MuddybulldogYSK: Your Lemmy activities (e.g. downvotes) are far from private
JesusTheCarpenterFor me, it makes so much sense. Likes and dislikes, besides serving as a means of sorting posts and comments, also serve as a shortcut for leaving a comment saying, “This^” or “I disagree.”
I think the issue is just that having votes publicly accessible can lead to harassment. Sometimes I want to downvote bigots or idiots and not want the possibility of them engaging with me.
That’s my biggest concern, too. People are fuckin’ weird and you never know what will set them off. Some people just can’t stand any sort of disagreement or pushback and might want to retaliate. I really think the source should remain invisible to other users.
I’ve been harassed across subreddits before by one person because I disagreed with them on something. You can block them but all the sudden they pop up on another account. Some people are just crazy.
And yet, that was not due to the likes and dislikes being visible but your comment. I still don’t see the difference in potential of harassment due to likes being visible versus comments.
The issue is that I often don’t want to comment and engage with some of the psychos that show up on the internet. Downvotes are a passive way to help move hateful/ignorant comments to the bottom of the thread. Having downvotes publicly accessible is giving these psychos a way to directly engage back with you.