this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy

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There was an issue on Reddit a while back where people would post some hateful stuff, and of course lots of people blocked them.

After a while, anti-trans, racist, and far-right-wing stuff were only seen by non-logged in users, other bigots, or new people, and they weren't getting the downvotes they deserved.

Is this going to be a problem on Lemmy too? I'm worried that if we're all blocking shitty users that we're just hiding the problem from ourselves, not fixing it.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

I know for my instance they get full bans. It's a small instance, but make sure you report people. Mods see it and will ban them from entire instances. They can go be angry trolls on someone else's server.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

"Sorry queer folk, you can't block the people who want you dead, because it's important that you see their hate so you know it exists" (as if they we didn't already know)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Imo blocked users get less engagement, therefore it helps to some degree. ~~Also, unlike reddit, it's somewhat difficult to browse the Fediverse without being logged in.~~ I'd guess that if any problematic content does slip through, it reaches a much smaller audience than if it were to slip through on reddit just because of how things are decentralized here.

edit: I tried it again and I now agree that it is easier to browse with an account. I saw a lot more content than the first time I tried it ~2 months ago

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Also, unlike reddit, it's somewhat difficult to browse the Fediverse without being logged in

I strongly disagree with that part

[–] cujo 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Indeed. I find the inverse to be true. It's getting harder and harder to browse Reddit without being logged in, but Lemmy is no problem.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like to use old.reddit when I browse it now. I saw others mention it, and after giving it a try, I can see why people like it more than the 'updated' reddit.

[–] cujo 1 points 1 year ago

I've never given it more than a few minutes at a time, but I didn't like it as compared to my 3rd party clients. Those are dead now, so... I just don't browse Reddit. 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hope you're right. Just seeing a sharp increase in hate speech on here, and I'm worried it's going to be tricky to manage.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Your concerns are valid. That's something to be expected as the platform grows, but it's alarming nonetheless.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd say be sure to report them and then block them

That way the mods can see them to do something about them and you don't have to see their hateful stuff before they earn a ban

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

The vast majority of users I block don't break the rules. It's usually that I see a low-effort comment so I open their profile and if their post history indicates they're providing nothing of a value here I block them to improve the noise to signal ratio on my feed. It's not about wether I agree with them or not but are they making any sense.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's some hate speech and also tons of propaganda. I've stopped recommending the fediverse to people while there's so much authoritarian propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

That is one thing that strikes me. Whenever I look at All, I mostly see bad memes and political “hot takes”. I guess it’s good for engagement, but it’s nothing I’d recommend to anyone yet.

[–] Mouselemming 5 points 1 year ago

So far I've only blocked users whose names and posts indicate they're just here to post porn. Nothing against them, I just want to look at All once in awhile without accidentally (clumsy old-lady fingers) opening someone's vulva or ass. Nazis I downvote and/or report and/or yell at.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I've been blocking everyone with a stupid argument, and it feels great. If we're really worried about this, just quarantine anyone with a high block rate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I like having better control over what content people can push at me. An issue on other platforms is they all want to force things on me -- things that they make money from, or things they think will annoy me (to keep me "engaged"). This makes them really annoying for me to use, and generally results in me giving up on the idea of sharing the things I study with others, and maybe also helping people with their projects.

I'm really mostly here to share science and engineering stuff, and maybe help other immigrants to Vietnam (I mean, there will probably be another one eventually...).

So really, I don't think it's a problem. I'm already painfully aware of the various weird things people think about me in daily life (yay, being an immigrant!). I don't need that to define every single thing I do. Sometimes I just want to log on and post some nice words about optimizing assembly language, without having to deal with a bunch of strange and often inappropriate requests from strangers.