Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation • Hacker News Board

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#681

Post by est » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:33 PM UTC

thomastjeffery wrote: post #653

The biggest problems with Twitter's moderation are what OP explicitly didn't talk about. 1. There isn't enough communication from moderators about why tweets are removed and users are banned. There is a missed learning opportunity when users don't get to hear why they are being moderated. 2. Bans are probably too harsh. If you can't come back having learned from your mistakes, why learn at all? Most of it is a scalin…

> enough communication

People will learn from mistakes and create more problem for the platform with alt-accounts.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#682

Post by slg » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:36 PM UTC

MikePlacid wrote: post #621

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…

> 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…

Personal user filtering can't be the only form of moderation. There is some content that I don't care if it exists as long as I don't see it. Spam is one example of this. However there is some content that its existence on the platform makes me less likely to use the platform even if I never see it.

I'm sure Yishan knows this from his time at Reddit. They seem to go through a controversy about this every year or two[1] with most of the offenders focussed on either hate or porn. /r/jailbait is one of the early examples that comes to mind. It hosted risqué, but apparently legal photos of underage girls. Reddit couldn't just tell people "Don't visit those subreddits if you don't want to see that content". Most people found the content objectionable enough to want it removed completely. Its mere existence made normal users less likely to use Reddit despite users needing to go out of their way to see that objectionable content.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#683

Post by ptero » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:37 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #461

ptero wrote: post #364

This topic was adjacent to the sugar and L-isomer comments. Which probably influenced my viewpoint: Yishan is saying that Twitter (and other social networks) moderate bad behavior, not bad content. They just strive for higher SNR. It is just that specific types of content seems to be disproportionately responsible for starting bad behavior in discussions; and thus get banned. Sounds rational and while potentially sli…

> a lot of content, however well presented and rationally argued, just cannot be digested. Can you name the topic areas where even cautious presentation will not be sustained on twitter?

Covid lockdowns, vaccination requirements and mask mandates?

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#684

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:37 PM UTC

Spam is moderated because its not real users doing it. You dont want bots among humans. His take is weird on that end.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#685

Post by warkdarrior » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

dbrueck wrote: post #666

sydd wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is lumping together multiple problems, but IMO a platform that tries to police wrongthink from the top down is guaranteed to fail. For my part, I don't think anyone anywhere should be prevented from saying the dumbest things that pop into their heads; what I disagree with is giving everyone a global megaphone and then artificially removing the consequences for saying the dumbest things that pop into their heads.…

> your reputation goes down, thus limiting your reach

That's a nice concept, but it is unclear how to implement this. If you have a low reputation, you can only reach X users, but if you reputation improves, you can reach 2X users? How do you set these thresholds? How do you pick the X unlucky users to receive the low-reputation tweets?

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#686

Post by ehsankia » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #506

This is a very good way to pitch your afforestation startup accelerator in the guise of a talk on platform moderation. /s I'm pretty sure I've got some bones to pick with yishan from his tenure on Reddit, but everything he's said here is pretty understandable. Actually, I would like to develop his point about "censoring spam" a bit further. It's often said that the Internet "detects censorship as damage and routes ar…

> This is a very good way to pitch your afforestation startup accelerator in the guise of a talk on platform moderation. /s

Also for anyone have Deja-Vu, he had almost the same thread a few months ago (and probably a few more times before/after.

https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#687

Post by wwweston » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

cvwright wrote: post #611

wwweston wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard for me to imagine what “scary actual censorship” is happening — that is, to identify topics or perspectives that cannot be represented in net forums. If such topics/perspectives exist, then the effectiveness must be near total to the point where I’m entirely unaware of them, which I guess would be scary if people could provide examples. But usually when I ask, I’m supplied with topics which I have indeed se…

Nobody wants to answer this, because to mention a controversial topic is to risk being accused of supporting it. You could look at what famous people have gotten into trouble over. Alex Jones or Kanye West. I assume there have been others, but those two were in the news recently.

> because to mention a controversial topic is to risk being accused of supporting it.

Identifying topics which are controversial or perhaps even contextually verboten can be done pretty easily without implying support.

> Alex Jones or Kanye West

If Jones and West are representative examples, then we're not talking about censorship or free speech.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#688

Post by makeitdouble » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

ufo wrote: post #663

MikePlacid wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem are all the other whatsapp groups that I'm not in, which are filled with hateful politics. If you do not like hateful politics, just filter them out - of your own feed. My solution, if implemented, will give you exactly that opportunity.

My feed is already fine; no one is posting hateful politics on the group chats that I am in. The problem is that even if the hateful content doesn't reach me, it's still out there reaching other people. In the US, they ended up with stuff like the Capitol Insurrection. Here in Brazil, as we speak there are disgruntled "stop the steal" extremists blocking roads and calling for a military coup.

Why are we trying to bring technical solutions to a social problem ?

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#689

Post by dsr_ » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

jxi wrote: post #675

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.

Make it explicit. A button that says "Show me something that I might like!" and supplies a list of tweets.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#690

Post by chupchap » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

billyjobob wrote: post #250

digitalsushi wrote: post #231

I can speak only at a Star Trek technobabble level on this, but I'd like it if I could mark other random accounts as "friends" or "trusted". Anything they upvote or downvote becomes a factor in whether I see a post or not. I'd also be upvoting/downvoting things, and being a possible friend/trusted. I'd like a little metadata with my posts, such as how controversial my network voted it. The ones that are out of calibr…

Slashdot started introducing features like this 20 years ago. We thought ”web of trust” would be the future of content moderation, but subsequent forums have moved further and further away from empowering users to choose what they want to see and towards simple top down censorship.

Doesn't that just create echo-chambers?