You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation • Hacker News Board

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#261

Post by doublerabbit » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

user-the-name wrote: post #258

Goronmon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never forget having to be a moderator for a somewhat popular forum back in the day and oh man did I learn how a few people can make your life hell. I was also a mod for a popular gaming forum way back in the day. It was pretty miserable looking back. Personally, for me, the extreme/shocking content wasn't the biggest issue. That stuff was quick and easy to deal with. If you saw that type of content you just imme…

> What was a lot harder were the toxic users that just stuck around. Not doing anything bad enough to necessarily warrant a permanent ban, but just a constant stream of shitty behavior. Especially sometimes when the most toxic users were also some of the most popular users. What people find out, again and again, is that you just ban those users. Don't need an excuse. Just ban them. Even if they are popular. Your comm…

> What people find out, again and again, is that you just ban those users. Don't need an excuse. Just ban them. Even if they are popular.

Rule #1 of moderation. Keep it in an open transparent log and you'll find positivity.

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#262

Post by ketzo » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

derekzhouzhen wrote: post #232

makeitdouble wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t you still have to deal with user reports, repeated spam, stalking, verbal abuse etc. ? I’d assume a comment being visible to only one person doesn’t completely remove all the user to user issues the other platforms face.

Flame wars, abuse etc. only happen if there are other people watching. Why would anyone try to abuse someone of which they have next to zero info for no personal gain, and no one can witness your triumph anyway?

Is this a rhetorical question? Because people do that literally all the time. This is an extremely real problem.

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#263

Post by throwawaysea » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #233

throwawaysea wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you merely censor illegal content, you will become a home for disinformation and ultra right-wing conspiracies. See Parler. What do you count as disinformation and why is it a problem? If you disagree with something you can ignore it and move on, or engage with it and respond with your own counter-argument. It doesn't seem like a problem that reduces the viability of the entire platform. It is also strange to me…

> What do you count as disinformation I won't get into the argument of "Well then who is the arbiter of truth?" because honestly, I don't have an answer. It can't be the government for obvious reasons, but it also can't be private corporations, and certainly can't be the general public. That leaves...nobody. Maybe a non-profit organization, but even those could easily be corrupted. > and why is it a problem? Nearly 7…

If you don't mind answering another question, why the hate for Tucker Carlson? I don't follow him but people have complained about him so much that I've now seen a few videos to see what the fuss is about. I didn't see anything wrong within those few clips I saw (maybe an hour's worth) - it didn't seem any different from any other mainstream news in that one side of the argument was being presented, with a lot of conviction. But I did not see misinformation. I am sure there's some non-zero amount of misinformation that can be found from scouring his clips, but that's true for anyone and any source, and I certainly don't think he should be "off air" for it. I can't help but think that a lot of the character attacks against him are simply made because he's a prominent and successful voice on the "other side", and his effectiveness is a risk to political adversaries.

As someone who wants to see Tucker Carlson off the air, do you see your position on the matter differently? Are there conservative voices you support being platformed, and what makes them different for you?

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#264

Post by jedberg » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

It always blew people's minds when I told them that 50% of the engineering time at reddit was spent on moderating. What's interesting though is that we didn't even have any moderation for the first year or so, because the community would just downvote spam.

It wasn't until we got vaguely popular that suddenly we were completely overwhelmed with spam and had to do something about it.

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#265

Post by CamperBob2 » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #263

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you count as disinformation I won't get into the argument of "Well then who is the arbiter of truth?" because honestly, I don't have an answer. It can't be the government for obvious reasons, but it also can't be private corporations, and certainly can't be the general public. That leaves...nobody. Maybe a non-profit organization, but even those could easily be corrupted. > and why is it a problem? Nearly 7…

If you don't mind answering another question, why the hate for Tucker Carlson? I don't follow him but people have complained about him so much that I've now seen a few videos to see what the fuss is about. I didn't see anything wrong within those few clips I saw (maybe an hour's worth) - it didn't seem any different from any other mainstream news in that one side of the argument was being presented, with a lot of con…

It's not a good sign when the "News" network you work for has to go to court to argue that no reasonable person would take you seriously.[1]

Just over the past year, Carlson has peddled such obvious falsehoods as claiming the COVID-19 vaccines don’t work, the Green New Deal was responsible for Texas’ winter storm power-grid failure, immigrants are making the Potomac River "dirtier and dirtier,” and that there’s no evidence that white supremacists played a role in the violent Jan. 6 Capitol riots. [2]

We don't need this guy on the public airwaves. He should get a blog... that is, if he can find a hosting provider who will tolerate his views.

1: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/judge-rules-fox-...

2: https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-admits-i-lie-if...

