Someone keeps replying to everything you say. Private messages land that you never asked for. A joke turns into a pattern, and the pattern turns into something you dread when you log on. It happens in every chat room on the internet. You don’t have to put up with it, and you don’t have to leave a room you enjoy either. Here is how ignoring, blocking and reporting actually work, which one to use, and how to keep a record if things get serious.<\/p>\n
People use these words as if they meant the same thing. They don’t, and picking the right one saves you a lot of frustration.<\/p>\n
A simple way to think about it: ignoring fixes your<\/em> problem, reporting fixes the room’s<\/em> problem. Someone who is just tiresome gets ignored. Someone who insults, threatens or goes after several people gets ignored and<\/strong> reported.<\/p>\n On LibertiChat the tool is called Ignore. Once you switch it on for someone, their messages stop showing up for you. There is nothing to set up first: the site is free, runs in your browser with no sign-up and no download, and you get in with just a nickname, so the safety tools are there from your very first minute. The step-by-step version, with every button explained, is on the chat room help page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ignore is the right call most of the time. Think of the person who asks \u00ab\u00a0where are you from?\u00a0\u00bb for the fifth time, the one who floods the room with the same line, or the one who won’t take a hint in private. Two seconds and they are gone from your view. No argument, no explanation owed, and the room carries on around you as normal.<\/p>\n The question everyone asks: \u00ab\u00a0Will they know I ignored them?\u00a0\u00bb No. Nothing pops up on their side. They keep typing as usual, and everyone else in the room still reads them. Only your screen is filtered.<\/p>\n In practice, that means:<\/p>\n This quietness works in your favour. There is nothing for a troublemaker to argue with, nothing to screenshot and mock, no reaction to feed on. As far as they can tell, you have simply gone quiet.<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0Don’t feed the trolls\u00a0\u00bb is old internet advice, and it is still right. Someone who sets out to annoy people lives on reactions. An angry reply, a long explanation, even \u00ab\u00a0leave me alone\u00a0\u00bb tells them it is working. They come back, usually harder.<\/p>\n Silence gives them nothing to hold on to and no audience to play to. After a few attempts that go nowhere, most of them drift off to bother someone else. If you want to say something, say it once and calmly, \u00ab\u00a0no thanks\u00a0\u00bb is plenty, then ignore. No second message, no debate.<\/p>\n The classic trap is replying to get the last word. That is exactly what the other person is after. It also muddies things for moderators, who then see two people arguing instead of one person harassing another.<\/p>\n A private message is not a summons. You don’t owe anyone a reply or a reason. If a conversation feels off, close the window. If they keep coming back, Ignore ends it.<\/p>\n Your webcam is under your control too. There are six visibility settings:<\/p>\n If someone makes you uneasy, switch to restricted or friends only and they can no longer watch without your say-so. The same goes for an invitation to a game of chess, Scrabble or 8-ball pool: you can simply say no. Declining is not rude. It is your call.<\/p>\n A precise report gets handled faster and with more confidence. Moderators can’t watch every room live, so what you hand them matters. Before reporting, write down:<\/p>\n Take the screenshot before<\/em> you ignore the person. Once they are filtered, their new messages no longer appear for you, which makes keeping a record harder. On Windows, the Print Screen key or the Snipping Tool does the job; on a Mac, Shift, Command and 4 together; on a phone, the usual button combination. Keep the images in their own folder, with the date in each file name.<\/p>\n Then describe what happened without commentary: \u00ab\u00a0At 9.40pm in the Lounge room, User123 sent me three abusive private messages.\u00a0\u00bb Moderators can act on facts far more easily than on \u00ab\u00a0this guy is creepy\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n Reports go to the moderators, who are actual people working in ranks. They read, check, and decide. Depending on how serious it is, the outcome ranges from a temporary ban to a permanent one, from a single room or from the whole site. Insults, threats, harassment, shocking content and scams are all fair grounds.<\/p>\n Reporting is not snitching. The person bothering you is very likely bothering others too, sometimes people who are younger or more vulnerable. One report on its own might look minor; several that tell the same story give a clear picture.<\/p>\n Don’t turn it into a weapon, though. A disagreement, an opinion you dislike or a joke that fell flat is not harassment. Moderators can tell the difference, and false reports eat up time they need elsewhere. If you are the one who got removed and you think it was unfair, read what to do when you are banned from a chat room<\/a>.<\/p>\n Members can open their own rooms, and whoever creates a room runs it. The creator can ban someone from that room and lift the ban later, without waiting for a moderator. That is handy for keeping the tone of a chess club, a late-night regulars’ corner or a room for fans of a TV series.<\/p>\n If you run a room, use that power with care: ban for behaviour, not for opinions, and lift the ban once the message has sunk in. If you are a regular member and the room owner is the problem, you can still report to the site’s moderators. Site-wide rules apply everywhere, member rooms included.<\/p>\n Harassment is about repetition and pressure: messages that keep coming after you have said no, someone creating new nicknames to get back at you, threats, or personal details about you being passed around. At that point, there are three steps.<\/p>\n Most countries have an official service for reporting illegal content online, and the police treat threats and blackmail seriously. In the UK, for example, you can contact the police on 101 for non-emergencies; anywhere in the world, if you feel in immediate danger, call your local emergency number. Your screenshots then become part of the file.<\/p>\n Pressure that starts after an online \u00ab\u00a0relationship\u00a0\u00bb is often part of a scam, and the pattern is well known: see our guide to the 9 warning signs of a romance scam<\/a>. And if you suspect a profile isn’t a real person at all, here is how to spot fake profiles and bots in chat rooms<\/a>.<\/p>\n No, they get no notification. They keep posting and others still see them; only your view is filtered.<\/p>\n Ignore people who are merely annoying. Report as well when there are insults, threats, harassment or a scam attempt, so moderators can ban the person.<\/p>\n Ignore the new name, take a screenshot and report it, mentioning that it is the same person. Switching nicknames to get round a refusal gives moderators one more reason to act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Someone keeps replying to everything you say. Private messages land that you never asked for. A joke turns into a pattern, and the pattern turns into something you dread when you log on. It happens in every chat room on the internet. You don’t have to put up with it, and you don’t have to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"description":"How to block someone in a chat room, ignore them or report a user: what they see, the evidence to keep and where to turn if it becomes harassment.","title":"Block Someone in a Chat Room: Ignore, Report, Move On - Le blog de libertichat"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guides-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libertichat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How to block someone in a chat room with the Ignore button<\/h2>\n
What the ignored person sees, and what they don’t<\/h2>\n
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Why replying to a troll keeps them going<\/h2>\n
Turning down private messages, invitations and webcam requests<\/h2>\n
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Collect evidence before you report a user<\/h2>\n
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How to report a user, and what moderators do next<\/h2>\n
Rooms created by members: the owner has a say<\/h3>\n
When it becomes harassment: keep, report, go further<\/h2>\n
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Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n
Does someone know when I ignore them?<\/h3>\n
Should I ignore or report?<\/h3>\n
What if the same person comes back under a new nickname?<\/h3>\n