Is content moderation a dead end? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#71

Post by asciident » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

proc0 wrote: post #67

justbored123 wrote: post #62

This is extremely short sighted. The complete opposite is more likely to be true. Privacy is almost dead and soon it will be almost impossible to hide your real identity on the internet and thus avoid consequences for your actions. That will allow companies to black list you across the internet, so if you are an a-hole in lets say Facebook by harassing people, doxing them, do child grooming, scams/fake advertisement,…

> That will allow companies to black list you across the internet Thus giving full control of people to private entities that are increasingly not held accountable by anything or anyone. Why would we want a private entity, not elected by the people, to decide our morality? Enforcing morality is dangerous and arguably immoral since it uses force to align people's thinking, which treats everyone like children that are…

Like the credit bureaus? Seems like they've been doing this for decades already.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#72

Post by da_big_ghey » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

PicassoCTs wrote: post #10

Years ago, i suggested a algorithmic approach to moderation to a Open Source project i contribute too. They ultimately went another way (classic moderation), but the idea was pretty neat. You basically create a feudal vouching system, were highly engaged community members, vouch for others, who again vouch for others. If people in this "Dharma-tree" accumulate problematic behaviour points, the structure at first, bub…

This is much like how the private torrenting trackers are doing, but no very number of points. So maybe is existing some precedence for some system in this like.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#73

Post by dane-pgp » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

karpierz wrote: post #27

cortesoft wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if there is a severe penalty for vouching for bad people, but not much gain for vouching for someone, will you end up with no one wanting to vouch for anyone else?

Generally the benefit of vouching for someone is that they join the community, and you personally want them to join the community.

Another reason to vouch for someone is that you trust their judgement and want them to have more power in the system to hide content that you personally don't want to see.

It's true that this will lead to echo chambers, but by looking at vouching relationships rather than the contents of posts, it should be easier to detect the echo chambers and give people the opportunity to expand their horizons.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#74

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

justbored123 wrote: post #62

This is extremely short sighted. The complete opposite is more likely to be true. Privacy is almost dead and soon it will be almost impossible to hide your real identity on the internet and thus avoid consequences for your actions. That will allow companies to black list you across the internet, so if you are an a-hole in lets say Facebook by harassing people, doxing them, do child grooming, scams/fake advertisement,…

[deleted]

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#75

Post by dang » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

proc0 wrote: post #70

anyfoo wrote: post #4

Obviously not, since we’re discussing it on a site with content moderation right now that, in my opinion, works much better than sites without.

It's only under control, I think, because it's very specific in terms of content. The weakness many social networks have is that it's basically an open platform for any discussion, and that makes it harder to put boundaries around. It makes sense to heavily restrict subject matters on sites with specialized content but general social networks are still facing the issues mentioned in the article, IMHO.

I agree that being specific about content makes things easier, but HN is not so specific. Anything intellectually interesting is on topic (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and that makes for a lot of long, difficult explanations - e.g.:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#76

Post by dang » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

yesOkButt wrote: post #5

anyfoo wrote: post #4

Obviously not, since we’re discussing it on a site with content moderation right now that, in my opinion, works much better than sites without.

HN is hardly as diverse a site to moderate as YouTube and Reddit Should all forums rules conform to HN?

Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#77

Post by foerbert » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #50

PicassoCTs wrote: post #10

Years ago, i suggested a algorithmic approach to moderation to a Open Source project i contribute too. They ultimately went another way (classic moderation), but the idea was pretty neat. You basically create a feudal vouching system, were highly engaged community members, vouch for others, who again vouch for others. If people in this "Dharma-tree" accumulate problematic behaviour points, the structure at first, bub…

Yes, I'm convinced at some point we're going to figure out an algorithm to solve content moderation with some version of crowdsourcing like this based on reputation, though I'd prefer a system based on building up trustworthiness through one's actions (consistently flagging similarly to already-trustworthy people). But the challenge is still the same one you describe -- what do you do with competing "groups" or subco…

I wonder if you could try to address this by limiting who can flag a given post.

Even just doing it very naively and choosing, say, a fifth of your users for each post and only giving them the option to flag it might help significantly. It would probably make it more difficult to motivate the members of these problematic groups to actually coordinate if the average expected result was the inability to participate.

And you could do it in more sophisticated ways too, and form flag-capable subsets of users for each post based on estimates about their similarity, as well as any other metrics you come up with - such as selecting more "trustworthy" users more often. This would help gather a range of dissimilar opinions. If lots of dissimilar users are flagging some content, that seems like it should be a strong signal.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#78

Post by gumby » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

> Anyone can find their tribe, ...but the internet is also a way for Nazis or jihadis to find each other.

I'm delighted that the net is a way for nazis and other jihadis to find each other. It's a global honeypot. Driving them underground doesn't make them go away, just harder to find. We saw this with the January 6th crowd.

We also saw this with the publicity-seeking attorneys general who got rid of craigslist hookups and back page: sex trafficking continues but is harder to find and prosecute.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#79

Post by gumby » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

proc0 wrote: post #67

justbored123 wrote: post #62

This is extremely short sighted. The complete opposite is more likely to be true. Privacy is almost dead and soon it will be almost impossible to hide your real identity on the internet and thus avoid consequences for your actions. That will allow companies to black list you across the internet, so if you are an a-hole in lets say Facebook by harassing people, doxing them, do child grooming, scams/fake advertisement,…

> That will allow companies to black list you across the internet Thus giving full control of people to private entities that are increasingly not held accountable by anything or anyone. Why would we want a private entity, not elected by the people, to decide our morality? Enforcing morality is dangerous and arguably immoral since it uses force to align people's thinking, which treats everyone like children that are…

I assumed that the GP poster wasn't endorsing this...but perhaps they were?

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#80

Post by miki123211 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

I think we're looking at the issue in a completely wrong way.

There's no objective definition of right or wrong in content moderation. Right and wrong is subjective, especially across cultures, and moderation should be subjective too.

I believe end users should have the choice to adopt blocklists, Adblock style. Those lists could contain single posts, accounts, or even specific words. A lot of content (like flashing images or spoilers) does not merit deleting, but there are users with good reasons not to see it. They should be given such an option.

There should be a few universal, built-in blocklists for obvious spam, phishing, child porn etc, but all the rest should be moderated subjectively.

A Clubhouse-stule invite system (with unlimited invites) would also be a good idea. It would make it much harder for spammers, cammers and troll farms to make new social media accounts.