I get it. There’s some real jerks around here. Whether they’re constantly argumentative, downright rude, always acting in bad faith, just plain trolls, overly opinionated on every subject, have the social skills of a Nausicaan, or whatever - the Fediverse is growing, and it’s bound to attract toxicity in one way or another.
This post is mostly a PSA for anyone who’s feeling like leaving because they’re tired of dealing with things like that. I’ve been there several times myself, I know exactly how you feel, and I’m tired of seeing good people harassed off the platform.
Just remember that blocking is a very powerful way to stay in control of your experience. Be it a set of users, me specifically, a list of keywords, a whole community, or an entire instance: if it’s causing you nothing but stress, hit that block button and see if that improves your experience here. Unlike the alien site, there is no limit to the number of entities you can block; you’re in control.
Another thing to keep in mind is different instances have different vibes, and the experience can totally differ depending on the instance’s moderation and federation policy.
In conclusion, your experience here can be what you make of it; don’t be afraid to just block the parts that stress you out. You’re not “creating an echo chamber” as everyone likes to say (often in bad faith) – you’re just taking care of yourself.
Also, voyager lets you tag users which is a godsend.
If I notice someone who is unnecessarily rude, dodgy opinions, bigoted or something, I add a tag, and if I see it is constant repetitive behaviour, I’ll block them.
Thunder too, installed it specifically for user tags!
Boost has user tagging as well.
Only issue is the tag and report dialogs look exactly alike and multiple times I’ve unknowingly clicked report in error. I’m kinda surprised I never got criticised for abusing the report function when all I’ve written is “pro-russia” or “idiot”
I recently had someone I already had tagged as “racist” replying to me with some misogyny, clicked on his profile and found him defending the R slur. Because instances are smaller, it’s actually feasible to message instance admins when there is someone like that too.
Okay I am gonna bite. What is the R slur?
thank you!
Cw r slur
spoiler
Retard
You can also track aggregate up and down votes per user! You’re a solid +13 for me, you’re cool.
Why give people a second chance to hurt you? Just block away!
One comment does not a whole commenter make! I’ve had a few cases where someone acts poorly on one post, but is usually a conscientious and interesting commenter. Personally, I want to see more conversation, so I’m hesitant to ban people, but if your math is different, that’s fine!
I think it’s also easy to misinterpret something on one post. A lot of times something that looked bigoted or dodgy opinion was just poorly done sarcasm or something.
If you disagree with someone or someone tells you that you’re wrong you can just immediately block them with no effort.
People are so used to being able to instantly ignore anybody that they never develop the skills to deal with people disagreeing with them or having support an argument.
It’s a self-reinforcing cycle.
Yeah, adults should be able to tell the difference between someone disagreeing with them and someone being rude/trolling.
I don’t think I ever needed to block anyone, but I kinda stopped commenting as much nowadays cause I realized a lot of times people just don’t understand something and say things out of ignorance + pretentiousness, immediately attacking whoever correct what they’re saying. I don’t think there’s a way out of that in these kinds of open discussion threads, unfortunately, because it’s not exactly bad faith.
It’s not bad faith, it’s just a learned behavior that’s antisocial.
Outrageous comments are heavily rewarded in public social media where everyone is pseudo-anonymous. At the same time, almost nobody wants to be the person on the receiving end of outrageous takes.
We’re rewarding the wrong behaviours.
Because then I can’t downvote and report them for future harmful behavior.
I do tag them so I know not to engage.
Good point.
it does? i don’t see that option anywhere.
edit: of course the second I comment I find the option lol
second edit: hit the settings wheel at the bottom. its on that page.
Huh? Could you kindly tell where the option is? I can’t find it?
you have to enable it first under settings-> User Tags and once it’s on you can long press a user name.
You’re the real MVP, thank you very much!!
I’m on Thunder and I just labeled you as “taught me that users can be labeled”
How do you add a tag? I’m on voyager and can’t see the option. Sorry for my ignorance!
Edit. Ignore me - someone asked and answered further down the thread.
Boost too
I’d add “report” to that advice. If somebody is outright being jerks, that is probably against your instance’s rules — and if it isn’t, there are plenty others to choose from.
Blocking helps you, but reporting people (or instances) that are just here to troll will help others.
I read all reports on my instance (i get reports on our users and from our users, too; so i see quite a lot) rest assured, all your reports actually do something.
True. If it’s report-worthy, absolutely. But there are certainly accounts that aren’t violating any rules but can still be a source of stress. Those are often the “rules lawyer” type who knows exactly how to stay right on the line without crossing it.
