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Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

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Re: Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

#151

Post by nightski »

enumjorge wrote: post #118
tj-teej wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only goes against his "free speech thing" if his "free speech thing" was actually a coherent ideology. Instead his "free speech absolutism" is a brand, it's there to signal what kind of person he is, it's not a set of principles and therefore cannot stand up to scrutiny.

> is a brand I wish more people would understand this. For people like Musk, his personal brand is extremely important and they spend a lot of effort portraying and selling a specific image. It is an important part of his success as a businessman. FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried is another example. His disheveled, messy geek look was calculated, and in an interview after FTX’s collapse he basically admitted that some of his…

People aren't as stupid as HN wants to think they are. Twitter will be judged based on how it actually evolves, not Musk's brand. Time will tell.

Let's not pretend the site wasn't an absolute disaster before the acquisition though. If I clicked on even a single trending topic about a game or news item I'd often be presented with unfiltered hardcore porn. Then there would be topics of innocent things like landscapes that get filtered. It was a complete joke and harmful place to visit.

Re: Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

#152

Post by pessimizer »

woah wrote: post #125

One big online platform that has totally skimped on reasonable moderation is the charmingly named "E-Mail". Child porn, copyright infringement, harassment, hate speech, spam, you name it. Anything goes. It's a complete free-for-all. Giant internet companies like Google and Microsoft make billions of dollars a year through their partnerships with the E-Mail platform. These big companies do make a token effort to remov…

And that's ignoring the misinformation, malinformation, and propaganda being willingly and unwillingly spread through the unregulated cesspool of the telephone system. These companies are near monopolies, and still won't take steps to crack down on the dangerous activities that they facilitate each and every day.

Re: Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

#154

Post by qayxc »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #70
mikkergp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are CSAM laws only somewhat justified?

They are justified only up to the point where Apple starts scanning your personal photos and then the EU joins in requiring everyone else to do that too? There are politicians constantly testing their legislation boundaries all over CSAM. It's getting abused to make proof of concepts that companies are willing to implement something, and then they extend it to other shit every time. You can't just slap the "for CSAM"…

> They are justified only up to the point where Apple starts scanning your personal photos and then the EU joins in requiring everyone else to do that too?

Interesting view. There was a time, not too long ago, when photos were developed in labs by actual people. I remember vividly when some photos just came back blank, until I learned that the people at the photo labs used to "censor" content they deemed problematic and that could get you in trouble.

Back then, one option was to simply develop the photos yourself (major PITA, never did it myself, but I knew a few people who actually went down that route). Today, it's the data storage providers who do the censoring and with much more dire consequences (e.g. police showing up at your residence and charges being pressed).

The option you have nowadays is to simply not use these online services and use an offline storage solution (even if it's just a thumb drive on your desk) while taking photos the old-fashioned way (e.g. not with a smartphone).

The problem isn't so much legislation itself, it's that modern technology is a massive enabler for this kind of crime on a scale that simply hasn't been possible before and cannot be managed by any methods that may have worked in the past.

> It needs to actually make sense.

I agree, but the problem is immense pressure from all sides while being a truly Herculean task that unfortunately has no simple and effective solutions. So what do legislators tell people then? Just let it go and accept that thousands of children have to suffer? Or rather live with the looming threat of your life being ruined by an innocent holiday picture your phone mislabelled?

I honestly don't have an answer to that I don't know there is a good one either.

Re: Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

#155

Post by edgyquant »

martindbp wrote: post #130
woah wrote: post #125

One big online platform that has totally skimped on reasonable moderation is the charmingly named "E-Mail". Child porn, copyright infringement, harassment, hate speech, spam, you name it. Anything goes. It's a complete free-for-all. Giant internet companies like Google and Microsoft make billions of dollars a year through their partnerships with the E-Mail platform. These big companies do make a token effort to remov…

This is unfortunately exactly what will happen. What is scary to me is how censorship has become completely accepted by the new generation, including software engineers here in their 20s. No true hacker (this is Hacker News after all) would be OK with corporation or government censorship. Slippery slope is real.

