Micro.blog • Hacker News Board

Re: Micro.blog

#151

Post by apple4ever » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

wowamit wrote: post #86

bun_at_work wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By making it a paid service, the author effectively kills two of those issues straight away - No ads and reduced fake news issues. The ads claim is obvious, they don't host ads because they don't need the revenue. However, that fake news is defeated is less obvious. Fake news largely spreads on free platforms by bot armies, which need to pay $5/mo per bot, making them highly expensive and reducing the likelihood they…

In addition, there are no global timelines or auto-generated trends or retweets at this point. There is Discover feed [1] which is manually curated. So, in case you do see the fake or spam posts, that would be primarily because you follow the accounts. There are also mechanisms to block users which should address the replies spams. Edit: Added the link to discover feed, accessible without an account too. [1]: https:/…

I don't see the problem with retweets. Sure it can be used for bad, but also for good.

I think micro.blog is worse for failing to have easily ways of sharing content.

Re: Micro.blog

#152

Post by grkvlt » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:47 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #2

> Today's social networks are broken. Hate and harassment are too common. Fake news spreads unchecked. How will micro.blog be different? Apps start small and friendly, but if you invite everyone in you'll have the same issues unless you have a technology or policy strategy that differs from the current social networks. Would love to see this succeed, but need more details before I buy in.

Also interested to see how this solves the 'hate and harassment' problem. Will the USD 5.00 fees cover things like background checks for extreme viewpoints, handle verifying real identities to check against blacklists, and pay for moderators to review posts for harassing content, monitor user complaints, and adjudicate between parties that feel they have been wronged or unfairly treated. Then there's fake news - they could use ML algorithms or pay for human fact checkers to verify posts, but the problem of dealing with mistakes and false positives is still there.

Like the previous comment states, this might be easy to handle when the users are a small group of like-minded friends, and maybe simple ad hoc processes will do for a while after that. The problem is, these sites are only useful when they have a much larger user base, but scale will also bring exactly the same expensive and difficult problems as FB, Twitter etc.

Something to bear in mind as well is that online hate and harassment is not new. Pretty much immediately after the first electronic forums or message systems were created and made available to end users, the problems started. The issue is with people, not the technology, so technological solutions are not the answer...

Re: Micro.blog

#153

Post by ramblerman » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 10:39 AM UTC

deyan wrote: post #22

Lots of negativity here, as is unfortunately typical at HN far too often these days. Especially given that this project is what HN is supposed to be about - done by a lone hacker with help from volunteers, trying to create a different and hopefully better social media. Sure, it may or may not work, it has all sorts of pros and cons, but I’d vote for being open-minded and constructive rather than cynical from the get…

> Lots of negativity here, as is unfortunately typical at HN far too often these days

As a long time HN user I disagree. Tech nerds, hackers by their nature cut to the point, and communicate quite directly.

You are essentially saying in your last sentence that you don't like it, but adding a full preamble to make sure your message sounds positive enough. That's not the norm of communication in this place.

And perhaps it should be, and will be. But from where I'm sitting, that is new. HN wasn't a safe space, or a beacon of positive communication in the past. It was a place for sharing ideas, and shooting down bad ones without too much fluff around it.