I don't think it's just about young authoritarians. On the web, the major way to get new content is to search for it or click through to it, which means you are unlikely to see unwanted stuff. With social media, centralized or not, anyone can push content upon you. That's the point of social media. But the result is unwanted content on your screen.

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But then you don't need block. You need mute. You need spam filters. You need algorithms. You need to subscribe to censors who curate a "safe space" for yourself. Block is where other people cannot see your content. You don't need that. It's just 100% vindictive. It's not privacy, privacy is gone the moment you post.
There is no system - existent or future - that can prevent all people (with varying tastes and comfort levels) from ever seeing anything that is "unwanted" by each of them. Except for eyelids. But then you still have sound to worry about. If you think about this for even 1 minute it's a very obvious property of reality. Not just social media.
@Mike Dilger ☑️ you are doing a very commendable job of "Good Cop". But someone has to be "Bad Cop", and I volunteer. What @brugeman is describing here is fine and good for a central server to provide, but it is simply contradictory and antithetical to decentralization. Decentralization and subjective experiences mean controlling what *you yourself* see and very specifically NOT controlling what others see if they didn't ask for this service. If I can dictate what notes other people can see (as replies to my posts, say), in a way that I have chosen and they have not (maybe they're following someone I have blocked and they don't see that person's note now) then I am superceding their desires of their experience and they don't own that experience any longer. Controlling what others see is fine IF they asked for it (either explicitly or implicitly by using an app or protocol or visiting a user-owned website). It's even good, if that's what they want. I have no interest in - or even the ability to - control what clients people use and what content they provide to a group of users who voluntarily choose to allow someone else to control what they see. This concept, as a "norm", goes in the opposite direction of the norms of decentralized, end-user-owned, subjective networked experiences. I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about it, but I am saying we should recognize very clearly what the topic of discussion is: Who controls what you see? You, or a filtering agent? If the latter, did you explicitly ask for the filtering or not? If you didn't, and you can't supercede the filter yourself, you're operating in a controlled environment and you better be aware of it. If that starts to happen transparently and without users' consent, you're headed right back to the hell we've all worked to undo.
brugeman's avatar brugeman
I don't think it's just about young authoritarians. On the web, the major way to get new content is to search for it or click through to it, which means you are unlikely to see unwanted stuff. With social media, centralized or not, anyone can push content upon you. That's the point of social media. But the result is unwanted content on your screen.
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