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A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

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Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#81

Post by vintermann »

nullc wrote: post #42

This is standard. Reddit's started doing it too recently. Totally random stuff, instabanned. Reddit threatened me with a suspension for threatening violence over a polite and entirely non-violent post. Meanwhile, I report actual revenge porn, and they reply that it doesn't violate their content guidelines. (and I mean completely unambiguous with a posters gloating about how it shows up when googling the victims name…

There's a lot of perverse incentives, people aren't punished for being trigger happy.

I remember in a subreddit, there was a discussion about Facebook "top posters". I replied it wasn't exactly news, and wrote about the "top posters" to the letters to the editor of a local newspaper in my childhood. One was a famous TV meteorologist who would always write rebuttals to young earth creationists, from a Christian perspective. One guy was leader of a tiny racist party who would write about how Yugoslav refugees would take over our country. Others still were just old cranks who had an opinion on everything.

The guy who owned that subreddit banned me over "doxing". I tried arguing, hey, they were public figures in their day, writing under full names (and location!), and they're long dead now anyway, but he either didn't want to admit he was wrong or was just terrified of losing the subreddit to the admins.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#82

Post by motoxpro »

wrycoder wrote: post #68
_jal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is not "the public square". It is a night club. Confusing private, for-profit businesses for public assets does a disservice to, and leads to ideas that are damaging for, both.

The only night club.

Ironically this is how night clubs work, too. One gets a monopoly/gets popular and everyone goes there for a time until it because uncool and people move on to the next cool club. In social media see LiveJournal -> MySpace -> Facebook -> Tiktok. Each had a monopoly at the time until something cooler came along. The tenure also, ironically, seems to be around the same duration of a popular nightclub.

Also, don't mistake user bases for monoliths in this analogy, 50 may skip Tiktok entirely but they showed up years after ~18 year olds did so tenure is still relevant.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#84

Post by bigDinosaur »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #54
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #12

This is how big tech does damage to humans. Love it or hate it, the online world is our current public square. A public square, in the united states, has typically been an area where people can shout out their concerns or whatever they want to anyone who can listen and the government cannot stop it. Currently, our public squares are owned by private megacorporations that not only ban people for reasons many people ag…

I am so tired of the public square analogy. You don’t need Twitter. You don’t need Facebook. You don’t need Reddit. And what’s more, you can still read them if you’re banned. If you think it’s ok for a restaurant to turn you away because of a dress code, then this is a non-issue. The are several major platforms you can use as a megaphone, just like you have plenty of restaurants to choose from for your meal. If you a…

They're used to organise the social graph, so the analogy is off but not actually wrong in spirit. Yes, you can gather without them, but organising without them is what's difficult because again, they now nearly monopolise the social graph of acquaintances in terms of organisation (e.g. Facebook groups for a hobby, political protests where most people don't know each other IRL). This wasn't inevitable, but the analogy to me seems to be like saying: you don't need to drive when the country decided to only build roads.

As for your last sentence, well, not necessarily. I just don't see how that logically follows. Bans tell you that you're violating a rule, but those rules can be terrible. That's true of anything ever, I don't see how you can state that it's always the fault of the person being cut off. That's like saying all social ostracisation is really the fault of the person being ostracised. The person who is unpopular might be a terrible person, or they might be right but with uncomfortable facts or opinions.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#86

Post by musingsole »

spicyusername wrote: post #7

It seems like the problem with many of these tech companies (and many modern companies in general) is that they've scaled faster than they have the ability to operate properly. "How can we possibly moderate properly without AI?" is really just another way of saying "We don't want to pay the money it's going to cost to moderate effectively and we're going to cross our fingers that we can solve problems caused by techn…

I don't think it's even the money anymore.

I think technologists are convinced they are ALMOST there with automoderation systems...just a few more data points and another thousand hyperparameters and it'll be perfect!

I think they've yet learn to recognize the good because they're too busy dreaming of the perfect.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#87

Post by jjulius »

walls wrote: post #80
lebed2045 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m ex Facebook software engineer (even had selfie with Zuckerberg as the avatar picture) who got banned on Facebook. Up to this day I have no clue what for. But it’s extremely annoying because I lost lots of photos that I didn’t back up and close to thousand contracts of people. Users should definitely own this data, not a corporation.

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm as, "Fuck Facebook," as the next guy, but... yikes.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#88

Post by joshsyn »

walls wrote: post #80
lebed2045 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m ex Facebook software engineer (even had selfie with Zuckerberg as the avatar picture) who got banned on Facebook. Up to this day I have no clue what for. But it’s extremely annoying because I lost lots of photos that I didn’t back up and close to thousand contracts of people. Users should definitely own this data, not a corporation.

Quoted post unavailable.

Really? Stopped being hyperbolic. The guy did his job.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#89

Post by vincvinc »

spicyusername wrote: post #7

It seems like the problem with many of these tech companies (and many modern companies in general) is that they've scaled faster than they have the ability to operate properly. "How can we possibly moderate properly without AI?" is really just another way of saying "We don't want to pay the money it's going to cost to moderate effectively and we're going to cross our fingers that we can solve problems caused by techn…

I think this is a fair assessment.

Big social media companies are not incentivized to care about psychological and social side effects of their product.

A bit like cigarette companies offloading externalities onto society, but much harder to specifically identify and address.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#90

Post by motoxpro »

ricardobeat wrote: post #62
Forgeties79 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so tired of the public square analogy. You don’t need Twitter. You don’t need Facebook. You don’t need Reddit. And what’s more, you can still read them if you’re banned. If you think it’s ok for a restaurant to turn you away because of a dress code, then this is a non-issue. The are several major platforms you can use as a megaphone, just like you have plenty of restaurants to choose from for your meal. If you a…

That’s a very naive argument. If your friends and family are on Facebook, your work contacts across the country are on Twitter, the only forums left alive on the web are on Reddit, how can you not need them? These things have replaced existing connections you used to have via other channels. You can not step away without severing them now, it is no longer a matter of personal choice.

But I "need" that restaurant because I am hungry, it's only a block away, I really love the pasta they cook, and the bartender I enjoy talking to only works at this particular restaurant :(
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