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Is content moderation a dead end?

ben-evans.com

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Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#191

Post by u801e »

alex_g wrote: post #103
simmanian wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

"Right or wrong" maybe not, but for well managed communities on the internet, there are objective definitions for appropriate and inappropriate, based on shared values and context. If you leave it up to each individual to decide what is appropriate or inappropriate, and provide them with the tools to block content they consider inappropriate, that's a burden on them, because you're not taking care of it at the commun…

> If you leave it up to each individual to decide what is appropriate or inappropriate, and provide them with the tools to block content they consider inappropriate, that's a burden on them, because you're not taking care of it at the community level.

The assumptions behind having individuals decide what's appropriate or not are:

1. The majority of the community would make the same choices

2. Those posting what most feel is inappropriate content would not get any responses because no one would see it

3. Because of the lack of response, those posting inappropriate material would move on elsewhere and no longer post.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#192

Post by riskneutral »

> we require seat belts and safety standards, and speed limits, but don’t demand that cars be unable to exceed the speed limit.

That isn't how cars generally work. Without advanced electronic controls, it's not possible to build a car that can't exceed the speed limit. You can try to limit the acceleration but not the speed. It's basic physics. It's worrying that the author used it as an analogy (metaphor?) but doesn't seem to wonder why cars really don't have speed limits.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#193

Post by kiba »

alex_g wrote: post #163
pdonis wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious if the people falling for them are using email providers with quality spam filters. I'm curious why the people falling for them need a spam filter to recognize them as scams. I still see an occasional one slip through my email provider's spam filter, and I've never had any problem figuring out that they were scams.

Because not everyone has competent internet skills.

I don't think it's internet skills per se, given that scams exist since before the internet.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#194

Post by justbored123 »

marcusverus wrote: post #134
asciident wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is very different. Credit bureaus are amoral. They're just gathering data and doing math. GP is talking about a world where you can't shop on Amazon because you committed wrongthink on Twitter.

No, as long as you are paying I don't see that problem. Its only when you are getting "free" services were you are a product and not a costumer. People forget that corporations are there to make money and nothing else. All the rest is little more than theater. The reason that Twitter, Facebook, etc. bans you is because advertisers don't want to put money on the places you are because you are problematic. What's the use of you for YouTube as a content creator if they have to demonetize your channel because add buyers don't like you? Say Alex Jones for example. He is nothing but a cost to them, and on top of that, it gives them bad publicity all over the place. This is the bottom line, these are private corporations managing a private business trying to make money, the rest is just a lot of hot air and click bait created by other business that want to push outrage and controversy because it's what gets the more clicks.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#195

Post by bryan_w »

clairity wrote: post #89
marcosdumay wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if there exists a whole tree of bad apples vouching for another? That's when you add top moderation, so the algorithm becomes a way to scale the moderators, not a full moderation solution. You can't create an algorithm that solves moderation, unless you create a fully featured AI with a value system.

yes, let computers do the repeatable work and humans do the original thinking. i still haven't seen a moderation system better than slashdot, which community-sourced its moderation/meta-moderation semi-randomly. though it still had issues with gaming and spam, it seems like a good base to build from. and yet we ended up with twitter, facebook, reddit, yelp, etc. that optimize for (ad) views, not quality.

slashdot had good bones, but what it was missing was a pool of known good moderators. Without them, you end up with a death spiral as bad actors upvote and meta moderate each other and drive good mods away.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#196

Post by justbored123 »

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…

That is called society. Have you ever worked in a private company? Went to a private business, like a restaurant or a shopping mall? What happens if you start insulting people and been rude and un-polite like people are in social media? You get fired or you are asked to leave. This is the reason why when you go to a new job they ask for references and call your old employers to inquire about you. The internet is going to be the same. You are going to have a reputation to protect or you are going to pay a price.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#197

Post by ddingus »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #189
dan-robertson wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The community kind of enforced its own standards (eg almost no jokes, especially no stupid Reddit-style joke threads). But I think moderation was more important. However much pg wrote about being curious or “intellectual honesty” or whatever, it was the change in moderation (to dang) that saw changes. But that sort of thing doesn’t fit all communities. For one thing this one is basically public (there’s no shared-pri…

I agree, I meant that dang and sctb have a style that is more about nudging people into better behavior than about demanding compliance.

Doing that is worth a lot! Many will see something like that and give it thought. If they do, that is halfway there, maybe more.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#198

Post by ddingus »

cutenewt wrote: post #183
rocqua wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to have editors at newspapers who did this. They had an opinion, tried to be objective, but called out excesses. Sometimes this went wrong, see yellow journalism. One thing that is different now is that you no longer have a say in who edits your newsfeed. You can't very easily switch news-feed. I feel like the variation in opinions in modern-day editors is much smaller than the variation in opinions in societ…

Newspapers, which you point out used to moderate for us, don't want to play the moderation game in the Internet era either. Many publications have ripped out their Disqus, Facebook commenting plug-ins that used to accompany their articles. Internet moderation is too expensive. They'd be happy having Reddit and Twitter (users) do the moderation for them.

They also do not like being questioned. That factor is as significant as the cost is.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#199

Post by alex_g »

meowkit wrote: post #187
alex_g wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and that's not what I said. Clubhouse is not just private phone calls. It's a social network.

What is a social network? Fundamental its a graph structure of human relationships. Humans are the actors/nodes and edges are the interactions. Two people chatting fits this criteria. You can have a private chat on Clubhouse between two people.

> Clubhouse is not just private phone calls.

Yes, you can have a private chat on Clubhouse. You can also have a private chat on Facebook or Twitter. They are all social networks.

I don't think trying to find edge cases for what constitutes a social network is helpful to this conversation.

Re: Is content moderation a dead end?

#200

Post by ddingus »

ddingus wrote: post #54

There are at least a few kinds of bad: Spam, google bombing, and related activities. These are noise, generally. Misinformation is slippery. Often this gets conflated with differences of opinion. That is happening a lot right now as moderation is politicized and weaponized. More than we think is debatable and should be debated rather than legislated or canonized into an orthodoxy, flirting with facism. Clearly crimin…

I was unable to return and edit this inside the edit window.

Sorry, it is incomplete.

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