stupid bullshit.
So yeah, there's a one strike and you're out policy now. Does that increase my echo chamber, sure, but I'd rather interact with like minded people than piss away my own happiness by feeding bots, idiots, and trolls.
Debating with people in general is something I’ve found to be stupid and pointless as I’ve gotten older, even if they’re not trolls. I don’t even like watching videos of others debating. People come out the other end more entrenched than they were before. As for trolls, I don’t engage at all. My echo chamber is devoid of righties and nothing of value was lost.
debating people is great when they want to actually debate.
they don't thought, anymore. especially online. and on campuses, student activists try to shut down debates rather than attended them and learn something. one of my favorite part was attending lectures and debates and while some where shitty, i always learned something.
people don't believe in the principle of charity anymore either. you can't have debate or education without the principle of charity... otherwise it's just a trying to beat down the opposite side.
not to mention most popular 'debate' is not real debate, it's people being ignorant assholes and doubling-down on it and people viewing that as 'confidence' and 'victory'.
Dont you think this is way easier then continously posting bi-weekly+ cringe feudposts in hopes to influence your particular lemmy instance admins to defederate people you dont like. Not just for you, but for everyone else.
Way faster to just block the person/instance yourself and let the other adults pick what they view themselves. Way easier. Way less cringe.
I am happy you are taking agency in what you view on the internet stranger. We are stronger federated together, even if we wish to live our lives in different ways.
Peace.
I wish this would work, but unfortunately even if you try and block for example news, us politics or the middle east content, agitating posts creep into other communities all the time. Even if you search for anything on lemmy you can bet sth agitating about the classic rage inducing topics pop up.
yep. you can block individual things, but you can't block all content, and people love shoving controversial content onto everything.
even in my own offline hobbies... lots of folks grandstand over social/political issues in the hobby and try to make people 'pick sides' so they can call them names. today i saw a post to a FB group I used for local events... demanding everyone boycott this company... that nobody uses anyway and isn't even related to the hobby in question... it's insane. and if you remove the post they cry foul and you are trying to 'silence' them and you're on the 'bad side' of the issue.
and face it, the vibe of lemmy has changed substantially over the past few years, and it's way more full of controversy-seeking nutjobs than it was 2-3 years ago. making any most with subtley and nuace on any issue here just gets you harassed and labeled and attacked, because dumbasses can't see things as more complex than absolutely good/right, or absolutely evil/wrong.
I've never blocked a single person and I am old.
I don't get the need. I just ignore them, and remove the "blocking" extra step. If some random Trumpy is super mad and messaging me often, it pleases me. I've got some guy on FB that has been messaging me for years, he's like my best friend now.
I like how many people interpret this as hiding from literally every problem that exists as opposed to not dealing with trolls or comics you don’t like.
Context is a thing, you don’t have to apply everything as a universalism. That’s kind of a stupid thing to do.
Do you read every piece of junk mail you recieve? Do you read every spam email? No, its stupid as you say.
*blocked* /s
Month of blocking people daily and even Lemmy starts to look like an ok place.
Hence:
X officially changes block function
Here’s a fun new one, no longer able to block accounts on pages. Thanks, Meta
https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/1ps4r5d/heres_a_fun_new_one_no_longer_able_to_block/
Under the new system it actually lets the blocked person know they are blocked, which is horrible design because they now know that they need to use an alt to send you mean messages. Under the old system they don't actually know if their messages are getting through, so it is better in that regard.
https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1st24au/reddits_new_block_feature_is_bizarrely_antisocial/
Blocking someone reduces ragebait engagement, and they can't have that, I guess...
Takes a lot to block all the idiots on Lemmy. After a few months it starts to become a usable platform.
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
