Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The horror of being a Meta content moderator

english.elpais.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–18 of 18 posts

Re: The horror of being a Meta content moderator

#11

Post by NtochkaNzvanova »

So... are the humans being used to train AI or not? The article seemed vague on this. It makes sense that they would be, if only to eventually lay off the humans to save costs. (Assuming that the AI inference is actually cheaper than employing humans to do it. Maybe if the models are complex enough it wouldn't be.)

The thing I find confusing is this: if an AI were being trained, I would expect it to quickly get good at distinguishing the extremely obvious bad content from obvious acceptable content. So over time, you would expect the human moderators to only need to make calls about borderline cases. I.e., over time what the humans see will tend to become less horrible, and the AI will eventually get good at making those calls as well. If this isn't happening, why not?

Re: The horror of being a Meta content moderator

#12

Post by Terr_ »

NtochkaNzvanova wrote: post #11

So... are the humans being used to train AI or not? The article seemed vague on this. It makes sense that they would be, if only to eventually lay off the humans to save costs. (Assuming that the AI inference is actually cheaper than employing humans to do it. Maybe if the models are complex enough it wouldn't be.) The thing I find confusing is this: if an AI were being trained, I would expect it to quickly get good…

I suspect part of the problem is that AI uncertainty and failure still doesn't always work the way humans expect, so what's "borderline" for the AI isn't necessarily borderline for human, and vice-versa. This leads to a problem when it comes to reliably detecting and escalating issues. (Especially when something slipping through might have large legal repercussions.)

Imagine a recognition task where both machines and humans have the same X% false-[positive/negative] rate, but where there's zero overlap between the cases that each system considers uncertain. Failures by the algorithm would proceed without being flagged for review, and all the human reviews would be of "obvious" things.

Re: The horror of being a Meta content moderator

#13

Post by dang »

FernandoMax wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Can you please not post this type of comment on the articles you submit? You've done it more than once and it's not the convention here.

For more information see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39180235 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39187161.

Re: The horror of being a Meta content moderator

#14

Post by Log_out_ »

vdaea wrote: post #8

If you are not cut out for this kind of job, why don't you just leave? I don't understand, making all this big fuss, with medical leaves, suing the company, etc. Taking advantage of the fact that it's extremely hard to fire someone in Spain.

They do.. and usually turn to groups that are against the society that barraged them.

Re: The horror of being a Meta content moderator

#15

Post by me_me_me »

jareklupinski wrote: post #9
emestifs wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes HN different from FB? Is it just the scale? You see stupid stuff posted here. You even see things get flagged fairly quickly. Crowdsourced moderation. But I can't imagine that would work for FB. Is it that there's literally no bar when it comes to who can post what on FB? Whereas on HN there's a bar, and often the bar is dictated by the nature of the post itself (popular topic vs some niche where only a sm…

> Crowdsourced moderation. But I can't imagine that would work for FB. its used to work. incredibly well, in fact, but only for the first few years or so back when your entire feed was just the contents of your friends list, if one of those 'friends' starts posting things that get a little too crazy, you could unfriend them in two clicks, from the same dialog as the post itself, and you wouldnt have to worry about it…

its very easy for a bots, or organised groups to false flag content they don't want to see.

Self moderation works in small communities like smaller more focused subreddits.

Re: The horror of being a Meta content moderator

#16

Post by me_me_me »

vdaea wrote: post #8

If you are not cut out for this kind of job, why don't you just leave? I don't understand, making all this big fuss, with medical leaves, suing the company, etc. Taking advantage of the fact that it's extremely hard to fire someone in Spain.

oh wow, who would have thought of that!

You need to share your ideas with government, if you are homeless just buy a house. If you don't like your dead-end job just quit. If you can't pay bills just stop living.

People who get those jobs in the first place are going to be pressed for money in the first place. They are not at liberty to cheat or use system like you suggest. A lot of people have morals and consider you suggestions unacceptable.

Re: The horror of being a Meta content moderator

#17

Post by jareklupinski »

me_me_me wrote: post #15
jareklupinski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crowdsourced moderation. But I can't imagine that would work for FB. its used to work. incredibly well, in fact, but only for the first few years or so back when your entire feed was just the contents of your friends list, if one of those 'friends' starts posting things that get a little too crazy, you could unfriend them in two clicks, from the same dialog as the post itself, and you wouldnt have to worry about it…

its very easy for a bots, or organised groups to false flag content they don't want to see. Self moderation works in small communities like smaller more focused subreddits.

i wasn't allowing bots into my friends list :)

Re: The horror of being a Meta content moderator

#18

Post by AndrewOMartin »

tamimio wrote: post #10
emestifs wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes HN different from FB? Is it just the scale? You see stupid stuff posted here. You even see things get flagged fairly quickly. Crowdsourced moderation. But I can't imagine that would work for FB. Is it that there's literally no bar when it comes to who can post what on FB? Whereas on HN there's a bar, and often the bar is dictated by the nature of the post itself (popular topic vs some niche where only a sm…

> What makes HN different from FB? Is it just the scale? The userbase.

It's true, plenty more sanctimonious arseholes here. ;) /s
Post reply on HN