Mechanism underlying the predictive association between received blocks and future blocking

Determine the mechanism underlying the association between the number of recent blocks received by a target and the likelihood that the target will be blocked, distinguishing harmful conduct from visibility, controversy, polarization, coordinated exclusion, or combinations of these factors.

Background

The study finds that the number of recent blocks received by a target is the strongest individual predictor across the evaluated directed block-prediction settings. Although this feature substantially improves predictive performance, the analysis is observational and cannot determine what behavioral or social process generates the association.

Several explanations remain possible: targets may engage in harmful conduct, may simply be more visible, may be controversial or polarized, or may be subject to coordinated or collective exclusion. Resolving which mechanisms account for the association is important because using prior blocks as evidence of harmfulness could reinforce unfair exclusion in user-facing moderation tools.

References

Recent received-block count therefore contains substantial predictive information, but the mechanism underlying this association is unclear.

— Who's Blocking Whom? Candidate Generation and Block Prediction on Bluesky  (2609.04923 - Galbiati et al., 4 Sep 2026) in Section “Results,” subsection “Experimental design changes which features matter”