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Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

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Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#491

There are some neat ideas raised by Yishan. One is 'put up or shutup' for appeals of moderator decisions. That is anyone who wishes to appeal needs to also consent to have all their activities on the platform, relevant to the decision, revealed publicly. It definitely could prevent later accusations of secretiveness or arbitrariness. And it probably would also make users think more in marginal cases before submitting…

I've never understood that idea that PM's on a platform must be held purely private by the platform even in cases where:

* There's some moderation dispute that involves the PM's

* At least one of the parties involved consents to release the PM's

The latter is the critical bit, to me. When you send someone a chat message, or an email, obviously there's nothing actually stopping them from sharing the content of the message with others if they feel that way, either legally or technically. If an aggrieved party wants to share a PM, everyone knows they can do so -- the only question mark is that they may have faked it.

To me the answer here seems obvious: allow users to mark a PM/thread as publicly visible. This doesn't make it more public than it otherwise could be, it just lets other people verify the authenticity, that they're not making shit up.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#493
post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> persuade the user to behave differently That scares me. Today's norms are tomorrow's taboos. The dangers of conforming and shaping everyone into the least controversial opinions and topics are self evident. It's an issue on this very forum. "Go elsewhere" doesn't solve the problem because that policy still contributes to a self-perpetuating feedback loop that amplifies norms, which often happen to be corrupt and re…

I don't mean persuade them out of their opinions on $topic! I mean persuade them to express their opinions in a thoughtful, curious way that doesn't break the site guidelines - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

Sufficiently controversial opinions are flagged, downvoted til dead/hidden, or associated users shadow banned. HN's policies and voting system, both de facto and de jure, discourage controversial opinions and reward popular, conformist opinions.

That's not to pick on HN, since this is a common problem. Neither do I have a silver bullet solution, but the issue remains, and it's a huge issue. Evolution of norms, for better or worse, is suppressed to the extent that big communication platforms suppress controversy. The whole concept of post and comment votes does this by definition.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#494
Twitter is text based. Video games have had text based profanity filters for online games for years.

Make it easy for users to define a regex list saved locally. On the backend train a model that filters images of gore and genitals. Aim users who opt in to that experience at that filtered stream.

This problem does not require a long winded thesis.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#495

Every single social media platform that has ever existed makes the same fundamental mistake. They believe that they just have to remove or block the bad actors and bad content and that will make the platform good. The reality is everyone , myself included, can be and will be a bad actor. How do you build and run a "social media" product when the very act of letting anyone respond to anyone with anything is itself the…

Having a a verified public Internet /Reputation ID system for those who want to be bad or good publicly is one way!

All others are just trolls not backed up by their verified public Internet / Reputation ID.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charge them $10 to create an account (anonymous, real, parody whatever), then if they break a rule give them a warning, 2 rule breaks, a 24 hour posting suspension, 3 strikes and permanently ban the account. Let them reregister for $10. Congrats, i just solved spam, bots, assholes and permanent line steppers.

This was the strategy at the SomethingAwful forums. They seemed pretty well moderated, but definitely never hit the scale of Reddit or Twitter.

Having posted there in its heyday, it made for an interesting self-moderation dynamic for sure. Before I posted something totally offbase that I knew I'd be punished for, I had to think "is saying this stupid shit really worth $10 to me?". Many times that was enough to get me to pause (but sometimes you also can't help yourself and it's well worth the price).

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#497
post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of free speech is not allowed? What can’t you say right now that you feel should?

Category 1 from Yishan's thread, spam, obviously isn't allowed. But also thinking about house general framework of it all coming down to signal vs noise, most "noise" gets heavily punished on here. Reddit-style jokes frequently end in the light greys or even dead. I had my account shadow-banned over a decade ago because I made a penis joke and thought people didn't get the joke.

Free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever, wherever, without any repercussions. It solely means the government can't restrict your expression. On a private platform you abide their rules.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#499
post #246

> Because it is not TOPICS that are censored. It is BEHAVIOR. > (This is why people on the left and people on the right both think they are being targeted) An enticing idea but simply not the case for any popular existing social network. And it's triply not true on yishan's reddit which both through administrative measures and moderation culture targets any and all communities that do not share the favoured new-left…

He is half-correct, but not in a good way. When people on the left say something that goes against new-left agenda, they get suppressed too. That is not a redeeming quality of the system or an indicator of fairness. It simply shows that the ideology driving moderation is even more narrow-minded and intolerant of dissent than most observers assume at first sight. At the same time, it's trivial to demonstrate that YouT…

> it's trivial to demonstrate that YouTube and Twitter (easy examples) primarily target conservatives with their "moderation".

Terrible take.

Actual data analysis shows that at worst conservatives are moderated equally, and at best, less than non-conservatives.

Here's something to chew on: https://forward.com/fast-forward/423238/twitter-white-nation...

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the communist subreddits are in constant hot water with the admins. They banned ChapoTrapHouse when it was one of the biggest subreddits. When a bunch of moderators tried to protest against reddit hosting antivax content, the admins took control over those subreddits. So no, you're just factually wrong here.

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