It's like how you can /ignore someone on IRC and phpbb, but nobody actually does. They only threaten it. Hell yes they want to be clued in when you open your mouth so they can bark back! Humans love it.
Look how many people waste their time responding to Donald Trump's tweets with things like "RESIGN!" They could unfollow Trump. But they choose to spend their precious time on earth bickering about Trump because it's pure entertainment.
What also happens though is that we kinda know this. The more astute/introspective people will realize Twitter isn't bringing out the best in us. Sam Harris lamented this a while back and was able to quit Twitter for a couple days before being driven back to the crack.
I find myself doing this on HN too. Ever read a headline like "Javascript sucks", know the arguments you'll find in the HN comments, and click in to respond to one? The whole reason I'm here is to socialize, so I don't think filtering can be very effective. I'm not going to filter out the very things that draw me like the opportunity to call someone out on the internet, which is the same reason why nobody uses the ignore feature on forums.
Nobody would use the block feature on Twitter if it didn't tell the other person you blocked them.
There are some bugs in basic human psychology that I'm not so sure technology is ready to solve. Maybe this is the Great Filter that no civilization can surpass in the Fermi paradox.
The block function makes it inconvenient for trolls to read your tweets and impossible for them to RT them for a pile on. It's a "last resort" before moving to a protected account (which can't be RTd at all)
It's like how you can /ignore someone on IRC and phpbb, but nobody actually does. They only threaten it. Hell yes they want to be clued in when you open your mouth so they can bark back! Humans love it.
Look how many people waste their time responding to Donald Trump's tweets with things like "RESIGN!" They could unfollow Trump. But they choose to spend their precious time on earth bickering about Trump because it's pure entertainment.
What also happens though is that we kinda know this. The more astute/introspective people will realize Twitter isn't bringing out the best in us. Sam Harris lamented this a while back and was able to quit Twitter for a couple days before being driven back to the crack.
I find myself doing this on HN too. Ever read a headline like "Javascript sucks", know the arguments you'll find in the HN comments, and click in to respond to one? The whole reason I'm here is to socialize, so I don't think filtering can be very effective. I'm not going to filter out the very things that draw me like the opportunity to call someone out on the internet, which is the same reason why nobody uses the ignore feature on forums.
Nobody would use the block feature on Twitter if it didn't tell the other person you blocked them.
There are some bugs in basic human psychology that I'm not so sure technology is ready to solve. Maybe this is the Great Filter that no civilization can surpass in the Fermi paradox.