• Pons_Aelius
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    1252 years ago

    Its all part of the plan. EM does one outrageous thing each day to constantly stay in the news cycle. The ego must be fed.

    Oscar Wilde described this mentality in The Picture of Dorian Gray

    “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

  • Maharashtra
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    92 years ago

    Threat to Public Safety

    Dude, you forgot which of two worlds is the real one. Hint: it’s not the Internet.

  • ArugulaZ
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    182 years ago

    He can’t push his apartheid propaganda if people refuse to read it, right? Dutchie is just missing one thing… you don’t have to use Twitter. Free yourself from the site, and it no longer holds any power over you.

    • @[email protected]
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      112 years ago

      It’s super easy to say “just don’t use the site,” but you gotta understand that that’s a lot like saying “just stop hanging out with your friends” when they invite some neonazi to every get-together. Yeah, obviously it’s what you have to do, but it still absolutely blows, especially if you don’t fit in with anyone else.

      • ArugulaZ
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        72 years ago

        It does absolutely blow, but sometimes, you absolutely need to do it. I left Twitter after fourteen years of dedicated use, I left Reddit after four years, I was forced to leave Miiverse when it closed after five years. None of that was fun, and I’ll probably not see some of the people I left behind again, but sometimes you just run out of options.

        • BaroqueInMind
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          2 years ago

          Also, those communities never truly had any tangible long lasting value because they weren’t real, they existed etherially on the internet.

          The real community was the cacophony of horrific Eldtritch whisperings in your mindÃ̸͉̝̬̮́͋̀͗̀l̴̡̫̳̋́̉̾̌̚̚̕ľ̶͙̲̪̘̳͙͓ͅ ̷̡̡͕͍͔̦̭̜̓̀͊͆̆̋͘͝o̸̙̬̎̋̎̃̓̎ͅf̵̧͍̲͈̹̳̼̲̂̀̈́ͅ ̸̧̛̮͎̙͈̺̜͛͑͂͠y̴̨̱̜̆̈͠ͅọ̸̱͒͐̌̀͒̚̕͝u̸̼͑r̷̨̥̰̦̖̤̪̐̀́̚ ̶̭͖̜̟͙̖̣͓̈̚͜f̸̻͕̞̙̲̮͇̑̐̍͐̉̐r̶͚̫͖̭͚͓͂̊̆̈́i̷͍̎̀̓̂͆̔e̴̛̫̠̖̤͆n̴̛̲̙̬̫̻̈́̌̀̈́͜͝d̶̰̳͕̠̦͚͐̓̓͋̍̾̈́͜͠s̴̛̮̈́͐̍͗͠ ̴̧̛̯̻̯͚͒̌́̿à̴̜̱͈̟͔r̶̢̛̼͍̤̱̰͎͇̊̍͗̓̊è̵̞̜̮͎̣̹̫̜̔͑̄͂̾ ̷̱̖̲̟̙͆d̶̡͍͈͎͉͍̣̉͋̋̀͛͝͝ḙ̷̫̈ͅã̷̠̩̿̚d̸͖̲̫̬̝̰͚̳̿̀̎͑͗̿̇̾͝.̸̱̪̭̒̒͗̆͠ͅ

      • iAmTheTot
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        102 years ago

        Dude I don’t care how long I’ve known the person, if I find out they are inviting neo Nazis to parties then I am fucking gone.

  • halfempty
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    102 years ago

    So let’s say someone is harassing and abusing somebody on the platform. Blocking gives the victim a recourse. Let’s say someone with an extreme ideology, such as a Nazi anti-semite, consistently posts hate at a jewish person. Blocking gives the victim a recourse. Blocking is an essential feature of social media, and Musk is a complete idiot.

  • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️
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    19 months ago

    This is not in any way a “threat to public safety” but it’s still a cringe decision.

    The inability to block users actually makes moderation even more necessary and makes it harder to allow “free speech.”

  • @[email protected]
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    92 years ago

    The wording is funny, “public safety”. I’m pretty sure all social media is bad for public safety.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 years ago

      You never saw how many toxic people are over there? Once they brigade on a target they can easily push someone to suicide

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Block buttons are genuinely valuable for public safety.

      kiwi farms is the most notorious of them, but there are many groups dedicated to targeting and harassing people of various demographics with the sole goal of tormenting them until they commit suicide. And they succeed far too regularly.

