Blocking someone on many online services these days just shadow bans them

Hey, some of us come from before Jow Forums and can string two thoughts together; with semicolons even!

And then they can report you and have your accounts banned, losing all your games.

Honestly, I have no problem with this.

I do have a problem with true (i.e., site-wide) shadow bans, as I believe a user of a service has a right to know when they've been banned from said service. But I don't see anything wrong with other individual users being able to put you on ignore without having to notify you of the fact.

the website's inbox would probably get flooded by people whining and throwing a tantrum and demanding to be unblocked, or complaining about censorship or something

Do you really think they'd want to lose a customer? Only idiots that refund purchases at the bank get their games and trophies taken away.

>I believe a user of a service has a right to know when they've been banned from said service.
None of these services guarantee a person on the other end to listen to you, though. A shadow ban leaves the services to you intact -- you can still use the site, it's just that nobody else has to hear you.

When I said "right," I didn't mean a legal right. I meant basic human decency.

And a shadow ban is not the same as nobody "having to" hear you: it's no one being able to. There's a difference. If people don't want to hear you, they can always ignore you (either by blocking you on the site, or the old-fashioned way by simply not reading your posts), but a shadow ban prevents even the people who might want to listen to you from seeing your posts, without either you or them knowing why. IMO, that is not right.

They can make another account and potentially harass you for blocking them then. I really like when things are done this way. It's why I often mute people instead of block them on Twitter. Depends on how useless I think you are and how much I want you to stfu forever.

>I meant basic human decency.
There's nothing indecent about it. You're dealing with a child who likely cannot process the meaning of the ban: "Your behavior is too immature for this platform and so we are showing you the door." They will think they are entitled to use the platform and do everything they can to break through that door.
By still allowing them entry you don't give them so obvious a target.

A further opinion, websites have no obligation at all to allow you to post on them. They can remove your posts for whatever reason they like. This is a good thing. The free hosting they provide to you is entirely at their discretion and they can feel free to remove your words at any time. I've felt upset because I've been banned, shadowbanned, had my posts deleted, and other such things. But I never felt like I should have some kind of legal recourse in such matters. If you use sites like Reddit or Facebook you are ceding control to them. If you are really worried about being censored you should never use them at all and instead host your own site. I know that the more controversial the content is the harder it is to find and keep hosting but it's not at all impossible.

>There's nothing indecent about it
This

The indecency comes when a user decides to act like an asshat, deserving of a ban. Yet, seeing how emotionally immature they are to begin with, the admin clearly knows that it's not worth triggering their fee-fees by telling them they're banned and for what reason. Just ban them outright.

I'd suggest to anyone that doesn't believe what you're saying to refresh Jow Forums.org/bans a few times throughout the day. Some of the more retarded posters among us get really pissy when they get banned and evade it to shit up the site further.

>discord prevents people from reacting to your post if you block them
>it's always the annoying people you need to block who spam reactions on literally everything
>they always start shit when they find out you blocked them
lol that's what I get for using this tranny sjw software just to talk to one of my small group of friends

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Except that not all shadow bans are used that way. Sure, it's most often used against users who are acting badly, but it can also be (and has been) used to silence inconvenient ideas.

Furthermore, a person who is banned, however immature they were acting, still deserves to know that they are banned (whether they deserve to know the reason is a separate question). To ban them and hide it from them so you don't have to deal with the inevitable appeal or whatever is lazy at best, and even risks sinking to their level (especially when it's essentially being used to end an argument).

Let me be clear: I'm not saying that services don't have the right to shut users up pretty much whenever they want to, or that anyone should feel entitled to use a service free of any restrictions on behavior. I'm only arguing that strict justice behooves a service provider to inform banned users at the very least of the fact that they are banned, if not necessarily the reasons for the ban.

>but it can also be (and has been) used to silence inconvenient ideas.

Your weak ego causing you to do nothing but spout your identity politics 24/7/365.24219878 does not make the content "inconvenient", it just makes you an annoying, predictable NPC who is of no value to anyone.

If you think identity politics are my thing, then you have badly misjudged me.

My choice of "inconvenient" was deliberately chosen to avoid left-right dichotomy or any other identification with specific ideologies. I simply mean that it's a known fact that the administrators of various sites have used shadow bans to silence opinions they don't agree with. I don't really care what those opinions are, only that the particular technique of specifically using shadow bans to suppress them is under-handed.

You realize that simply having an opinion doesn't make it valuable, right?
Note how if you'd stop spouting the ones you are right now you could be doing something productive instead.

>You realize that simply having an opinion doesn't make it valuable, right?
Of course.

And again, I'm not arguing for a right to be heard: I'm arguing for a right to be told by a site/service when you're banned from it. Full stop. That's all.

>Note how if you'd stop spouting the ones you are right now you could be doing something productive instead.
Who's the one here engaging in legitimate debate, and who's the one stooping to straw-man attacks ("spout your identity politics") and insults ("NPC")?

Meh.

It's not like that anymore buckaroo. It's easier than ever to get banned on anything. You can get expelled from school for saying there are two genders.

Is this real life?

What if you said that males have XY chromosomes and females have XX?

this plus if they know they've been banned they'll make a new account or find some other way to circumvent the ban.