Abstract: A method and apparatus for selectively publishing user-provided content items to other users is provided. In some instances, the content items are excluded from being rendered to a user according to one or more blocks that block the user from viewing content items provided by certain members. Managing blocks and excluding content is more efficiently achieved through the implementation of a Bloom filter that contains the blocked pairs of users. The Bloom filter can, using few computing resources, be queried to determine if a block does not exist between two users. If the Bloom filter returns an indication that a block might exist, the apparatus determines if a block is stored in an LRU cache of recently retrieved blocks. If the LRU cache does not identify a block, then a call to retrieve one or more blocked pairs is made to a data storage.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for selectively publishing user-provided content items to other users is provided. In some instances, the content items are excluded from being rendered to a user according to one or more blocks that block the user from viewing content items provided by certain members. Managing blocks and excluding content is more efficiently achieved through the implementation of a Bloom filter that contains the blocked pairs of users. The Bloom filter can, using few computing resources, be queried to determine if a block does not exist between two users. If the Bloom filter returns an indication that a block might exist, the apparatus determines if a block is stored in an LRU cache of recently retrieved blocks. If the LRU cache does not identify a block, then a call to retrieve one or more blocked pairs is made to a data storage.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for selectively publishing user-provided content items to other users is provided. In some instances, the content items are excluded from being rendered to a user according to one or more blocks that block the user from viewing content items provided by certain members. Managing blocks and excluding content is more efficiently achieved through the implementation of a Bloom filter that contains the blocked pairs of users. The Bloom filter can, using few computing resources, be queried to determine if a block does not exist between two users. If the Bloom filter returns an indication that a block might exist, the apparatus determines if a block is stored in an LRU cache of recently retrieved blocks. If the LRU cache does not identify a block, then a call to retrieve one or more blocked pairs is made to a data storage.