Is content moderation a dead end? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#111

Post by lifeisstillgood » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #22

Sigh. A "certain level of bad behaviour on the internet and on social might just be inevitable" has been an excuse since the beginning. I worked on the first web-based chat, bianca.com, and I heard it back then. More recently, I worked on anti-abuse at Twitter a few years back and hear the same talking point. Now I work on the problem at a not-for-profit, and it's still a talking point. Ignoring that the social media…

Ok, so you have a lot of experience of this subject - would you mind suggesting your preferred approach(es) to moderation? What can work?

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#112

Post by teddyh » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:01 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,…

That is a nightmarish vision for a lot of non-“assh*le” people:

https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Re...

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#113

Post by lifeisstillgood » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

>>> One could also think of big European cities before modern policing - 18th century London or Paris were awash with sin and prone to mob violence, because they were cities.

Is the solution in the article? Do we simply need to recognise that as all society is online we now need online police? Online Community support officers (UK police adjuncts (think teaching assistants).

I suspect there is an overlap with the "defund the police" movement and the notion that we need to take away a lot of policing functions that are not actually violence / crime related - eg mental health. Social work is .. a lot of work.

Edit: It's worth noting that there are ~24 million or more police officers whose job description simply did not exist before Sir Robert Peel. That's a bigger number than i imagined !

wow: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/list-of-countries-by-num...

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#114

Post by watwut » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

simmanian wrote: post #95

alex_g wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clubhouse is not a great example of a platform that handles abuse properly. Putting the moderation burden on people is also not a solution, it's duct tape.

>Putting the moderation burden on people I don't think GP is saying we should put the moderation burden on people. When you accept that there is no objective definition of right or wrong, you begin to see that perhaps there are ways for people to self-organize on the internet according to their values rather than being shoved into the same box like we often do today. Many people are looking for ways to efficiently an…

One big party of issue is people deliberately going out of way to harass those they want to leave. And it is not new tactic, or was going on for years.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#115

Post by seriousquestion » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

alex_g wrote: post #87

miki123211 wrote: post #80

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…

Clubhouse is not a great example of a platform that handles abuse properly. Putting the moderation burden on people is also not a solution, it's duct tape.

The rooms aren't created by Clubhouse, so it makes sense for the creator of the room to moderate it according to the goals of their particular room. It's not a burden because it's not an open forum like HN or Reddit, where anyone can talk. The moderators have to specifically choose who gets to speak and can simply drop them back to the audience if a problem.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#116

Post by Viliam1234 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:15 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,…

Today an algorithm can mistakenly throw my legitimate e-mails into Spam folder. Tomorrow, it will be able to throw me into Spam folder.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#117

Post by Viliam1234 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

nxpnsv wrote: post #40

I'd love seeing an anonymous peer review approach, to post anything you need to review X other posts. Until there are N accepts posts are invisible. I think it could work, but I am sure HN can tell me how I am wrong :)

In other words, before posting you need to randomly click on X other posts, and to make your posts visible, you need to have N accounts. I believe I could write such script in an afternoon.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#118

Post by alex_g » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

seriousquestion wrote: post #115

alex_g wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clubhouse is not a great example of a platform that handles abuse properly. Putting the moderation burden on people is also not a solution, it's duct tape.

The rooms aren't created by Clubhouse, so it makes sense for the creator of the room to moderate it according to the goals of their particular room. It's not a burden because it's not an open forum like HN or Reddit, where anyone can talk. The moderators have to specifically choose who gets to speak and can simply drop them back to the audience if a problem.

Yeah but if the goal of the room is to foment hatred and target harassment at an individual who isn't in the room, that's still abuse.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#119

Post by watwut » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #78

> 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 hooku…

Driving them underground makes them weaker and less influential. I don't need them to be known. I want them weak.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#120

Post by Viliam1234 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

Moderating a forum where anyone can post is playing whack-a-mole, especially if registering the new account is simple.

One possible approach is something like Stack Exchange does: new users acquire their rights gradually. New accounts can only do little damage (post an answer that appears at the bottom of the list, and is made even less visible when someone downvotes it), and if they produce bad content, they will never acquire more rights.

Another possible approach would be some vouching system: moderator invites their friends, the friends can invite their friends, everyone needs to have a sponsor. (You can retract your invitation of someone, and unless someone else becomes their sponsor, they lose access. You can proactively become a co-sponsor of existing users. Users inactive for one year automatically retract all their invitations.) When a user is banned, their sponsor also suffers some penalty, such as losing the right to invite people for one year.

There are probably other solutions. The idea is that accounts that were easy to create should be even easier to remove.