The Tarantula, Praying Mantis, And The Toad - GDI 4106

In the past I have done a manual version of Twitter's new unfollow option. I blocked the user, then unblocked them again. This did back fire on me once when it glitched, I'd clicked unblocked, but the person was still blocked. On my account is was showing the option to block them, but when they tried to follow me it was showing that they were blocked. I resolved this by blocking and unblocking again, then they were able to refollow me. Context: The initial unfollow was during the time of the Brexit referendum, when they were aggressively commenting on people's tweets, so didn't want them to see mine. A few months later they asked why I had blocked them, I said that I hadn't and showed them that the block option was available on their profile for me.

Martin Rix

I wanted to leave a more serious comment, as I'm listening further into this episode. It relates to whether or not platforms should be responsible for comments made by users. We cannot reasonably be expected to be responsible for the actions of others. Each individual must be responsible for their own actions, and they should solely be held accountable for them. If we coerce someone into action, that is a separate argument. If we merely provide the platform for a conversation, then each participant is solely responsible for the comments they leave. It would be impossible to have it any other way. It would require a moderator for every conversation, and that destroys any semblance of privacy and autonomy. Who then moderates the moderators to make sure they are doing their job correctly? Who is the final arbiter? Do we clog all the court systems with cases involving these types of disputes? Freedom of speech is freedom of speech; and freedom is only possible through self-responsibility. You alone are responsible for your actions. If I'm the host of a party, and one of the attendees stabs and kills another attendee, am I to be held responsible as an accessory to murder because they were at a party that I hosted? Unless it can be proven that I directly coerced the incident that resulted in the harm or death of someone else, then I should share no part of the blame for their actions. That is an extreme example, but it's always going to be good intentions with bad results to try to hold one person responsible for the actions of another. It simply cannot practically be done, nor should it even be tried, because we absolve others of their own responsibilities when we take those responsibilities to be our own. We take away the consequences of the actions of individuals, when we do not hold them solely accountable for their own actions. The only way to truly deter bad behavior is to hold the individuals responsible for it accountable -- not to hold Bob accountable for something that Joe did on his platform or at his party.