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Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

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Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#671

Post by jacobsenscott »

The solution is simple - only show users tweets from people they follow. People may say twitter can't make money this way, but with this model you don't need much money. You don't need moderation, or AI, or a massive infrastructure, or tracking, etc. You don't need managers or KPIs or HR, or anything beyond an engineer or two and a server or two. Musk could pay for this forever and it would never be more than a rounding error in his budget.

But this isn't what twitter is for. Twitter is for advertising.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#672

Post by etchalon »

rglover wrote: post #661
etchalon wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I didn't imply whether it was good or bad, just that the product you're describing already exists. 2. It's a platform problem. If you make users do work they don't want to do in order to make the platform pleasant to use, they won't do the work, the platform will not be pleasant to use, and they'll use a different platform that doesn't make them do that work. 3. "If they can't handle it, they shouldn't advertise t…

> I didn't imply whether it was good or bad, just that the product you're describing already exists. A product exists with those properties, but not something like Twitter. > It's a platform problem. It's not. I don't use stuff like 4chan because it's not of interest to me but it is of interest to others. There's zero requirement for Twitter to be a universally acceptable platform (that delusion is why there continue…

You seem to be demanding that Twitter adopt policies and features despite the fact the market has shown those policies and features will shrink their user base and their profit.

"Pay-to-play Twitter" was already tried. It was called "App.net" and it was a failure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#673

Post by Manuel_D »

danans wrote: post #626
Manuel_D wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate absolutely can, and is, applied to disagreements: Plenty of people consider disagreement around allowing natal males in women's sport is hateful. Plenty of people consider opposition to the abolishment of police is hateful. Plenty of people immigration enforcement hateful. I could go on...

> Plenty of people consider disagreement around allowing natal males in women's sport is hateful. Plenty of people consider opposition to the abolishment of police is hateful. Plenty of people immigration enforcement hateful. Those things aren't deemed hate speech, but they might be disagreed with and downvoted on some forums (i.e. HN), and championed on others (i.e. Parler) but that has nothing to do with them being…

> Promoting violence and harassment is a fundamentally different type of speech than disagreeing with the prevailing local opinion on a controversial subject that has many shades of gray (that your examples intentionally lack).

Plenty of people disagree, and do indeed claim that not letting a transgender woman compete against natal females is harassment towards transgender people. Heck, I've even seen people claim that this is genocide.

I don't really care about these topics, but the point is that many people do not, or perhaps cannot, distinguish between "hate speech" and and opinions they disagree with. Contrary to your claim that "hate can't be applied to many things, including disagreements like this comment", hate speech is often applied to dissenting opinions.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#674

Post by jacobr1 »

sydd wrote: post #647
dbrueck wrote: post #458

At least one missing element is that of reputation . I don't think it should work exactly like it does in the real world, but the absence of it seems to always lead to major problems. The cost of being a jerk online is too low - it's almost entirely free of any consequences. Put another way, not everyone deserves a megaphone. Not everyone deserves to chime in on any conversation they want. The promise of online discu…

But the how would you address "reputable" people spreading idiotic things or fake news? How would you prevent Joe Rogan spreading COVID conspiracy theories? Or Kanye's antisemitic comments? Or a celebrity hyping up some NFT for a quick cash grab? Or Elon Musk falling for some fake news and spreading it?

Why does anyone think this is a solvable problem? Once there is sufficient notability only authoritarian censorship or jailing is going to work, to increasing degrees of force up to executions (and even then that won't silence supporters or there was any sort of group association). For people of lessor reputations, "canceling" might work, in the sense of public shaming or loss of income, but there is a ladder of force that is required.

If we want any sort of free society I don't think we _can_ stop fake news. We can only attempt to counter it with reason, debunking, and competitive rhetoric. We maybe can build tools that attempt to amplify debunking, build institutions trusted as neutral arbiters or that have other forms of credibility.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#675

Post by jxi »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #671

The solution is simple - only show users tweets from people they follow. People may say twitter can't make money this way, but with this model you don't need much money. You don't need moderation, or AI, or a massive infrastructure, or tracking, etc. You don't need managers or KPIs or HR, or anything beyond an engineer or two and a server or two. Musk could pay for this forever and it would never be more than a round…

I do want discovery though.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#676

Post by cco »

Many comments here talking about the substance, so I'll tackle the irony.

