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I think that ghostbanning is unethical

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Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#21

Post by mah4k4l »

true_religion wrote: post #20
mah4k4l wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't seen HN use shadowbanning to censor anyone. Maybe it was the ones you didn't see? Bacause they were shadowbanned? My post was about ethics, trying to be formal and simple about the question what is it to do the right thing. Basically it was about this: sometimes good is right, sometimes evil is right, so good can be wrong and evil can be right, and we have four things of which the main question is the que…

Shadow banned people on HN just have their comments automatically killed. If you have showdead on, you still see their comments.

Thanks for the advice; just put mine on. The world of the dead fascinates me.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#23

Post by selfhoster11 »

yetihehe wrote: post #13
selfhoster11 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While shadow banning has some benefits, at its heart it is a form of gas-lighting (claiming that everyone can see your message, while it's actually just you), with good intentions in the case of HN. I don't know that it shouldn't be used just because of philosophical objections, but it certainly messes with the idea that a system is meant to either obey or refuse the command given by the user, and do so honestly. Lyi…

> but it certainly messes with the idea that a system is meant to either obey or refuse the command given by the user, and do so honestly. If some users don't want to act honestly, rest of society should not honour their malice. Honouring malice leads to dissolution of society.

I don't mean to imply that shadow banning hurts abusive users' feelings, and even if it does, I couldn't care less because being malicious is a choice.

What I meant is that shadow banning is, by design, an invisible punishment - and therefore, you cannot see that you've been caught up into it as a false positive and punished. This doesn't happen on systems without shadow banning in place.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#24

Post by tmaly »

mah4k4l wrote: post #21
true_religion wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shadow banned people on HN just have their comments automatically killed. If you have showdead on, you still see their comments.

Thanks for the advice; just put mine on. The world of the dead fascinates me.

I like dead posts. Always interesting to see what offends people.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#25

Post by yetihehe »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #23
yetihehe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it certainly messes with the idea that a system is meant to either obey or refuse the command given by the user, and do so honestly. If some users don't want to act honestly, rest of society should not honour their malice. Honouring malice leads to dissolution of society.

I don't mean to imply that shadow banning hurts abusive users' feelings, and even if it does, I couldn't care less because being malicious is a choice. What I meant is that shadow banning is, by design, an invisible punishment - and therefore, you cannot see that you've been caught up into it as a false positive and punished. This doesn't happen on systems without shadow banning in place.

Yeah, we can argue all we want, but it is only implemented as a result of users able to use free resource to mess with others by creating new account when they know that they are banned. Possible solutions:

1. Don't ban users

2. Ban users and tell them

3. Ban users and don't tell them\

4. Don't allow free accounts

Unless you know a better solution, we have to accept shadow banning as a speed bump. And like speed bumps, they unfortunately sometimes catch good-willing users, but make life better for thousands of other users.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#26

Post by Overtonwindow »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #23
yetihehe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it certainly messes with the idea that a system is meant to either obey or refuse the command given by the user, and do so honestly. If some users don't want to act honestly, rest of society should not honour their malice. Honouring malice leads to dissolution of society.

I don't mean to imply that shadow banning hurts abusive users' feelings, and even if it does, I couldn't care less because being malicious is a choice. What I meant is that shadow banning is, by design, an invisible punishment - and therefore, you cannot see that you've been caught up into it as a false positive and punished. This doesn't happen on systems without shadow banning in place.

It’s like being blackballed. I often wonder if people knew they were blackballed in Hollywood during the red scare. They were Shadowband. A lot of people have been unfairly “shadow band” in real life. In my humble opinion it is most certainly unethical. If someone is to be ostracized, to be banned so to speak from whatever activity that is, they deserve to know why.

It’s better to correct one’s behavior if one knows what the hell they are correcting. Correction and rehabilitation can’t have progress if you just put them in their own echo chamber.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#27

Post by yetihehe »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #26
selfhoster11 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to imply that shadow banning hurts abusive users' feelings, and even if it does, I couldn't care less because being malicious is a choice. What I meant is that shadow banning is, by design, an invisible punishment - and therefore, you cannot see that you've been caught up into it as a false positive and punished. This doesn't happen on systems without shadow banning in place.

It’s like being blackballed. I often wonder if people knew they were blackballed in Hollywood during the red scare. They were Shadowband. A lot of people have been unfairly “shadow band” in real life. In my humble opinion it is most certainly unethical. If someone is to be ostracized, to be banned so to speak from whatever activity that is, they deserve to know why. It’s better to correct one’s behavior if one knows…

> If someone is to be ostracized, to be banned so to speak from whatever activity that is, they deserve to know why.

Shadowbanning could go away if people were actually ostracized, which means expelling from community. Currently if you ban someone, you only ban a single account and they can create another one. Some people are banned not because they don't know what they do, they are banned because they are intentional on destruction of society. They won't learn anything from banning them. That's where shadowbanning comes in, they can shitpost all they want, but rest of us doesn't have to listen to them.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#28

Post by mcphage »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #26
selfhoster11 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to imply that shadow banning hurts abusive users' feelings, and even if it does, I couldn't care less because being malicious is a choice. What I meant is that shadow banning is, by design, an invisible punishment - and therefore, you cannot see that you've been caught up into it as a false positive and punished. This doesn't happen on systems without shadow banning in place.

It’s like being blackballed. I often wonder if people knew they were blackballed in Hollywood during the red scare. They were Shadowband. A lot of people have been unfairly “shadow band” in real life. In my humble opinion it is most certainly unethical. If someone is to be ostracized, to be banned so to speak from whatever activity that is, they deserve to know why. It’s better to correct one’s behavior if one knows…

> It’s better to correct one’s behavior if one knows what the hell they are correcting. Correction and rehabilitation can’t have progress if you just put them in their own echo chamber.

This is still assuming good faith on the commenter's part—some people don't want to correct their behavior. Maybe they're doing it for money, or for attention, or maybe they just like annoying others.

And even if you are someone that might be willing to correct your behavior, it's not HN's responsibility to guide you to rehabilitation, when it comes at the cost of making the conversation worse for everyone else along the way.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#29

Post by tunap »

true_religion wrote: post #20
mah4k4l wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't seen HN use shadowbanning to censor anyone. Maybe it was the ones you didn't see? Bacause they were shadowbanned? My post was about ethics, trying to be formal and simple about the question what is it to do the right thing. Basically it was about this: sometimes good is right, sometimes evil is right, so good can be wrong and evil can be right, and we have four things of which the main question is the que…

Shadow banned people on HN just have their comments automatically killed. If you have showdead on, you still see their comments.

I did not know this option exists. Thanks. Maybe.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#30

Post by jacknews »

I agree.

It's one thing to shadow-ban an obvious troll.

The problem is, just like censorship, where do you stop?

For example, I'm an infrequent commenter on Youtube, and then mostly perfectly agreeable, but just this one time I posted a scathing comment on a video. And just this one comment was shadow-banned, I'm guessing at the request of the video author. I tried to show my comment to a friend, and the comment simply did not exist for them, or for several other accounts.

I find this kind of selective ghosting, 'invisibly' deleting any critical comments, to be extremely pernicious.

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