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

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

#311

Post by sneak »

dkh wrote: post #198
sneak wrote: post #151

This article opens up with an anecdote about policing morality and imposing one's own local norms on the legal speech of others. NSFW is a euphemism. Please don't push your American puritanical worldview on every user of your UGC platform.

Okay, so disregarding that label, most platforms will have a target or focus or niche (well, the ones that want a chance of surviving, anyway) and they will thus be very wise to tailor the rules around that, and create the conditions ideal for fostering that type of content. For instance, if you were starting, say, a TikTok-esque video app but for super-quick tutorial videos, wouldn't it make sense for upload criteri…

Isn’t this the opposite of “listen to your users”? If you built a platform and you think it’s for x, and your users use it to do y, isn’t y what you should be focusing on, in the sense of Lean Startup/Build Something People Want?

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

#312

Post by photochemsyn »

throwawaysea wrote: post #206
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…

The problem is where the line is drawn. Arguments against explicitly illegal content (like CSAM) or unhelpful content (like spam) are used to justify content moderation that goes far beyond. Moderation on the biggest social media platforms (like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc.) includes more than just basic moderation to make the platform viable. They include a number of elements that are more like censorship or prop…

I think the issue is more that these are for-profit corporations who care almost exclusively about advertising revenue. Now, if 10% of your 'product' (*your users) is driving away the other 90% of your product, and you can no longer sell them to your advertisers, well? I'm guessing it's more a business decision, they've decided that eliminating 'fringe views' is best for business.

It's kind of like an advertising dystopian situation, where you want this homogenized audience (preferably rather dumbed down) who will eagerly buy whatever is advertised. And, you don't want to scare any of them away.

Notice this view is not partisan or ideological, it's just pure capitalism, how can we wring the most value out of this setup for the shareholders, that's all that matters. The end result is the current mess we now have, in which nobody but the advertiser is all that happy.

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

#313

Post by CivBase »

evandwight wrote: post #308
michaelpb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's an entire category of "idea guys" who don't get this. They repeatedly try to crack the code on a truly moderation-free or purely crowd-moderated platform, and it never, ever, ever works. It almost always boils down to a poor understanding of how humans work (usually some sort of "homo economicus") or how computers work (usually some sort of "AI magic wand").

Why can't you verify real identities? Can't you use phone numbers, photos of IDs, charging a credit card, verification of physical addresses, or invites to increase the difficulty if creating fake accounts? Yes, there is an issue of increasing the difficulty if signing up for real users but once accounts are tied to real identities doesn't that allow crowd moderation? - person whose fallen into your apparent fallacy

Somehow authenticating every user with a "real ID" doesn't help much unless you engage in content moderation.

A system like that would be complex, costly, a major barrier for growth, and would likely still be vulnerable to fraud. You probably wouldn't have much opportunity to take legal action against abusers, even if you could identify them. Plus, safely storing the user info needed to make a system like that work would be a huge liability.

And at the end of the day you still have to moderate the platform to identify abuse and take action against abusers. But if you use "real IDs" that probably wont be a problem because you'll have no users anyways.

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

#314

Post by thangalin »

seph-reed wrote: post #121
michaelpb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's an entire category of "idea guys" who don't get this. They repeatedly try to crack the code on a truly moderation-free or purely crowd-moderated platform, and it never, ever, ever works. It almost always boils down to a poor understanding of how humans work (usually some sort of "homo economicus") or how computers work (usually some sort of "AI magic wand").

I still theorize crowd-moderated platforms are possible, as long as there's really good gate-keeping. My bet is some real-world tie, one which is time consuming and expensive to create. From there it should be possible to create moderation tools that keep the rest going. An example of a real world tie would be a trust network that requires status with in-person communities and local businesses. And not just "accept t…

Here's a concept for a moderated deliberation platform:

https://bytebucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/raw/master/doc...

It's like StackOverflow + Reddit + Wikipedia. Section 3.1 is what makes the concept fairly unique. Most moderation systems require known moderators; the proposed system uses random selection. Eligible moderators could require a minimum reputation to further reduce the possibility of bad actors. Using something like Slashdot's interaction limit may be helpful.