Didn't Yishan sorta show how easy it is to bypass "spam detection" by embedding multiple instances of spam within his otherwise "clean" thread?

The asides to pitch his current work undercut his point to some degree.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#677

Post by avivo »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #629
ufo wrote: post #586

In the US, where Twitter & Facebook are dominant, the current consensus in the public mind is that political polarization and radicalization are driven by the social media algorithms. However, I have always felt that this explanation was lacking. Here in Brazil we have many of the same problems but the dominant social media are Whatsapp group chats, which have no algorithms whatsoever (other than invisible spam filte…

This to me is a vital point. One of the things rarely touched on about Twitter / FB et al are that they are transmission platforms and then a discovery / recommendation layer on top. The "algorithm" is this layer on top and it is assumed that this actively sorts people into their bubbles and people passively follow - there is much discussion about splitting the companies AT&T style to improve matters. But countries w…

I think this gets almost all the way there but not quite — there is one more vital point:

How we act depends on our environment and incentives.

It is possible to build environments and incentives that make us better versions of ourselves. Just like GPT-3, we can all be primed (and we all are primed all the time, by every system we use).

The way we got from small tribes to huge civilizations is by figuring out how to create those systems and environments.

Yes, the algorithm is not the problem alone, but a good algorithm can help fix the problems — since it creates the "loss function" (the incentives) for the humans using the platform (I go into that in more detail here https://twitter.com/metaviv/status/1529879799862378497 and here https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/bridging-based-rank... for those who are curious).

So it's not about "reaching for the stars" or complaining about how humanity is too flawed. It's about carefully building the systems that take us to those stars!

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#678

Post by gregw2 »

RockyMcNuts wrote: post #51

see also - Hey Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run The Content Moderation Learning Curve https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...

Appreciate you posting this link, thank you!

It is good recapitulation of why (particularly from a more legal-oriented layperson's standpoint) moderation is hard for an online platform.

The crazy thing is even though that is a long list, you could probably double the size of that list of issues with whole other classes of issues.

For example, that list is mostly focused on issues facing a platform with outside stakeholders making it difficult... then there are the inside stakeholders!

Stuff like... "actually, arguments/controversy increases engagement/views/ads (and your/my bonus/stock)", "more regulation we have to comply with actually increases barriers to entry for new competitors", "I work here and have politics X but I sense our company acting with bias Y", "Our moderators are traumatized from looking at too much ", etc.

Besides a Reddit CEO posting on this, I would also pay money to see a CmdrTaco editorial on this topic...

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#679

Post by makeitdouble »

ufo wrote: post #648
MikePlacid wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Yishan is nailing the nail on the head by focusing the discussion on user behavior instead of on the content itself. But user behavior problem can be solved cheaply, easily and in a scalable way: Give each user an ability to form the personal filter. Basically, all what I need is: 1. I want to read what person A writes - always. 2. I want to read what person B writes - always, except when talking to person…

I disagree, we can't frame this discussion on only the content. My whatsapp "feed" is doing just fine. The problem are all the other whatsapp groups that I'm not in, which are filled with hateful politics. It hurts when I meet in real life a friend that you haven't met in a while, and then find out that they've been radicalized. The radical Bolsonaro whatsapp groups are a mix of top down and grass roots content. On o…

It’s a hurtful topic and has complicated ramifications, but…

> other whatsapp groups that I'm not in, which are filled with hateful politics.

That brings the discussion from you to others users, and your goal seems to be to change how other users are affected by their time on a platform.

> The radical Bolsonaro whatsapp groups are a mix of top down and grass roots content.

You seem to be talking about motivated individuals who formed groups with a specific purpose and express their views and propositions in these specific groups (which you don’t belong to, as mentioned first)

Whatever way we slice it, short of the platform banning their related topics entirely, I don’t see how a neutral service could act about these people/ideas spreading, from a mere platform POV. You’re talking about thought policing private groups basically.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#680

Post by idiotsecant »

Apocryphon wrote: post #670
Waterluvian wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not suggesting you meant it this way, but there's an amusing "money person with blinders on" angle to the statement. It's the "what's the point of anything if you're not making money?!"

Perhaps, but it's not even an HN/startup point of view. Goons regularly make fun of Lowtax for squandering the large audience (some of whom included popular Internet personalities who would go on to reach greater success and celebrity) and lead SA had. It all plays into the "loser admin" mythos.

To be fair to Lowtax, he was an insane person.
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