- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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… in online spaces 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.
We made this rule no. 1 for a reason people
This is so me 😢
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.
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.
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.
You’re just jealous of my basement.
Yes I am.
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.
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.
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.
half the comments in this thread are straight up hypocrisy, which is a great way to see who to block.
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.
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 was talking about the internet as a whole, I don’t know the specific security or botness of Lemmy, I’ve not found one so far as far as I can tell. Most users Ive seen have pretty long histories with varying opinions.
Confirmed bot.
Blocked.
Who is a confirmed bot? Me? What would I say to show Im not a bot? We all use VPNs. Do typos prove you aren’t a bot? Ask me to bake a cake or something.
Ok. Bake a chocolate cake with cherry glazing. Send it to my address in less than 5 business days or you will be forever labeled as a bot.
If I knew your address I think that would be more bot like
As long as I get cake, I don’t care!
Reminds me of that Talos Principle log.
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
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 read a lot of comments, and unless I block a lot of people, it is just not worth the engagement. There is only so much transphobia and pro-genocide propaganda I can take per day, even if I skip reading past the first few words.
Also, if any actual person reading this, is considering themselves a tankie, and does not support genocide, please, this random internet stranger pleads, to reconsider your position. You are hanging at the table with nazis, in that metaphora: trusting Chinese or Russian state sponsored sources, on genocide of their ethnic minorities, is the same thing, as trusting what Israel says about Gaza.
I get the need, because I’ve been threatened, harassed, and had insane internet psychos call my workplace or home.
and easiest way to prevent that is to block them before they can escalate to that point.
That’s why I block everyone. I don’t even know what you just said. I blocked you before I read it because who knows where it might escalate.
Yeah, never do it on actual social media, but around these part it’s occasionally useful.
When I want to solve a conflict, I just close my eyes and pretend that everything is fine so I don’t have to defend my beliefs.
This is a tedious novelty account, yeesh.


THANK you.
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’.
Thank you! Discussing ideas is amazing, even with people who disagree with you.
It can help both sides learn so much and acquire perspective.
What people think debates are is shaped a lot by how youtube and politicians portray them (and of course, in that format, it’s a fallacy free-for-all).
Thank you! Discussing ideas is amazing, even with people who disagree with you.
Yes, but for a lot of the users here, it makes you EVIL.
Like, I rented out a bedroom in my condo for a few years, according to the average lemmy poster this makes me as morally repugnant as a death camp administrator… when personally I wouldn’t even consider myself a ‘landlord’.
Anybody can be a dipshit. It’s important to know that anybody includes us too.
i’ve been told i’m a evil terrible dipshit since i was in kindergarten. Got sent to the principles office many times for asking too many questions even as a small child. my own parents would scream at me to stop asking questions and shut up and just repeat what the teacher told me and stop making them ‘uncomfortable’ by challenging their ignorance.
Most folks just want you to shut up and agree with them and tell them how genius they are, and how The Office is the BEST TELEVISION SHOW EVER MADE. The second you say you don’t really like the Office you’re a Terrible Person.
What a shame.
I’m sorry you had to go through that.
it’s not a shame. it’s what got me into Harvard when everyone told me I would never be admitted and I should go dipshit state u like the rest of my peers. most of whom failed out of dipshit state u anyway.
There are people calling for your literal and actual death, for the crime of… having a bank account?
They want us all dead. Or rather, the civilization we are in, and aren’t too particular about how many others need to die to make it happen.
This btw paves the way for all humanity to become “pure” communists - just exactly and precisely like North Korea, Russia, and China “are”.
Once you realize that the principle I am speak of is identical to that of MAGA, using Alternative Facts but just swapping out the rhetoric to be on the left side, you will understand so much better, that you are never going to convince them of anything, bc their goal is not to be correct and instead to simply WIN.
I think debates about things in the science and similar subjects can be interesting. It has to be a scenario where everyone means well and is passionate about the subject matter. But if it’s some echo chamber right-wing “debate” where it’s a guy in a suit with a bunch of puppets nodding along, there’s no value to be had. I’ve had friends send me those Jubilee videos and I don’t want to watch those ever, regardless of their political leanings. Propaganda in the US has broken people though and they think everything should have some opportunity to one-up the perceived competition. That kind of thing is antithetical to progress and education, and is self-serving nonsense.
cool, that’s how I see pretty much all ‘left-wing’ debate too. Propaganda and insanity, with no basis in the complexities of the real world.
A huge chunk of ‘progressives’ are anti-progress and seem to believe resources are infinite and their theories are flawless and perfect… almost as if they are just as stupid and propagandized as the people they hate on the right…
I wanted to be an educator myself, professionally, but I left because I saw how delusional leftist it was becoming and how it was shooting itself in the foot, always focusing on feelings and praising ignorance as ideology rather than seeking knowledge and leaving the ideology outside of the classroom.
You can’t have education and debate and knowledge if your priority is pushing ideology, the ideology is supposed to be subservient to those things, not the other way around. But that’s not how people in educational spaces think anymore, many are just ideologues who want to push out anyone who isn’t as extremist as they are. Whether it be on the right or the left.
