Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#1

Post by Braasch » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:07 PM UTC

Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments
techcrunch.com

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#2

Post by chrisrhoden » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

Based on the anecdotal comments below the original post, it seems like there's a very high correlation between posts that get flagged as inappropriate by Facebook and those that mention Google+ or link to it. Which seems absurd, on the face of it, but I am going to have to experiment.

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#3

Post by jasonkolb » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:23 PM UTC

This is a great example of machine learning gone wrong. Facebook turns the knob on their "positivity" algorithm a little too far to the right.

Machine learning is one of this things that works great until it doesn't, and you get misguided decisions like this that had zero human involvement.

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#4

Post by tree_of_item » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:23 PM UTC

Completely ridiculous. The next step is Facebook hellbanning people for "inappropriate comments".

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#5

Post by chrisrhoden » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:31 PM UTC

chrisrhoden wrote: post #2

Based on the anecdotal comments below the original post, it seems like there's a very high correlation between posts that get flagged as inappropriate by Facebook and those that mention Google+ or link to it. Which seems absurd, on the face of it, but I am going to have to experiment.

I haven't been able to make the dialog show, even by copying the full text of the comment which was originally flagged. Maybe they dialed it back?

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#6

Post by untog » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:34 PM UTC

This is an isolated incident. "Irrelevant or Inappropriate" sounds like a euphemism for spam- if Facebook is fighting comment spam then I applaud them. Their algorithm just isn't quite right yet. No story here.

"Is this censorship?" Are false positives on a spam filter censorship?

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#7

Post by waterlesscloud » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:38 PM UTC

So Facebook has decided to take control and accept responsibility for content on third party sites? That's an...interesting choice.

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#8

Post by driverdan » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:39 PM UTC

The solution is pretty straight forward. Stop using FB to handle your site's comments. I don't even see comments on TechCrunch anymore because I have FB whitelist only and I'm not the only one.

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#9

Post by reso » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:39 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #6

This is an isolated incident. "Irrelevant or Inappropriate" sounds like a euphemism for spam- if Facebook is fighting comment spam then I applaud them. Their algorithm just isn't quite right yet. No story here. "Is this censorship?" Are false positives on a spam filter censorship?

It's exactly this. Let's not forget the quality of techcrunch comments improved by an order of magnitude as soon as they switched to Facebook's comment system, which has the best spam/troll detection I've ever seen. A tiny number of false positives is a fair price in my mind.

Re: Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments

#10

Post by jfoutz » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:42 PM UTC

I'm just super impressed Facebook admins can string two sentences together in a coherent way! I'm happy to give them a piece of gum as a reward. Those fun guys just need to promise not to walk while they chew it.