#Mute and #block is a tough one for me.
What would some potential (be honest) trade offs be with not having blocks, worse case scenario?
And yes I understand there’s no blocking on #nostr, but this debate is now spilling over to twitter which has increased issues of magnitude with these types of discussions.
nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m
Because Jack is trying to put Twitter on Nostr and Damus is his beta test
Not having blocks means
- trolls reply unseen and imply they've "won" an argument with the last word
- on Twitter/x I thought mute was for a thread, not a person? If the former then it means users get more uncontrollable ad spam
Only the troll will think they've won if you stop engaging with them. If they are really a troll than most observers will recognize that they are not worth engaging with.
Blocking is censorship and anti-free speech. You should not be able to put a message out there and then decide only people that agree with you can reply. Once you post on a public forum your words are not your property to gatekeep.
I agree on that premise.
Only thing that still comes to my mind unanswered is threats of physical violence or stalking, possibly tracking someone down in real life etc if someone is unable to block them
Trolls are going to troll. There's ways around blocks so it's not like it solves that problem anyway. I'd rather they do it in the open where everyone can see and react accordingly.
Take the nostr:npub1yye4qu6qrgcsejghnl36wl5kvecsel0kxr0ass8ewtqc8gjykxkssdhmd0 impersonator/troll for example. They have been following her around for days trolling her notes. After gathering more information on Eliza I have come to the conclusion he is a petty vindictive loser that can't let go of some old Twitter drama and muted him myself.
Let's say Eliza was able to block him completely, but he couldn't let go of his grudge. There might be an escalation from there because he has to look for another outlet to seek satisfaction. When he is only muted at least he can still express his point of view with relatively harmless words, and people that see them can decide for themselves if they have any merit. Eliza should not be making that decision for everyone else by silencing him.
Now maybe my opinion is biased because I'm a large man that has never had a stalker or been threatened seriously, but learning about Bitcoin has pushed me heavily into the idea that people need to take more personal responsibility for many aspects of their lives that would otherwise be delegated to other parties, including personal safety. We can't go around expecting others to protect us from everything, and we have the biggest stake in our own protection, so it's on us to be prepared and make good choices about what risks we are willing to take.
The trade-off is that you have sovereignty over your own experience and all the benefits that come with that, but everyone else does too. You have to deal with people you think are dangerous by fighting them honestly without resorting to coercion. You have to fight the pedophiles and the rapists and the thieves and the racists and the sexists and the gays and the straights and any other class of people honestly. That means that things you think are abhorrent will happen unless you make an effort or support an effort to stop them.
I just heard the news of Twitter potentially removing blocks.
On a coercive platform like Twitter, where they have complete control of users, their content, and their interactions, the removal of a user-controlled coercive feature is a huge blow to the user. The platform and the parties that control it have more control and the user has less. That's definitely a huge problem and its going to have real consequences because it's a removal of previously held power.
The situation is very different on nostr, where the introduction of blocks would be an overreach of power by the user. We're over here because we know how the above scenario ends.
Heck, Jason Lowery demonstrated the coercive nature of blocks by exploiting people's social networks with them to cause outrage.
There are worst case scenarios that exist with blocks and worse case scenarios that exist without them. You don't have a choice on Twitter which path is taken. Only how you'll deal with it.
Without blocking, stalkers have access to ongoing real-time information about their target and trolls can harass in a way that stays associated with someone’s account forever, including personal photos etc
Nostr requires being proactive on your safety— if you’re not fully anonymous you should volunteer a lot less info. This is a huge adaptation for most folks used to moderation protecting them out of the box
True, and we’re not even really using relay functions as they could be used for those that wish to post more “personal” info via private relays