No one is immune from propaganda, but I separate out progressive and leftist movements. Liberalism enables anti-progressive ideas, while identifying as the greater good. While leftist movements advocate for things like equal rights and breaking free from the chains of Zionist enablement. The problem I have with a lot of leftist echo chamber content is that it’s a lot of punching down at liberals that are often open to leftist ideas and movements, which is counterproductive to educating and welcoming them. Fred Hampton saw this and that’s why he was never hateful or inflammatory towards fellow working class people. He correctly identified that all working class are in the same boat, even if they’ve been divided up by differing propagandist camps.
your entire comment here is nothing but propaganda to me. I see a bunch of bullshit terms and name drops and nothing of substance other than rhetorical flourishes. word salad that sounds good but is information junk food.
That’s your take and that’s fine. But there’s educational takeaways from the actions of others. Hence the mention of Fred Hampton—a single name drop coupled with reasoning. If you think working towards a unified working class is “bullshit”, I don’t really have anything else to contribute. Take it or leave it, I don’t really care. I’d say I sound less propagandist than some folks do that swallow communism/socialism and its figures wholesale without having an original interpretation or nuance.
where is this ‘unified working class’ my friend?
would you care to define it with specific numbers?
because where i live multi-millionaires from generations of inherited wealth think they are ‘working class’
meanwhile the righties have also built their echo chamber devoid of uncomfortable discussions also. and the polarization continues to get deeper, dehumanization of ‘the others’ and wars become a common idea.
Those groups are filled with anti-trans, pro-corporate nonsense. I don’t even know what the point is, other than to make themselves feel bigger when the reality is that they’re just scared. It’s an echo chamber permeated with billionaire-funded viewpoints. No original thought, while also needing someone to punch down at every time.
deleted by creator
People never engage in honest discussions, man. They just vomit word salad and claim you’re stupid if you can’t find the argument in the haystack.
Reddit was horrible for that. I think there’s less trolling here, but still the occasional mental issue.
Some people are just passionate. Some people will write a manifesto in response to one line of text and dictate what you meant by it.
🎵 Gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em 🎶
People do that? Weird, then I musta been talking to aliens then.
They used to. Back in ye olden days.
It does happen here on occasion. I’ve witnessed it.
Of course… the mods usually ban people for having honest discussions because it makes other users uncomfortable. The word-salad users don’t like honest discussion because it is scary to them and hurts them. So it must be banned, because anything that isn’t their own bullshit is evil and horrible.
You’re completely wrong about your opinion.
Blocking doesn’t stop them from propagandizing others.
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…
To be clear, I’m writing from a Lemmy/Reddit/Slashdot perspective. Maybe on Mastodon/Twitter (or, dog forbid, Facebook) it’s different, but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never used that shit.
Pretty sure reddit uses some algorithmic stuff to push threads, no? If you jump all over a bullshit political post, for example, doesn’t that help push it into ‘hot’ or whatever? (Honestly asking, been off reddit for years at this point).
Lemmy/piefed/etc might be less prone to it though, that’s fair, though I’ve so far run into less outright propagandistic stuff here so far… might’ve just been lucky on that front.
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
:3 you made me laugh. meow!
Tons of drawn porn in mine. Bit of politics and most importantly almost no slop.
Echo Chambers are great. You just think they’re horrible because you’re in an echo chamber that says they’re horrible.
You wouldn’t say that if you actually knew that most echo chambers are like the Incels, the neonazis or the pro-MAGA.
Worst Battle of the Bands lineup ever
It sure would be nice to have the choice to opt-in to an echo chamber, instead of being told that I cannot opt-out of the opposite.
oh, yeah! sometimes we need to use the report button too.
If everyone blocks them then yes. I’m doing my part of the job.
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.
The big problem is discerning when you’re playing chess against a pigeon, and when you’re acting like the pigeon yourself. “I would never” - a pigeon
We all think we’re not that guy. Especially that guy.
Interacting with them won’t either. There is no winning with them.
The point is not to change the troll’s opinion; the point is to discredit them in front of whoever else may be reading the thread.
Also, the other action other than blocking them is reporting them and having a mod or admin remove them for everybody at once.
Both of those are better options than individually blocking.
Not gonna lie, I see people doing this theatrical shit in the 2020’s and I instantly hate them for killing any good vibes that were happening. They no longer represent their politics to me.
Yeah.
There are vulnerable people that might fall for their bullshit, so at least we must deny their nonsense so that fewer people fall for it.
If they’re propagandizing, there’s not an argument you can make to stop them.
Month of blocking people daily and even Lemmy starts to look like an ok place.
the problem is the problematic people are so insanely prolific. they also have multiple accounts on multiple instances, unlike normies who have one on one instance.
i was browsing lemmy logged out this morning and vs logging in it’s like night and day. mostly because of a dozen or so power users who just spam every community incessantly with their rage-bait agendas. and a few of which go into the comments are try to silence any dissenter, skepticism, or disagreement by labeling such comments as an -ism.
I have multiple accounts on other instances but I dont use the old ones. I had to window shop for a good instance.
I probably can’t even begin to understand how sad of a life some of the people on this platform must have to put that much effort into their online “activism”.
they are the type of people on your HOA board. they are everywhere.
they simple think they are right, and everyone else is wrong and stupid.
Me, an intellectual:
“normal people have ONE account”















