AIBU to think people on MN should stop directly engaging with you once you’ve asked them to?

You can't stop people replying to what you have said especially if you just make an assertion as fact without any evidence people are bound to argue about it.
What you can do if you want to engage in any conversation is stop replying.
It's different if someone is being abusive but if they are just arguing against something you said and asking you to back up your opinion with facts I don't think you can object

I don’t understand the tech, but I recall being on a forum where blocking meant that the other person couldn’t view your posts and vice versa.

Blocking is unhealthy. It leads to threads full of gaps that make no sense to some users because of multiple hidden posts, echo chambers that foster extremism because only posts egging them on are seen, and miscommunication.

It you can't cope with someone replying to your comments, don't read them. It's not obligatory.

Quote : " What a petty life they must have!"

Nah. In this case the OP made a statement on another thread that was proven not true in a court. Other posters wanted evidence from the OP for that statement.

I would humbly say it is far from "a petty life" to point out if someone is factually wrong. I would go so far as to say it is a righteous thing to do.

Rest of what you say I agree with. There are a couple of posters I just don't engage with, and it is really easy to do.

You have all the power as you can simply choose not to engage. So YABU to not control yourself.

No. They were trying to piece it together with other info I’d given.

They’d previously claimed to have worked in a school and their posts made it clear that they were lying - too much erroneous info about the school system.

They also claimed to be a woman. Again, patently untrue.

Some people have to have the last word - and the concept of people having different but valid views, or with ‘agreeing to disagree’, is alien to them. They need you to acknowledge that they are right before they can let it go.

OP whilst you’re at it, you could ask MN to think about taking down libellous accusations of serious crime, such as murder

That just happens to have been posted almost immediately after you repeatedly asked someone to stop addressing you directly on a thread about Amanda Knox.

Right. Of course it is. 🙄

What is? Disagreeing with someone?

That's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it?

I can’t stand it when people say this. Do they even know what an echo chamber is? You think blocking someone who annoys you on Mumsnet means you live in an echo chamber and indeed might become an extremist??

Yes, I do know what an echo chamber is.
If you go around blocking everyone who holds a different view to you as they're "annoying you" (whether that be on race, sex, gender, homosexuality or whatever) you're going to start only seeing people/replies who agree with you, and affirm you, which isn't healthy. As I said, I think it's important to see others points of views, even if you don't agree with them.

Agree with this.

I used to read Breitbart news a lot, really just for the comments. And Breitbart would post a story, often racist or whatever, and you could watch the nature of the comments escalate like a snowball. Then some brave "normal" person would post a comment, and that would be followed by a string of replies,saying BLOCKED, BLOCKED, BLOCKED.

Blocking just means that people who maybe should be challanged for what they say on a public forum, can easily avoid the challanges. And the snowball can get bigger.

We’re not talking about people who hold a different view to you. We are talking about people who annoy you.

and even if you did block everyone who had a different view on MN- so what? Most people get plenty of stimulation outside of MN

Define "annoy."
You can't. Your definition of annoy might be someone telling you that you're wrong for not liking sprouts and banging on about it for pages (or insert some other banal topic)
Others might block those with differing views on race/sex/gender/sexuality like I said as they think they're "annoying" or "argumentative' or "boring" or whatever.
People don't just block those who you deem annoying, as we'd all have different ideas/motives as to what that is.

Quote "We’re not talking about people who hold a different view to you. We are talking about people who annoy you."

Annoy you by having a different view perhaps ?

I think it might destroy discourse if a block function was added. Consider a "Reform" thread as an example. It could split. One half blocking the other half, and it would end up with different challanges not being seen, nor replied to. And the other members of that "half" doing their own thing oblivious to what is going on around them.

We’re making the same point.

if someone doesn’t want to hear say GC posters on MN and decides to block them (not because they’re annoyed) they have every right to. They don’t want to hear their viewpoints, don’t want to get irritated and stressed and that’s fine.

you don’t have to read stuff you hate in order to avoid an “echo chamber”

Okay...That's interesting. I didn't see the second deleted post, but I'll not be replying to that poster either.