This is really more of a client issue than a server issue.
In a distributed scheme, people I "block" or even content I filter out should only happen in regards to me fetching content from the distributed network.
In particular, if the content pathways are P2P (which they should be, even if other measures in place such as relays or caching), inappropriate content ends up being reduced by a result of less peers propagating.
Once the right solution appears for the network, ideally there will be multiple clients working through the UX of using the network.
Personally the best I've seen in this space is Secure Scuttlebutt. I just wish they'd drop the write only aspect for the log, and switch pubs over to acting as relays.
Think a little more deviously: you block someone but your personal data, slanderous fakes, etc. is still out there. They can’t message you directly but can send it to everyone you interact with. They can setup new accounts faster than you can block them and those could either swamp a target or try to impersonate them so it’s hard for the target to have any unpoisoned interactions.
A client side solution can’t stop any of that. Anyone thinking about social software needs to look at what motivated assholes like 4chan have done and think about how they’d stop the next weev, GamerGate, etc. If you don’t have a good answer all you’re doing is building weapons for them.
> Think a little more deviously: you block someone but your personal data, slanderous fakes, etc. is still out there. They can’t message you directly but can send it to everyone you interact with.
Also known as "please don't pull this idiot out of my killfile" problem known
on the usenet for decades. Maybe you won't see the messages directly, but most
probably you will see the quotes of the messages.
Usenet, MUDs, etc. are interesting as examples which were simultaneously well-known but also strangely ignored as precedents for a lot of the bad behaviour we've seen on a much larger scale.
I think in a way those early examples might have held recognition back because a lot of the most authoritative people had learned “no big deal” back in the era when the Internet wasn't integral to our lives and harassment techniques were far more primitive and less routine (pre-SWATing, revenge porn, social network-driven harassment of people you actually known, etc.), and because so many of the people involved were affluent white men who just didn't tend to attract the kind of persistent hate campaigns which became famous years later. Kathy Sierra should have been a wakeup call but a lot of people shrugged and said “don't feed the trolls” as if that was useful.
In a distributed scheme, people I "block" or even content I filter out should only happen in regards to me fetching content from the distributed network.
In particular, if the content pathways are P2P (which they should be, even if other measures in place such as relays or caching), inappropriate content ends up being reduced by a result of less peers propagating.
Once the right solution appears for the network, ideally there will be multiple clients working through the UX of using the network.
Personally the best I've seen in this space is Secure Scuttlebutt. I just wish they'd drop the write only aspect for the log, and switch pubs over to acting as relays.