For one thing, you’re mistaken. A big realization of hacker culture in the 90s and early 2000s was that the old forums and the like had to be heavily moderated otherwise they digress into flame wars. Social media definitely knew this, but made their fortunes off of flame wars.

We’ve realized how idealistic and out of touch with humanity we were. If everyone online was a good faith actor attempting to have intellectual dialog then I would oppose all censorship.

The fact is though that bad faith and agenda driven actors dominate the public narrative, stressing all of society out in the process as they either directly, or by proxy, then the real world and daily interactions of society into a giant flame war.

I care a lot more about society not being divided and these tools of connection not being used to wage large scale disinformation campaigns than I do any ideologically driven morals. We have to live in this country, this world, together.

Re: Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

#156

Post by _ea1k »

lesuorac wrote: post #84
_ea1k wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He backed away from unlimited free speech pretty quickly. Sometimes he's said it has to do with a legal boundary, but he hasn't had consistency about that. He's been pretty clear that hated by ~50% and fine with the other 50% of the population is the old line, not the new one. Where that puts the threshold is still an open question, and unfortunately one that will likely be answered somewhat capriciously. Then again,…

> He's been pretty clear that hated by ~50% and fine with the other 50% of the population is the old line, not the new one. More like 20% for both of those numbers [1]. Most choices are non-binary ... most Americans just don't care about Elon. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1304563/us-adults-impres...

That's a fair point, tbh. I probably shouldn't have defined it as hated vs fine. Its more like unacceptable to have access to twitter vs acceptable to have access to twitter.

Neither position necessarily implies approval of the person or content.

Re: Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

#158

Post by mvnuweucxqokii »

someNameIG wrote: post #139
pannSun wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't understand why people are upset when they get banned from the 40% of all roads, parks, and sidewalks that are owned by GloboCorp. In the old days of private homes, sure it sucked when you got thrown out of a houseparty, but that's just the game. It's both private property, there is no difference."

Oh no, you got banned from those places for wearing a nazi armband, but there's multiple other roads, parks, and sidewalks, that allow that (e.g. 4chan), just as easily accessible.

Alternatively, oh no you got banned for spreading factual information like there is insufficient evidence to rule out the possibility of a lab leak, so now you'll be relegated to places where you can have no impact on the public discourse.

Re: Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

#159

Post by omnicognate »

fswd wrote: post #129

I think out of all of this the worst thing to come of it, is this term, seemingly re-invented here, called "free speech absolutists". Which isn't a thing. It's the inversion of "relative censorship" and much larger concept and strategy to turn everything "relative", i.e relativism, or "The Relativists Clan". Free speech can't be "relative" to somebody's interpretation, otherwise it wouldn't be speech that is free --…

Free speech absolutism is a clear and useful term for the belief that anybody should be allowed to say anything, i.e. that absolute freedom of speech is inherently a good thing. It's not synonymous with "freedom of speech" (i.e. the "absolutism" part isn't redundant) because there are versions of the idea of freedom of speech that aren't absolute, that don't allow anybody to say anything they like.

The version of freedom of speech that is encoded in US consitutional law (the first amendment and the long history of supreme court judgements on the subject) is an example. There are forms of speech that are not protected and there is a mainstream interpretation of freedom of speech that does not see restrictions against defamation, incitement of violence, etc., as infringements of it. A "free speech absolutist" would see these as infringements of freedom of speech, so the term is useful to distinguish that particular view.

You're seeing the term used a lot on Hacker News because there are people here who routinely argue that any speech should be allowed on a platform that claims to support freedom of speech. These people are free speech absolutists (at least in the context of the debate about online platforms) and, if they feel their views on the matter are correct, shouldn't be offended to be called that.

Re: Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

#160

Post by johnny22 »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #83
nickthegreek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kanye isn't in those countries.

But twitter is. And I don't know if they have option for country level ban.

they've long banned nazi stuff from appearing to german users since that is illegal there.
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