Counterpoint is that if that person is finally banned, they’re 9 times out of 10 just going to spin up a new alt and start back up with the same shtick. If everyone just blocks them, they’re just shouting into the wind wondering why no one’s taking their bait. I dislike how Reddit had “shadow bans”, but I can see how they would be effective when used surgically.
Agreed. I report bad behavior where I see it. I’ve only blocked one person, becausen they took a downvote as a personal attack and started DMing me.
You’re very right. Blocking when they are being an asshole is just putting your head in the sand. It might feel petty but remember that others are probably also impacted by their shitty behaviour.
Filters are nice too, if you’re here for escapism rather than news.
Currently, only lemmy apps support keyword filtering. But on lemmy 1.0 we’re going to get proper keyword filters :DDDD
Wait, were not even on 1.0 yet?
Nope. Latest version is 1.19.11 but next should be 1.0
Musk agree with this, filters work wonders.
I’m only here for politics about to put “puppy” on my filter
honestly too much cute shit weirdly ruins it, like loops is all peoples pets and im over it
Better put owl and cat on there too while you’re at it
Your filter list is very similar to mine. Makes a hell of a positive change.
I tried filters on other platforms, the results weren’t that good. Yes, you blocked a word, but people often use images with text for some reason, and filters don’t work with them.
How do you do this - I think I need this
The biggest toxicity comes from the tank triad. I have blocked them and now it is peaceful.
That’s like the “install uBlock Origin” first step as far as I’m concerned lol.
Yup. Learned it the hard way. My first account was with lemmy.ml and it got banned because of criticizing China. I consider myself leftist and the amount of censorship the tank triad do to ensure China numba wan is mind numbing.
I’ve been told by then that China isn’t authoritarian And China has more freedom of speech than western countries… They banned me. Lol
Who are the tank triad?
Lemmy.ml Lemmygrad Hexbear
Basically the 3 far left instances that will enforce the discourse to be Marxist and anti-west.
Most instances are defederated from the latter two but not the first because that instance is run by the main Lemmy devs (who are communists)
Not even communists. I have had communists as friends during my grad and undergrad. Tank triad are a worser kind. They actively hinders any discussion against China. Tianenmen? Never happened. Mao’s genocide? western propaganda. Chinese imperialism in Tibet? China reclaiming its historical boundaries. Basically China and USSR can never do anything wrong. If they did, its western propaganda.
Also why cant they defederate from lemmy.ml? That should be technically possible as the code is open source and can be fetched easily to run an instance?
Anyone can defederate from .ml but they have a lot of users being the dev run site, so many don’t. Or at least that’s the reason lemmy.world has given in the past about why they have don’t federate with hexbear and lemmygrad but still do with ml
They’re not Marxists sadly, they’re worse.
They’re Stalinists who want authoritarianism.
Marx wouldn’t have condoned having a dictator/Tzar
Is “far left” an accurate description? They are not really what I consider “left” at all.
Not really. They give some lip service to communist dogma, but they really only have a big hard on for totalitarianism.
It’s pretty absurd in 2025 to get high on late 1980s Comintern propaganda, but here they are 🤷
They are the actual far left. Horseshoe theory is bs.
In contrast, Antifa is left. US democratic party are right. Canadian liberals are centrist.
Please explain what qualities they demonstrate that make them leftward.
And not in a productive way, either. Once in a while I see a couple hexbear users in a thread, so I’m guessing crossposts happen. But their comments are mostly just name-calling and shitting on liberals.
And never, ever criticizing the Right. These people cheer for Trump more than the fucking MAGA crowd.
I’m not super up to date with terminology but I wouldn’t call them far-left. I believe authoritarianism is right wing ideology.
I know for a fact I’m opinionated, and don’t have problems sharing them.
Please, by all means, block me if you think seeing my comments is adversely affecting you. I’d rather be ignored by someone than make their day worse (unless they’re actively trying to make others miserable, but that’s a separate discussion)
The fediverse has definitely gotten a little less hostile after blocking a few things.
And remember you can jump ship to another instance at any time! I’ve hopped a few times but for now my instance is filling my needs without much drama that I am aware of.
I quickly went over your comment history of the last 30 days and you have almost no downvotes. You are a wholesome person and I’m glad you are here!
I think it’s less about having strong opinions and more with how those are expressed. But either way, you’re here with a good attitude, and that’s appreciated.
Additional PSA to admins not running a “universal free speech” instance- if you see someone someone being obnoxious it’s probably annoying your users just as much as is is you. Don’t put the onus fully on users to curate their experience. The Fediverse needs our adults in the room!
I’ve blocked communities and instances that don’t speak English, ones that have absurd ideological basis (anarchy supporters), and occasionally people who just say really dumb things, a lot.
