CMV: People abuse Reddit’s ‘block’ feature to control public-facing narratives they don’t like
This has happened to me enough times now that I want to highlight this behavior to the broader Reddit community. The basic pattern is such: user A makes a claim. User B responds to user A. User A responds back. User B responds, then immediately blocks A. A can no longer see B’s response, let alone reply, meanwhile B’s response remains an active thread. In some versions, user B uses their newfound invisibility to respond to other comments from user A, which user A cannot see nor respond to. User B now has last word in any and all threads shared between the users.
Since its probably not going to be very productive to argue whether or not this occurs, or is being used as an active manipulation strategy, so I’ll take another angle here: Reddit’s block feature is designed in a way that empowers the blocker to exhibit asymmetric control over narratives in threads where they’ve blocked other users. Unlike other evasive maneuvers on Reddit like the infamous ninja edit, there is no public audit trail to indicate where user blocks are filtering the information presented to different users.
Now there are situations where blocking is absolutely necessary for safety or privacy concerns, but that isn’t what I’m commenting on (these also probably account for less than 1% of blocked users, but again not the point here). To change my view, explain to me why Reddit’s asymmetric block feature is the best possible or only viable way to implement this feature.