timeline splitting block

• 2024-11-16
• series : 3/6 in liberatory computing : [previous] [next]
• tags : game dev , security , queer

safety features aren't strong enough

when i've visited social spaces in virtual reality , i am often harassed to an extreme degree because my "tranny faggot" voice outs me as a subhuman worthy of death , according to them . some of the insufficiencies i've noticed in current implementations of blocking , reporting , & votekicking are as follows :

• there are typically too many bigots in the room for a votekick to get the majority , rendering it fruitless against the pervasiveness of transmisogyny
• sometimes people will follow me around & cover my face with their hands eor another object so i can't see the menu to block them . eor they will scream in my ears so i can't focus
• in some games i can't reliably obtain a person's username in order to block them , because there's an easy way for them to hide it from me temporarily , like running away
• if they notice that i'm planning to block them , because i'm navigating to that portion of the menu , ior i've just blocked one of their collaborators , they may votekick me in response . in some games , being kicked resets everything that was open on the menu , so there's no way to find that person again to complete the block
• even if i were able to , blocking 5+ people every time i join a new lobby would get rather tedious using the current menu interfaces
• when i block someone , they can still affect the environment around them . this could entail writing hateful messages on objects , throwing things at me , destroying things i'm trying to create , distracting people i actually want to talk to , etc.
• when other people can't see who i've blocked , i inevitably waste time explaining how i can't hear the vile drivel that blocked people are spraying at me . this gets confusing when there are a lot of blocked & unblocked people in the same location
• reports i've made haven't resulted in much action , & if they do , it usually takes at least a week

trivial fixes

potential patches for some of the above issues :

• don't make social consensus necessary to completely remove someone from your environment
• allow hiding & muting your surroundings while using the menu
• ensure it's easy to see the username of anyone you're interacting with
• add an option to share who you've blocked with others , along with your reasons for each block
• allow blocking discreetly & in bulk
• add a shortcut so you can block faster

a more potent kind of block

my experiences have motivated me to think of an entirely different way to implement blocking .

suppose you're in the oasis , & you decide to block someone named S because they're telling you to kill yourself . in this thought experiment , blocking simply hides their avatar & audio from you . after being blocked , they draw the message "kill yourself" on an empty whiteboard .

should the message be visible to you ?

if you can see it , then S has successfully worked around the blocking mechanism , even if it's to a lesser degree than before . they've still violated your boundary .

if you can't see it , then how would the oasis hide the message from you ? other people may still want to see S's influence on the world . this would require the world to be split into two separate states at once , which could be thought of as different timelines .

so , if you perform a timeline splitting block ( TSB ) on S , you will enter new timeline forked off from the current one . everybody else will remain in the original timeline , but they will be given the option to join you .

timeline divergence

a cross-timeline "overlay" could show people's avatars & audio from the original timeline on top of your fork , but this would only be useful temporarily . divergence between timelines over time would degrade cross-timeline communication about the world .

as time goes on , the pressure for people to pick a side in conflicts would increase . a TSB is intended as a last resort , because it removes most of the blocked person's ability to causally affect you , & possibly others .

sophisticated tools for merging timelines à la git could prevent people from losing changes when switching timelines .

choosing timelines

another question : how will people who were less involved in the conflict know which timeline to join ? they would need to ask around , if it mattered to them . people would have the ability to visit any timeline they're not blocked in , to assist inquiry . additionally , the menu could have a place to write your reason for a TSB , that would be shown in notifications , ior possibly a history log .