I vastly prefer encouraging blocking over censorship/moderation. If someone is being an asshole, having the ability to say it, vent those feelings for a moment, then readjust is a catharsis that’s been nearly outlawed especially on platforms
onlike TikTok.Obviously not everything should be permitted and everything has its limits, but the internet seems to over correct things into a passionless husk of forced friendliness. To shove people into forming a facade that feels like a shrinking cage. Sterile.
Curating my own experience has been invaluable and I highly encourage it.
absurd ideological basis (anarchy supporters)
I am not a community but can you please add me to your list
This wasn’t an open invitation for everyone to out themselves but sure, take care.
I’ve yet to block anyone here and the only one I had blocked on Reddit was Gallowboob.
deleted by creator
Make sure to also report the people you see being toxic, astroturfing, or downright attacking users. Many instances have policies against this and reporting them will increase the likelihood they’ll be dealt with, in some cases permanently.
This is something that should be discussed more since blocking is not a moderation function that makes the platform better, it’s a tool for people to pretend the problems don’t exist. I’m not a fan of pretending issues don’t exist, especially since I’m a mod and that would be insanely counter-productive.
Oh, yeah, that goes without saying. Report anyone whose behavior warrants it. I’m just mainly reminding people that blocking can be a way to take control of your experience. It took me a while to fully appreciate the block button and get over my FOMO (in the earlier days of Lemmy, blocking even a few people would cut down the amount of content drastically; thankfully that’s no longer the case).
Semi-specific (but still intentionally vague) example for “block” candidates are some accounts that even the mods are like “Look, I don’t like them either, but they’re not breaking any rules”. But, in general, just don’t be afraid to block what or whoever stresses you out.
I never thought I needed to block any user, because, you know, I’m a big kid and I can handle any of the dirty words. Turns out, there are just reavers out there in space with their cores exposed just letting the hatred and radiation wash over them. I have all this empathy and I know they were once people and maybe they can be redeemed, but no. They are reavers. Block and move on with caution.
Im a big believer in block. I think its better for people to peruse all and block communities they are uninterested in and you should totally block users you don’t like. To me it should be like real life. Don’t hang with folks you don’t like. My hope for the fediverse is instances that only remove things to stay out of legal trouble and communities that only block things that are unrelated. I want all the big tools to be at the user level. Bottom up.
That’s one of the benefits of the smaller community here too, the block button actually feels like it does something. If you’re frustrated by comments that add nothing to anything or are fishing for drama etc, a short commitment to blocking repeat offenders really improves things quickly
Yes and no.
I am a big fan of block buttons and use them quite liberally (if someone responds to me in a manner that makes it clear they have no intention of having a conversation? I never see them ever again).
But the problem is that it only blocks it for the user who blocks them. So harassment is still a thing and now even fewer people are likely to flag it for moderation (to the extent that works).
There is obviously room for abuse but I am a firm believer that any block feature must be bidirectional. If user A blocks user B then A and B can no longer see each other or interact. Which would be a fundamental lemmy feature which makes things difficult.
But “just block them” is good for people who are annoying. Not for people who are abusive. And while the latter isn’t SUPER common on lemmy, there are still a good number of people who respond to the simplest of things with “Fuck you you fucking moron and you should go kill yourself”
In conclusion, your experience here can be what you make of it; don’t be afraid to just block the parts that stress you out. You’re not “creating an echo chamber” as everyone likes to say (often in bad faith) – you’re just taking care of yourself.
We really, REALLY need to de-stigmatize blocking people. Bad-faith concern trolls have successfully convinced people that “choosing not to interact with someone” is akin to censorship and also bad for us because what do you MEAN you don’t want to be disrespected by a complete stranger? Are you creating an echo chamber by preferring to be with people who are nice to you?!?!?!?
Like. No. Fuck off. That’s not how it works in real life. We’re not friends. We’re not even co-workers for me to be stuck having to be polite to you even if you’re an asshole.
You’re a complete stranger and you’re saying rude shit at me (or even at other people with me bearing witness), at best I’ll walk away because I don’t need that shit, at worst I’ll call you a wanker and hit you in the face.
By all means, use the block feature to remove stressors if it helps.
For me personally, unless someone is actively haranguing me in DMs I’d rather not block them. Sure people can place comments that get me riled up. Or sometimes they seem downright hostile. Maybe they’re having a bad day, you can’t say. But it goes both ways, if I’m tired or having a bad day I could be misinterpreting people’s comments and blocking them for no reason.
If a comment is so bad/rude it becomes rule-breaking I’d rather report it and have a moderator tell them off, it might be a valuable lesson for them or if they are repeat offenders the mods can dish out appropriate punishment. This keeps the instance and community in question healthy.
