Why Block button harms the GAG community.

sawno
Why Block button harms the GAG community.

Introduction

This take is intended to raise awareness of an increasing issue i am noticing about this website that is more and more apparent in discussions especially about political subjects. It has potential to destroy GAG as a sane ground for fair idea's until the platform is eventually completely radicalized in many directions and users will quickly flee away from this for good.

The cause? The block button.

This take will not be advocating for removing the block button but is instead about the issue itself and how it effects there usage of the site. I will also propose the simple change to fix it without taking the ability to block away and will encourage the community to avoid blocking those you oppose.

The intent of the block button

I think the intent of the block button is quite clear, and the necessity of the feature is very obvious. People get harassed on this website in very legitimate ways, a constant supply of hate abuse and dick pictures can come from users who seek for trouble and found a victim. The solution for that is simple, you block and move on. This prevents them from bothering users who do not want to deal with them and makes sure the asker is represented fairly in the question without the same group jumping on a question and spamming it full of nonsense.

The problem is that i see the a lot of users be very trigger happy when it comes to blocking people, they blindly assume people are against them and do not want to hear any opposing argument against there world view. Before you finish your argument you end up blocked meaning they will never see the other side of what they believe in and they will always life in there own fabricated truth. But, that is there own choice and while i do not think it is good to block people if they present a viewpoint you do not like or find insulting you should have the freedom to do so. The picture i have chosen to represent the take resembles the behavior well, instead of a keyboard to write a good counter argument they simply block anyone who disagree's with there point.

Where it goes horribly, horribly wrong.

The real issue is not the fact that people block others, the problem is that its happening in larger amounts against people with a certain argument and these people are then prevented from commenting on these questions.

What this means is that if there is a group who hates counter arguments they will post propaganda for there own ideology while blocking any opposition and that can be dangerous to others because it may cloud there judgement in very bad ways. The natural healthy counter to this is that there arguments get debunked in the opinions and users have a good overview of everyone's opinion and why the original take or question is a bad one. The idea is openly out there, criticized and all the readers can make an informed opinion based on the wild spectrum of arguments presented on the page. That way there is no reason for censorship and we can freely discuss anything within reason (Illegal stuff or explicit stuff is a different matter given the younger audience this site attracts).

Now imagine there is a popular but very wrong idea. Lets for example say there is a movement that says we should go back to enslaving women because they have had there freedom long enough and you see where it took us. They have proven to make bad choices in politics with a few articles linked of choices where there choices where wrong, they have proven not to care about the preservation of our society linked to articles of women falling for bad boys and subconsciously wanting to be abused. And some articles that indicate they secretly long for this since the statistics show most women are submissive in nature. In this example the idea is commonly believed amongst the men of this website and is presented in a neutral enough way for it not to be taken down especially since some of the moderators agree with this opinion and the team wants people to be able to discuss it openly. The people proposing this idea, are easily hurt and especially if a women speaks out against this they will just claim she does not know what she wants and has no right to speak followed by a block. This is consistently done by everyone who see the women as evil and inferior to the point where they are blocked by many of the users spreading the idea. The same with guys opposing it who are labeled cucks and end up on the blocklist for being weak. (Again this is just an example, this is not the actual trend i see on the website but i want something obvious enough to show why it matters).

The way the current block system of the website is set up means the blocked users can no longer interact with the question of these askers, can no longer up or downvote there opinions and can no longer interact with these idea's. That means every reader on this website is denied crucial information they need to form there world view because now opposing arguments and discussions no longer get made resulting in more people becoming convinced of the fact we should all enslave women while otherwise they could have seen plenty of counter arguments showing them that the articles and arguments provided by the asker are incorrect (This very same thing happens on twitter with all radical movements on every side of the spectrum and you end up with things like wanting racial genocides or wanting to oppress those not inside your group because they only listen to people who agree with them).

Every reader on this website is denied crucial information they need to form there world view.

While currently GAG is not very radicalized this can be a very dangerous future for the site where if everyone with other idea's is blocked the chance is high they will not stick around and find the community to toxic to be around further increasing the effect this block censorship has meaning it will slowly turn into a breeding ground for terrible idea's.

How to fix it

The fix is very simple, change the behavior of the blocking system so the person who blocked someone no longer sees it, gets no notifications and does not see the questions or opinions of the blocked user. But keep the blocked user completely free to interact with the website, comment on there opinions and questions and upvote or downvote (After all they can not see who upvoted or downvoted an opinion so the blocking has no effect there anyway).

The effects of this are that its much harder to detect who is blocking you and who isn't which makes the block more effective while at the same time not denying the information to all the other users who want to consume diverse opinions from all sides of the argument.

Until this is in place i highly encourage anyone to engage with differing opinions rather then blocking them. You are doing yourself and all others a huge disservice by censoring those you do not agree with which means you also deny yourself the information you need to life and see the world as it is rather then the story you have always been told and are telling.

If you agree with this change please be vocal and ask the admins to change the website so that the debate can once again be open and free. Because the alternative is going to be a never ending increase in polarizing content on this website where one side tries to outshout the other as they both can't interact on the actual questions and mytakes at hand.

Thanks for your time everyone!

Why Block button harms the GAG community.
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