Ability to Restrict users

[DraconicNEO]

Requirements

• Is this a feature request? For questions or discussions use https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support
• Did you check to see if this issue already exists?
• Is this only a feature request? Do not put multiple feature requests in one issue.
• Is this a backend issue? Use the lemmy-ui repo for UI / frontend issues.

Is your proposal related to a problem?

When there are malicious users on Lemmy such as bots spamming or users harassing. There is no way for the user to adequately protect themselves from these malicious users, blocking them doesn't actually stop said malicious users, only hides them from the user, which won't be adequate in many forms of harassment (such as another user spreading harmful misinformation under their posts, or calls for harassment towards the user, nor does it help with spam bots that may comment malicious links or calls to harassment on the user's post.

Moderators and Admins are the only line of defense but many moderators are slow or don't take appropriate actions against said malicious users. There needs to be a fallback mechanism to allow for users to protect themselves.

Describe the solution you'd like.

Implement a mechanism to restrict a malicious user, such action would prevent the malicious user from commenting on that user's posts or replying to user's comments in a chain (allow replies to after two users who aren't the restricting user in the chain.) Unlike other Two-way systems though don't Hide the content from the user who has been restricted because it doesn't make sense to prevent others from seeing content that is public (nothing on Lemmy is private) and it doesn't seem right to hide content from others without their decision. It would also prevent the user from sending messages to the account (not hiding them from the restricting user, they wouldn't be allowed to send them to the user). Users restricted would still be able to favorite posts. I don't really feel that way about interaction (voting or commenting) though because you can be banned from communities and instances, interaction isn't like viewing/reading, it is something that can (and arguably should) be taken away in certain circumstances.

Restricting can also be limited so that restriction expires after a set time such as 6 months, so that users wrongfully restricted won't be restricted forever but users rightfully restricted would likely be banned in that time frame, as malicious users often are. Admins can also take action against users who abuse the system either by banning them, or just removing restricts from the person in question.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

N/A

Additional context

Related Issues:
#4041
#1832