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#266

Post by freefruit » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #199

duxup wrote: post #68

So true. In HN articles where we discuss social media moderation there's often this idea that "they shouldn't be doing this at all". But I think for most companies and users ... they won't like what a completely moderation free site looks like. So here we are with this painful problem. I kinda wish there was an imaginary "real person with an honest identity" type system that did exist where we could interact without…

> I kinda wish there was an imaginary "real person with an honest identity" type system that did exist where we could interact without the land of bots and dishonest users and so forth. But that obviously brings its own issues. That sounds like it could be done in a way that isnt terrible. As a user, you sign up with an identity provider by submitting personal documents and/or an interview to prove that you’re a real…

Governor Dao has a better working system for this already. Authenticated anonymous identities. They are currently targeting the NFT space, but this tech could also be applied to online communities. https://authentication.governordao.org/

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#267

Post by dcow » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

madrox wrote: post #257

I considered doing a moderation as a service startup a couple years ago. I didn't end up doing it because came to the conclusion that global communities aren't the future. I think platforms supporting more silo'd communities that make and enforce their own rules are how it will look. Discord and Twitch use this model, and while they have their problems, the problems look quite different from the ones outlined here.

I agree that this is the future. I even feel US politics have suffered from being hoisted onto a global stage. When everyone on the internet (globe) can weigh in on or muck with the politics of your smaller community (country or state) you’re going to get into situations that make it hard to practically make decisions and run a country. One of the foundational principles of the US the ability to justifiably oppress minority factions for the good of the majority, but checked by systems of power distribution so that it’s not a simply mob rule and limited so as not to impinge on a set of inalienable rights afforded to all citizens. Yet on the global theatre the assumption is that minority opinions now take precedence over the majority. And what’s worse, 100 people screaming on twitter now has the same impact as 200,000 matching on Washington (to be clear, 200k marching on Washington is significant and should matter, 200 people on twitter should not).

So what? Well now when we need to oppress minority factions more than ever in the face of a public health crisis and tell people sorry suck it up you live in American where the majority says to mask up and get vaccinated if you want to be in public, we “for some reason” at critical moments in curbing the spread of the pandemic fumble around for months on end because a few anti-vexers all of a sudden have infinite civil liberties and a global platform (note, one that they didn't have when we solved previous public health crises). My fear is that we’ve become a society of “piss off I can do what I want” rather than one of calculated and ideally minimized oppression.

I also don’t understand as a society why we have to hold platforms accountable for content. If the problem is a bunch of illicit material showing up, implement KYC requirements so that individuals are exposed legally to the consequences of posting illegal material. Anonymity is a tool/privilege to be used, not abused, and distinctly not a fundamental human right in the US. Make the default less anonymous (but still private, that is something we’re supposed to care about constitutionally) and I suspect a lot of content moderation problems go away.

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#268

Post by nicbou » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #100

jonshariat wrote: post #22

I'll never forget having to be a moderator for a somewhat popular forum back in the day and oh man did I learn how a few people can make your life hell. One thing not mentioned many times in these discussions are the poor moderators. Having to look at all that stuff, some of which can be very disturbing or shocking (think death, gore, etc as well as the racy things) really takes a toll on the mind. The more automatio…

I'll never forget having to be a moderator for a somewhat popular forum back in the day and oh man did I learn how a few people can make your life hell. I was also a mod for a popular gaming forum way back in the day. It was pretty miserable looking back. Personally, for me, the extreme/shocking content wasn't the biggest issue. That stuff was quick and easy to deal with. If you saw that type of content you just imme…

That was also my experience moderating a medium-sized city subreddit. Bigger problems were easily dealt with. Toxicity was a lot harder to deal with, especially when it's so easy to create a throwaway account. I quit when one user decided to target me personally, and kept evading bans to cause more grief.

All of this crap, and your reward is more complaints, more demands.

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#269

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #267

madrox wrote: post #257

I considered doing a moderation as a service startup a couple years ago. I didn't end up doing it because came to the conclusion that global communities aren't the future. I think platforms supporting more silo'd communities that make and enforce their own rules are how it will look. Discord and Twitch use this model, and while they have their problems, the problems look quite different from the ones outlined here.

I agree that this is the future. I even feel US politics have suffered from being hoisted onto a global stage. When everyone on the internet (globe) can weigh in on or muck with the politics of your smaller community (country or state) you’re going to get into situations that make it hard to practically make decisions and run a country. One of the foundational principles of the US the ability to justifiably oppress m…

> 100 people screaming on twitter now has the same impact as 200,000 matching on Washington

It doesn't, though, unless at least one of those 100 has a giant following, but “one person with a media megaphone is louder than 100,000 without” isn't new, its older than radio competing with newspapers.

Re: You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation

#270

Post by ronsor » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 11:00 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #134

commandlinefan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just reddit, though - if you're going to start moderating, you have a meta-problem to address which is what to do about opinionated moderators.

All mods are opinionated. They're either humans, or bots programmed by humans. I don't see why you're trying to deny humanity to moderators.

All judges are opinionated. They're humans. I don't see why you're trying to deny humanity to judges.

Read the above and reconsider if your argument makes sense. It stands to reason that if you have any position of "power," even if it's just "random internet moderator," you should at least try to be fair, consistent, and reasonable.