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Is blocking a form of cancel culture?

With all the discussion about freedom of speech on social media, and whether deplatforming someone violates their first amendment rights, the issue of blocking never comes up. Right after Trump lost the election, several of my Facebook friends opened Parler accounts, so out of curiosity, I opened one myself. I found it to be an almost pure right-wing echo chamber. After posting a comment on the Three Percenters page, they blocked me immediately. I found it ironic that people who presumably opened Parler accounts because they didn't like the moderation on Facebook or Twitter, didn't see the contradiction in their own moderation of people who posted on their page.

Of course, I've also been blocked by people on Facebook, as well as here on Similar Worlds. The idea behind blocking is that users should be able to avoid people or topics they find objectionable; instead of having to see them and willfully ignore them, they don't have to see them at all. For example, I'm aware of people on here who routinely block everyone who follows certain fetish groups.

One consequence of unmoderated sites like Parler and Gab is that they tend to turn into abusive right-wing cesspools. More closely moderated sites like Quora tend to be more balanced, and users who engage in hate speech are kicked off. Although, Quora has deteriorated in recent years, with most questions these days being about current events ("what do you think of Joe Biden's latest..."), and they now allow people to use aliases, when using anything other than your real name would get you kicked off the site. Quora also allows "muting," which unlike blocking, allows you to see the other person's posts and comment on them, but doesn't allow them to comment on your posts.

I also have an account on Nextdoor, an app to connect with people in the same neighborhood. What's interesting about Nextdoor is that blocking is not an option - if you don't want to see someone's posts, all you can do is close your account. Interestingly, most of the conversations are low-key, non-confrontational, and deal with quality of life issues (like the new convenience store going up on the corner, the explosion in the number of homeless, and wildlife sightings, to name a few). Most of the political discussion before the last election was about the contest between the incumbent alderman and his challenger. Of course, people also have to use their real names on Nextdoor.

The concern with deplatforming is that because some social media providers have become so popular and pervasive, that not being able to post on them is a severe limitation. Nobody would care if a politician was banned from Similar Worlds, for example. On the other hand, Facebook and Twitter shouldn't be subjected to stricter regulation just because they're more successful than their competition, when all they're doing is enforcing the ToS that everyone agrees to when they join the site. But it's hypocritical to complain about "cancel culture" if you engage in it yourself by blocking people.
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