Jun. 15th, 2020 02:49 pm
[ESSAY] Re: Blocking
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monsterqueersImagine this: You are a average person, casually using the internet and social media, you go to look at an account you cant seem to see the reply of out of curiosity, and oops! You're blocked! You have never interacted with this person, and yet they seem to have hated you enough to block you, what gives!?
Except, its not as simple as that. Blocking has become evermore something everyone has to do to curate a pleasant experience in web 2.0, and under the cut today, I'm going to talk about that.
Blocking used to have quite a lot of connotations to it, back before everyone's content was so in-your-face due to opt-out features, the internet used to be opt-in, you never saw much of anything you didn't search for or deliberately follow for, so when someone got blocked, it was often due to something serious- like leaving 'flame' comments on art or writing repeatedly, or unsolicited creepy messages. With the onset of 'recommended' posts, the inability to partition things, and certain botched tagging systems to find content, alongside other broken features, suddenly blocking was the only way to remove unwanted content from your view and notifications, people started blocking just to not see upsetting content. Some people, particularly those who were used to curating their online environment heavily, became very liberal with the block button to avoid getting recommended NOTPs, having to deal with confrontational rude people, and things that squicked or triggered them.
Now, one important thing of note is Fanpol, or Fan Police. These people harass anyone who doesn't exist in fandom exactly as they want, usually with 'social justice language' a la Winterfox. in between 2014 and 2016, they became so prevalent and aggressive that in the last few years we've gotten to the point that having thousands of messages of death threats and suicide baiting when one has decided on an target is normal, and events like putting needles in cookies and then gifting them to an artist who happens to draw something they find offensive have happened. This is on top of other groups who were already using these kinds of dogpiling techniques like radfems, kiwifarmers, and the altright. Into this environment came blockchain.
Blocklists were not new.
Tumblr had an extension that let you put lists of usernames into it and it would block them, or you could do it by hand- but this required someone to curate that blocklist, and if the username of the person was changed, the list would have to be updated. blockchain, however, would be installed and when you clicked the extension's button, it would block everyone who was following a particular user.
This paid great dividends for those who were getting harassed- allowing for the tedious process of blocking everyone giving you hate to be cut off at the source.
This does have one problem- sometimes a person would follow an account, not realize they were horrible in some way, and then get blocked by accident. This is sad, but is the cost for protecting oneself.
Blockchain also very recently got hit by twitter's bot-sensing algorithm, however, and now even blocking manually too many times in a row too fast all the people who are harassing you can get you locked. Using it is a risk, but one many have to take just to make twitter safe.
Regardless, blocking the followers of people who exhibit signs of potential(or concrete) harassment behaviors remains the best way to avoid getting harassed preemptively- as not even locking yourself can save you from mentions and report-based harassment.
For people new to this kind of attitude and function of blocking in the web 2.0 era, this begs the question posited in the above- what do you do when you seem to have been blocked by someone you don't even know?
The golden answer: say, "Aw! Oh well." And press the back button, of course!
If you truly want to follow the person or see their content for some reason, you can see if they are open to 'I was blocked by accident, can I appeal?' questions, and ask VERY POLITELY, to be unblocked.
You are not owed the ability to see their account. You are not owed the ability to interact with someone who has made clear they don't want to interact with you, and they don't have to disclose why.
Accept this graciously and move on, or prove that you deserved to be blocked in the first place by throwing a fit about it, publically @ -ing them, block-evading just to hate-read their posts, and stirring up shit publically.
TLDR- Blocking is one of the many tools needed to curate ones internet experience and avoid harassment. Getting blocked by accident happens, stop taking it personally. Often times, blocking is no longer personal. Just shrug and move on.
Except, its not as simple as that. Blocking has become evermore something everyone has to do to curate a pleasant experience in web 2.0, and under the cut today, I'm going to talk about that.
Blocking used to have quite a lot of connotations to it, back before everyone's content was so in-your-face due to opt-out features, the internet used to be opt-in, you never saw much of anything you didn't search for or deliberately follow for, so when someone got blocked, it was often due to something serious- like leaving 'flame' comments on art or writing repeatedly, or unsolicited creepy messages. With the onset of 'recommended' posts, the inability to partition things, and certain botched tagging systems to find content, alongside other broken features, suddenly blocking was the only way to remove unwanted content from your view and notifications, people started blocking just to not see upsetting content. Some people, particularly those who were used to curating their online environment heavily, became very liberal with the block button to avoid getting recommended NOTPs, having to deal with confrontational rude people, and things that squicked or triggered them.
Now, one important thing of note is Fanpol, or Fan Police. These people harass anyone who doesn't exist in fandom exactly as they want, usually with 'social justice language' a la Winterfox. in between 2014 and 2016, they became so prevalent and aggressive that in the last few years we've gotten to the point that having thousands of messages of death threats and suicide baiting when one has decided on an target is normal, and events like putting needles in cookies and then gifting them to an artist who happens to draw something they find offensive have happened. This is on top of other groups who were already using these kinds of dogpiling techniques like radfems, kiwifarmers, and the altright. Into this environment came blockchain.
Blocklists were not new.
Tumblr had an extension that let you put lists of usernames into it and it would block them, or you could do it by hand- but this required someone to curate that blocklist, and if the username of the person was changed, the list would have to be updated. blockchain, however, would be installed and when you clicked the extension's button, it would block everyone who was following a particular user.
This paid great dividends for those who were getting harassed- allowing for the tedious process of blocking everyone giving you hate to be cut off at the source.
This does have one problem- sometimes a person would follow an account, not realize they were horrible in some way, and then get blocked by accident. This is sad, but is the cost for protecting oneself.
Blockchain also very recently got hit by twitter's bot-sensing algorithm, however, and now even blocking manually too many times in a row too fast all the people who are harassing you can get you locked. Using it is a risk, but one many have to take just to make twitter safe.
Regardless, blocking the followers of people who exhibit signs of potential(or concrete) harassment behaviors remains the best way to avoid getting harassed preemptively- as not even locking yourself can save you from mentions and report-based harassment.
For people new to this kind of attitude and function of blocking in the web 2.0 era, this begs the question posited in the above- what do you do when you seem to have been blocked by someone you don't even know?
The golden answer: say, "Aw! Oh well." And press the back button, of course!
If you truly want to follow the person or see their content for some reason, you can see if they are open to 'I was blocked by accident, can I appeal?' questions, and ask VERY POLITELY, to be unblocked.
You are not owed the ability to see their account. You are not owed the ability to interact with someone who has made clear they don't want to interact with you, and they don't have to disclose why.
Accept this graciously and move on, or prove that you deserved to be blocked in the first place by throwing a fit about it, publically @ -ing them, block-evading just to hate-read their posts, and stirring up shit publically.
TLDR- Blocking is one of the many tools needed to curate ones internet experience and avoid harassment. Getting blocked by accident happens, stop taking it personally. Often times, blocking is no longer personal. Just shrug and move on.