@downey ...apply a custom restriction on those users, so while your standard "separation" setting is larger, you might choose to apply a smaller setting for those specific users. Fewer of their contacts can read you and reply to you and you see fewer posts from their network.
There's a privacy question, I think, about displaying that social connection information. This is all just very much a thought experiment. But it would address problem behaviour the same way human networks do—and at scale.