      Communal blocklists go a long way toward negating this. Obviously they aren’t the most public, but various groups and “trusted allies” more or less share the users they block and why. I was involved with one for reddit and we are likely to set another up for the various subfederations (?) of Lemmy. The idea being that if someone triggers a red flag or two, you block them and then post their name and profile link into a google doc or a discord channel or whatever. And people either vet each entry in the list or just run a script to apply the entire blocklist to their account. So only a limited number of people need to see the assholes and people are less likely to find their feed/comments section/whatever full of people telling them to kill themselves.

      Get rid of blocking and you remove that ability and people just have to “sit there and take it”. Which… has horrible consequences. Because it doesn’t matter how “strong” you are. Being told you have no worth and should end your life endlessly for months on end will wear anyone down. And while he was a right prick who did more than his share of damage, Total Biscuit put it best: (paraphrasing) You could be having the best day of your life. If someone tells you that your nose is ugly, that sticks with you.

      And these hate groups make sure that those negative thoughts are all that people can think of.

      And considering musk’s hatred for trans folk and minorities and the like? He knows this and this is what he wants.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      I feel like it could be considered dangerous for some people. For someone who faces harassment regularly, taking away the option to block people means making them choose between a) dealing with constant online harassment, or b) leaving the only online community you know. At the very least, this change will be severely detrimental to some folks’ mental health, while providing absolutely no benefit to anyone.

      It could also be a public safety risk because twitter is a place where many people get news about natural disasters and severe weather. The people who are forced off of the platform because of this change will lose a valuable aggregate of information, and when it gets removed from app stores for violating their TOS (they require that social media services allow blocking), even more people will be without that information.

    • kamenLady.
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      212 years ago

      I can imagine people feeling safer, when they are able to block someone stalking them. When you mute a user, this user still can see your profile, your posts and simply knows that you are there, active, posting. On the other hand, when you block another user, you don’t exist for this user. I don’t remember if a blocked user sees a “you’re blocked” message or if your account vanishes completely when the blocked user is logged in.

      • @[email protected]
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        112 years ago

        I guess people who have the habit of harassing other people on social media often have multiple accounts. The feeling of safety when blocking such an account is certainly real but if someone really wants to stalk you he can. Instagram tries to solve this problem by having the option ‘block this and all associated accounts’.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      I’d say compromise and post about the crap when he actually does something rather than just saying he’s going to. Him saying he’s going to remove blocking is an eye roll but him actually doing so and causing more damage to twitter gives me popcorn cravings.

  • @[email protected]
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    22 years ago

    Im all for it, if it means that government 3 letter organizations cant demand block of users either…

  • CapgrasDelusion
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    2 years ago

    What’s the over under on how many days until he backtracks this wonderful idea? I’ll put it at 5. I choose over but only because I think that’s how long the coke and benzo binge will take to wear off.

  • @[email protected]
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    412 years ago

    Just a wee selection of my block list: bots, thirst traps, bitcoin bro, invest bros, marketing bros, dating stuff and far too much gambling.

    I mean twitter must be down on ad revenue by the amount of gambling sites I block alone. Surely I was just about to sign up and gamble on the big South match between the irresistible Portsmouth v the unmovable object that is Southhampton.

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      He’ll probably invest his remaining billions in developing a way to thwart adblockers next. It will be as successful as everything else he has done in relation to twitter.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Back when I had a Twitter account I had blocked this motherfucker because of his narcissistic shenanigans. Needless to say, I wasn’t on Xitter even for full 24 hours after he bought it. Deleted the account along with all the tweets.

    Fuck this Apartheid Xitler.

    • @[email protected]
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      212 years ago

      You can block him but somehow he’ll mysteriously get unblocked and start appearing in your feed again.

      The only reliable method seems to be muting him.

        • @[email protected]
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          82 years ago

          I’ve almost entirely moved to Mastodon. I only ever check Twitter occasionally for the few accounts I still have interest in following.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            Yeah, unfortunately I use Twitter for information from small businesses and to find out about gigs.

            Your average small business doesn’t even know mastodon exists.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              I live in a big tech city. Most small businesses don’t use anything other than Google and sometimes their shit websites. Facebook is dead, Twitter is dead. I’m done with it all.

          • Octopus
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            42 years ago

            Yes. It does the same as delete, I was also confused.

  • @[email protected]
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    472 years ago

    Before someone says “but you can mute those toxic asshole”. Muting them means they will continue to see your posts and will still berate you, other people will reply quoting you and you will not only continue to see the toxic content, but you will become a target to more and more assholes with nothing better to do in life