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Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

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Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#721

Post by cvwright »

wwweston wrote: post #687
cvwright wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those are the most famous people who have been kicked off of social media. I will admit to not knowing the details.

The other area you could investigate is the various controversies around Covid.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#722

Post by paul7986 »

runako wrote: post #545
paul7986 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet needs to have a verified public identity / reputation system especially with deep fakes becoming more and more pervasive/easier to create. Trolls can troll all they want but if they want to be serious with their words then back it up with his or her online verified public Internet /reputation ID. If this is one of Musk's goals with Twitter he didn't overpay. The Internet definitely needs such a system..h…

It's worth noting that Twitter gets a lot of flak for permanently banning people, but that those people were all there under their real names. Regardless of your opinion on the bans, verifying that they were indeed banning e.g. Steve Bannon would not have helped the decision making process around his ban any easier.

Shouldn't ban anyone as both sides play politics which is filled with tons of untruths and lies on both sides. Which you have a point even a Steve Bannon or AOC will make up things and lie. Maybe the reputation system avoids political speech or there is a huge bar because politics is always a shit-show. Overall what you bring up here is a huge problem that maybe can be solved somehow. For deepfakes i still feel strongly a system needs to be in place ..one i mentioned or something close to it.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#723

Post by klyrs »

We've seen some laws passed recently, which attempt to prevent social media companies from effective moderation. Yishan repeatedly makes a point here, that most forms of spam are not illegal. Rather recent case law[1, 2] has confirmed that even panhandling is protected speech. Prior to that, we saw Lloyd vs Tanner[3], which ruled that private property could function as a "town square" and censorship runs afoul of the first amendment. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act carves out a special exemption for websites that host user-generated content, and politicians on both sides of the aisle have set their sights on remodeling that law.

I'm really curious to see how this plays out. As far as I see it, a well-lawyered bot operator could completely undermine the ability of websites to moderate their content, and as Yishan aptly points out, they wouldn't stop at inflammatory content. Their goal would be to open the floodgates for commercial communications. It could completely ruin the open internet as we know it. Or, perhaps, it would merely limit the size of social media companies: once their user-base crosses whatever "town square" threshold is decided on, spammers have free reign. Interesting times we live in.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/04/02/709251256/judge-throws-out-pa...

[2] https://media.arkansasonline.com/news/documents/2019/04/01/o... [pdf]

[3] https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/582/lloyd-corpo...

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#724

Post by password4321 »

didericis wrote: post #668
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…

Everything in that thread seems correct, but it doesn't address why its so bad on social media sufficiently, as those philosophical language and principal problems apply to all forms of written communication that have managed to avoid the problems of social media, including wide open written communication (remember actual bulletin boards instead of virtual bulletin boards? Wide open text forums are not a new thing) I…

You blame audience/reach, I blame algorithms favoring engagement (aka controversy).

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#725

Post by MikePlacid »

slg wrote: post #682
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…

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[…

> 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.

To me it’s kind of perverse logic. If a platform hosts persons that some powerful group of people want to be removed - than I can trust the platform to less likely to remove me, when and if I cross some powerful or just loud and anger people.

Like: there is a lot of people in the US that I do not like, but I rather live in a country with 14th Amendment than in a country without one. I’ve tried both :)

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#726

Post by agumonkey »

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…

> The problem is not (just) the social media companies. It lies in us.

my take is that social networks opened a new 'space' and just like every new spaces, old rules / regulations / institutions got thrown out to enjoy the newfound freedom, until people experience the same issues.. aka the need for organization and will thus reinvent similar rules they went away from. It's a kind of cycle.

such freedom itself is not a benefit, it's more like removing brakes from your car to save weight and maintenance cost.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#727

Post by danans »

Manuel_D wrote: post #673
danans wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

> 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.

It's a ridiculous claim but so what? It has no teeth anyways.

Nobody gets suspended from mainstream social media for simply expressing opposition to transgender gender athletics.

They get suspended for actually harassing transgender athletes.

You might get demonetized for that opinion, but getting paid to express an unpopular opinion isn't a right.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#728

Post by MikePlacid »

acdha wrote: post #658
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.

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.

> Filtering your feed doesn’t cause them not to vote against their interests, firebomb your store, or attempt to assassinate leaders.

Silencing people so that they will vote against their own interests - it’s the last thing I ever can wish. Ends badly.

As to firebombing and assasination - wouldn’t you rather have them discuss and plan such things openly, so that police can easily apprehend them?

Or, as I’ve already described here - in 1990 during Gorbachev’s glasnost (kinda sorta more freer speech) our county seat newspaper with a proud name Kommunist published my article about some successful economic experiment we’ve done in our town. In the next issue the same paper published letters of angry “workers” naming me “an enemy of the people”. Which is a pretty serious accusation in the Soviet Union, historically speaking. It basically meant I should be killed if Gorbachev ever loses power to conservatives. A death threat, basically. And that threat was THE most important information I’ve ever got in my life. Why on earth I would wish it silenced?

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#729

Post by MichaelZuo »

whitexn--g28h wrote: post #248
MichaelZuo wrote: post #8

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…

This is something that occurs on twitch streams sometimes. While it can be educational for users to see why they were banned, some appeals are just attention seeking. Occasionally though it exposes the banned user’s or worse a victim users personal information, (eg mental health issues, age, location) and can lead to both users being targeted and bad behaviour by the audience. For example Bob is banned for bad behavi…

If both Alice and Bob are being truly nasty to each other, engaging in mutual trolling, etc., then I think that would be fair game.

If it's only one of them being nasty, then I don't see why some third person would dox the recipient?

And if they do so regardless, they would also get punished for obvious bad behaviour.

Re: Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation

#730

Post by concordDance »

slg wrote: post #682
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…

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[…

> 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.

This really confuses me. Does the fact that people send racist insults at each other in Call of Duty matches via the Internet make you less likely to use the internet?

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