Bluesky has reply-gating (you can set who can reply to a post, like people you follow or a given list or no one) and is now testing out post-publication reply locking.
I just want to yell for a second about how humane and consent-forward these features are, especially after seeing some people here losing their minds when someone asked for gating recently because they felt (alas, not a paraphrase) entitled to always be able to respond.
[ETA sorry gotta mute thread to save my brain ✌️]
Believing you are morally entitled to reply directly to someone because they speak in public is…definitely a position, I guess, but I think being able to specify how you want to be interacted with is deeply humane. (And being able to do it after a thread starts to go sour is so important.)
Someone will ask why blocking doesn’t make this unnecessary and the short answer is that prevention is better than picking off unwanted interactions one by one, and having to process each one as you do it.
Someone else will say that if you don’t want everyone to be able to say whatever they want in your thread whenever they want to say it, you shouldn’t post in public because that’s the bargain.
But like…I don’t want the old bargain. The old bargain is kind of shit! We have a million ways to contain and shelter even “public” conversations offline, let’s have that in the good online places, too.
@powerllama @kissane Bluesky’s blocking features enable garbage behavior as well.
People will post incorrect degrading stuff about you, then block you, removing your ability to respond.
I don’t like other people having the power to delete my posts.
It’s an incredibly toxic place:
https://bsky.app/profile/marshray.bsky.social/post/3kv5hhqxdlz2c
@kissane @marshray @powerllama I was about to reply along that line, I think the apocablock (love that term) has its points and issues.
As Erin notes it’s more visible there because BS has more “virality” to it, which leads to a lot more “the avalanche has already started, It is too late for the pebbles to vote.” moments.
Apocablock doesn’t “delete” your posts. It removes you from my “living room”.
@Wraithe @kissane @powerllama This is an example of person re-posting me to their followers.
Then, after a pile-on of insults against me, she blocks me.
Whose “living room” is that?
@marshray @kissane @powerllama In this case it would be hers.
She retweeted a post of yours, you replied, she blocked. Conversation ends.
Your post isn’t deleted, it just breaks the thread. I’m looking at it right now using a tool.
There’s a good thread here explaining the motivations behind the apocablock: https://bsky.app/profile/legalminimum.bsky.social/post/3kunmefkdth2u
TL/DR: it’s to prevent “brigading” (a tactic used heavily by the alt-right on Twitter for anyone who doesn’t know)
@Wraithe Sure, I’ve heard that justification before.
Here the “brigading” by toxic jackholes with dumb insults was solicited by the same person who employed blocking to prevent reply.
@oblomov @marshray @powerllama This is why I actually really like the US court ruling requiring gov officials to keep replies open and not block people. Public official accounts should absolutely work differently, IMO.
I kinda feel like the cultural moment for reply-yelling to be functional for like…brands and celebrities and execs and all that is almost a decade in the rear-view now, but I agree that it absolutely worked until about 2015.
Erin Kissane
Austin
Marsh Ray
Wraithe
Oblomov
Andromeda Yelton