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Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

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Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#701
post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's not what I mean by learning. Most people aren't the nihilists you might expect them to be. Most people want discussion to lead somewhere new . That's why there is value in moderation: we use it to trim the patterns of discussion that lead nowhere. So when a moderator deletes your comment because it was leading to nowhere, they can also tell you so. If they can teach you how you might lead your next discussion…

fair enough. A reason is only useful for a person with good intension. But hey we are talking about the Internet here.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#702

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…

As any simple solution, it becomes extremely complicated as you get into the details.

I follow official gov accounts notifying of policy changing, deadlines etc.

- Should I see their retweets ? Yes, they retweet relevant info from other gov, accounts.

- Should I see replies to these tweets ? Probably, there’s useful info coming in the comments from time to time, in particular about situations similar to mine.

So as a user, I have valid reason to whant these two mechanism. But then applying them to shitposting accounts, it becomes a hell scape. And with users who bring in valuable info but sometimes shitpost, we’re starting to need nuance. And so on.

We’re back to square one. The “simple” solution expanded to its useful form brings back the moderation issues we’re trying to flee.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually went into a deep dive of any statistical efforts that showed bans on twitter based on American political leanings. Apparently in both studies I found the most statistically significant user behavior for bans was if the user had a tendency to post articles from low quality online ”news” sites. So essentially even the political controversy around moderation boils down to the fact that one side, the right, is…

The first concern is identifying "fake news". One of the biggest political news stories of 2020, Hunter Biden's laptop, was falsely declared misinformation, and the NY Post was accused of being a low quality site. Now we know it's true. On the other hand, the Steele Dossier was considered legitimate news at the time and "many of the dossier’s most explosive claims...have never materialized or have been proved false."…

As a European I don't know much about the Hunter Biden story, but it wasn't a political news story because it doesn't even cover a politically relevant person. It is a celebrity story and even two years later no allegation of substance seems to have come from it (skimming wikipedia).

From a European perspective it was just outlandish hearsay and speculation. Hard to understand why Americans get so invested when no criminal case materializes.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#704
post #658

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.

How precisely does that protect you from the people who are seeking those out? Filtering your feed doesn’t cause them not to vote against their interests, firebomb your store, or attempt to assassinate leaders.

People are not seeking those groups out of nowhere.

Most of them are getting pushed there from automated platforms bombarding them with things they can't stand. The automated outrage machines are what radicalize people, not the private message groups.

By the time you have private message groups propagating the same messaging the damage has already been done. To get people out, you need to cut off the source of the outrage and soothe whatever fear is being ramped up.

Censoring the outrage and dismissing/patronizing people from a position of authority doesn't work, it just acts as an accelerant.

I think the crazy groups will sputter out if there's enough space for venting, free association, and ability for the average person to turn off things they don't want to see. I think that last point is the key. Millions of people are bombarded with things they really don't like in systems they have no way to really manage themselves. The legitimate complaints will filter up and out of the crazy circles if people are allowed to form their own groups and don't feel forced to pack themselves together around the loudest people who can given them a voice on the big automated feeds they don't really understand.

People have a much better chance at effectively communicating with their neighbor or family member or old friend with a different perspective than a stranger online with a different perspective, and they are much more likely to engage when in a frame of mind that will actually accept differences of opinion if they are managing their own connections and exposure themselves.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#705
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

You didn't link to data, you linked to an opinion from Vice laundered through another outlet.

Here is some actual data, which (predictably) shows that conservatives are targeted significantly more for suspensions:

https://archive.ph/SDo33

But that's besides the point, because it's much simpler than that. You don't need elaborate analysis to see that people tired of Twitter "moderation" filled 4 other platforms: Gab, Parler, Minds and Truth Social. Literally all of them are characterized as right-wing by the same left-wing media outlets that claim that Twitter is impartial in moderation.

I'm tired of gaslighting around this issue. Just within replies to my above comment I've gotten two contradictory statements. One, that there is no bias in Twitter moderation, because conservatives are actually targeted less. Two, that there is no bias because conservatives are more likely to break rules, so they should be banned more often. We have two diametrically opposite descriptions of reality that nevertheless converge on the same conclusion. This is ideology-driven reasoning at its worst.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#706

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…

This is such a gross simplification. First, even people who you follow might post both wanted and unwanted content, and the platform will be more useful if it can somehow show me the things I want to see. Second, it overlooks content creator side of things. How does a new person without any followers start gaining them, or vice-versa a new person who doesn't know whom to follow yet. People keep saying this is what th…

You can choose to unfollow someone if their noise outweighs their signal, otherwise you just put up with it. Eliminate inline "cards" so they can't force 3rd party content into your stream. If they post a bunch of stuff you don't want to see you can unfollow - there is no way for anyone to force stuff on you.

You discover content by people you follow posting links to content, and by search. Good content will gain a following, as it always has even before feed algorithms.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brigading absolutely happens in SRD. We can talk about whether this style of content should exist, but it does not "exist with the explicit purpose of brigading other subs."

Right, it exists with the tacit purpose of brigading other subs. But like Kiwifarms, blurbs in the site rules mean nothing given the context of the community.

The original post was very clear about the word "explicit." That's what I'm commenting on here.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#708
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, dang! I wonder if it makes sense to add a summarized version of your critical point on "effects, not intent" to the HN guidelines. Though, I fear there might be undesirable ill effects of spelling it out that way. Thanks (an understatement!) for this enlightening explanation.

There are so many heuristics like that, and I fear making the guidelines so long that no one will read them. I want to compound a bunch of those explanations into a sort of concordance or whatever the right bibliographic word is for explaining and adding to what's written else where (so, not concordance!)

Someday I hope you will write a whole book on the subject!

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#709
post #658

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.

How precisely does that protect you from the people who are seeking those out? Filtering your feed doesn’t cause them not to vote against their interests, firebomb your store, or attempt to assassinate leaders.

> The IYI [Intellectual Yet Idiot] pathologizes others for doing things he doesn’t understand without ever realizing it is his understanding that may be limited. He thinks people should act according to their best interests and he knows their interests, particularly if they are “red necks” or English non-crisp-vowel class who voted for Brexit.

> When plebeians do something that makes sense to them, but not to him, the IYI uses the term “uneducated”. What we generally call participation in the political process, he calls by two distinct designations: “democracy” when it fits the IYI, and “populism” when the plebeians dare voting in a way that contradicts his preferences.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e...

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#710
Meh. This theory doesn't fit to the reality of clearly politically motivated moderation on reddit and twitter and elsewhere. Banning Jordan Peterson for calling a Trans person by their old name is not a "pattern of misbehavior" and Jordan Peterson is not known for causing any offline violence. Heck, reddit banned one of the largest subreddits because they supported trump.
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