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

#315

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

bryan_w wrote: post #175
Alir3z4 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, shadow ban was in place as well. The thing is, the people that weren't the ones posting the content. It appeared their computer was affected by some type of malicious file to be part of a bigger network. (botnet?) I could see from the thousands of different IPs in different countries around the globe, that it could be affected personal computers. Very few of them were computers from hosting companies, the rest w…

Yup they utilize "residential proxies" to hide their behavior which makes the situation worse because sometimes it will affect your legit users

I wasn't familiar with the term, so I just searched the phrase "residential proxies", and the space seems even more sketchy than the usual VPN peddlers who promise the world and more. Are they using malware-infected PCs, or what?

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

#316

Post by evandwight »

CivBase wrote: post #313
evandwight wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you verify real identities? Can't you use phone numbers, photos of IDs, charging a credit card, verification of physical addresses, or invites to increase the difficulty if creating fake accounts? Yes, there is an issue of increasing the difficulty if signing up for real users but once accounts are tied to real identities doesn't that allow crowd moderation? - person whose fallen into your apparent fallacy

Somehow authenticating every user with a "real ID" doesn't help much unless you engage in content moderation. A system like that would be complex, costly, a major barrier for growth, and would likely still be vulnerable to fraud. You probably wouldn't have much opportunity to take legal action against abusers, even if you could identify them. Plus, safely storing the user info needed to make a system like that work w…

I should clarify - crowd sourced moderation, not no moderation. People can still be banned if the community doesn't like them.

I broadly agree but invites aren't complex. See lobste.rs

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

#317

Post by Qub3d »

ljm wrote: post #217
mrkurt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shadow ban abusive users on Fly.io and it works great. Everything seems to work right up until they try to connect to a deployed app. It took me a while to realize that ramping up the frustration level is, itself, a helpful deterrent.

I remember an old mailing list discussion on sourcehut, because sourcehut provides a build service that you can use for automation. The decision from sircmpwn was, at the end, to charge money for the service. Charging money and KnowYourCustomer will kill most exploits dead. In this sense, this is turning the frustration level to 11. You can use the service to a certain extent, without frustration, but if you want to…

> The decision from sircmpwn was, at the end, to charge money for the service.

Frankly, I'm shocked the other major free providers (GitHub/Lab) haven't done this by default. GitHub's current default is free for public branches, and a small fee for private.

I could see a flipped setup working: by default a very small fee (1-5 cents per x number of batches) that most companies wouldn't notice, and a path for FOSS projects to apply for credits.

I can't find the direct link, but I remember someone on HN pointing out that because CI tools are turing complete, GitHub actions is the cheapest serverless cloud product in the world right now -- you just need to figure out how to game the system.

I'm sure they've built very sophisticated filtering tools, but imagine someone slips through the cracks and gets a cryptominer working. Get that action registered in enough projects (by, say embedding it in an Actions library or generator tool) and that could be significant.

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

#318

Post by rfrey »

fragmede wrote: post #246
xwdv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several years ago a popular gaming forum with a significant teenage audience I used to read had declared a simple policy toward threats of suicide. If you were threatening to kill yourself, do it , and stop messaging the mods, they are not here to talk you down from a ledge. It seemed pretty effective.

That's horrible! Did you run that plan past any lawyers?

Your parent said they used to read the forum, not that they ran it.

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

#319

Post by ziml77 »

wslack wrote: post #305
ninkendo wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What blows my mind is that only 50% is spent moderating. At some point the engineering work can be something approximating “done” (or should get asymptotically close to it), and the health of your platform ultimately rests a lot more on the quality of the community than on any particular technical project. What is engineering doing that it takes up as much person-hours as moderation? Running A/B tests to tweak the “t…

Super-niche subreddits still have something to give, but inevitably success > popularity > memes unless there is strong moderation.

I saw this happen to a couple subreddits. I don't blame reddit for that (other than selection of default subs). It's just the natural progression as a subreddit grows that it turns to memes and constant recycled content. Heavy moderation is the only way to stop that.

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

#320

Post by marcthe12 »

evandwight wrote: post #308
michaelpb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's an entire category of "idea guys" who don't get this. They repeatedly try to crack the code on a truly moderation-free or purely crowd-moderated platform, and it never, ever, ever works. It almost always boils down to a poor understanding of how humans work (usually some sort of "homo economicus") or how computers work (usually some sort of "AI magic wand").

Why can't you verify real identities? Can't you use phone numbers, photos of IDs, charging a credit card, verification of physical addresses, or invites to increase the difficulty if creating fake accounts? Yes, there is an issue of increasing the difficulty if signing up for real users but once accounts are tied to real identities doesn't that allow crowd moderation? - person whose fallen into your apparent fallacy

Privacy issues? That come up alot here on HN
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