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There is no abuse problem on the platform, or rather any abuse problem on the platform is already a solved problem via existing techniques (e.g. standard ML cla

There is no abuse problem on the platform, or rather any abuse problem on the platform is already a solved problem via existing techniques (e.g. standard ML classifiers). Consider SMTP, which is a true peer-to-peer system. In SMTP, abuse is a solved problem - spam filters work great, and 33mail/mailcatch (disposable email) improves things tremendously. At most 1-2 recruiters/SAAS offering marketing automation/etc slip through my filters each week, forcing me to expend about 3-5 seconds/week clicking "report spam". The "abuse" problem on twitter is similarly not really a filtering issue; if it were, then it could be easily solved by a moderately better twitter client or switching off notifications of @mentions. No, the actual problem people face is that they want to stop others from speaking, and label the speech they wish to stop "abuse". What's scary to most (including me) about Twitter is that an angry mob may form and decide they hate me, and then use Twitter to coordinate real life actions against me. That's not a problem of abuse on the platform; that's a problem that the platform enables people to speak among themselves in ways I dislike. Lets be clear that this is the problem some folks wish to solve. It's only by identifying the problem that we can properly solve it, or decide if it's a problem that should be solved.

pjc50 10y ago
> What's scary to most (including me) about Twitter is that an angry mob may form and decide they hate me, and then use Twitter to coordinate real life actions against me. There's multiple things going on here. We've seen use of communications channel A to organise harrasment on channel B - which is hard for B to stop ("brigading", gamergate). Gamergate escalated into real-life death threats against its targets. We've seen on-platform organisation of harrasment of people on and off the platform (this is ultimately what got Milo banned from twitter). We've also seen "news" organisations get into finger-pointing and condemnation of random citizens (e.g. Daily Mail outing a teacher as trans, resulting in her suicide). We've seen the legal system get involved clumsily. There's seemingly no middle ground between "joke in poor taste" and "arrested for bomb threats" (#twitterjoketrial). Occasionally people resort to libel law, and even more occasionally the less powerful, famous and obnoxious person wins (Katie Hopkins vs. Jack Monroe). People are I hope aware of the ability of abuse reporting systems to themselves become channels of abuse. Facebook's real names policy is exploited by anti-trans campaigners to force people off the platform, for example. Anyone should be aware of the risks of automated threshold systems being abused: if all you have to do is get 100 accounts to press "report abuse", that will be abused very quickly. Local standards also present problems. Do we really want to go along with e.g. Pakistan arresting people for blasphemy?
- milesrout 10y ago
  >"brigading", gamergate). Gamergate escalated into real-life death threats against its targets. No it didn't. It really didn't. No more than Twitter normally is. 'I hope you die' and 'I hope you get shot' aren't death threats, they're horrible things to say. There's a difference.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    http://www.businessinsider.com/brianna-wu-harassed-twitter-2014-10?IR=T#ixzz3G1NiMaPh http://www.businessinsider.com/brianna-wu-harassed-twitter-2... (Trigger warning: contains mildly redacted actual death threats) (mind you, the whole question of #twitterjoketrial was whether "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" constituted an offence against the Communications Act 2003 by being of a "menacing" character.)
    - mafribe 10y ago
      What reason is there to believe that Wu (aka John Walker Flynt) and the businessinsider report are credible sources? There are financial interest at play here that I'm not being given sufficiently strong reasons to ignore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
    - milesrout 10y ago
      But that's an isolated incident. Those aren't common, and even if they were common, Twitter is great about reporting those people to the police.
- tnone 10y ago
  Gamergate, never allowed to speak for itself, never defined, never counted, but somehow, the people who invoke it as a boogieman know exactly who did what and why. That should tell you what was going on, especially when what set it off was an abuse victim warning that his abuser was capable of anything for self aggrandizement. Candace Owens / Social Autopsy found that out when she started getting threatening and hateful emails from "gamers" on an address she'd only given out to progressive "anti abuse" activists.
M_Grey 10y ago
You make it sound like speech hasn't always been a contest; nothing about the freedom from government censorship implies anything else either. All you get with "free speech", is the notion that the government can't thumb the scales with their immense power and influence (having the ability to create and enforce laws). The problem does have a way to solve itself, but that probably involves the model we see here on HN, which admittedly is preferable to the model of a locale such as Reddit. That said, each platform is going to want to address the problem on a faster timeline, because the problem directly hits their bottom line.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I have no idea why you bring up the government - no one besides you is discussing government censorship. Are you attempting to steer the conversation towards a discussion of your libertarian principles?
nateberkopec 10y ago
Twitter took years to deploy notification syncing across clients (if I read a message on mobile, it gets marked as read on desktop). Is it really so hard to believe that deploying a "spam filter" for hate speech is difficult for them? I agree that the technology exists (and plenty of other solutions mentioned in the article). But saying that because the technology exists and hasn't been deployed therefore there is no abuse problem is a hilariously bad non sequitir.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  It may be a problem on Twitter, but there is no reason to believe it's a problem on p2p social networks.

pjc50 10y ago

> What's scary to most (including me) about Twitter is that an angry mob may form and decide they hate me, and then use Twitter to coordinate real life actions against me. There's multiple things going on here. We've seen use of communications channel A to organise harrasment on channel B - which is hard for B to stop ("brigading", gamergate). Gamergate escalated into real-life death threats against its targets. We've seen on-platform organisation of harrasment of people on and off the platform (this is ultimately what got Milo banned from twitter). We've also seen "news" organisations get into finger-pointing and condemnation of random citizens (e.g. Daily Mail outing a teacher as trans, resulting in her suicide). We've seen the legal system get involved clumsily. There's seemingly no middle ground between "joke in poor taste" and "arrested for bomb threats" (#twitterjoketrial). Occasionally people resort to libel law, and even more occasionally the less powerful, famous and obnoxious person wins (Katie Hopkins vs. Jack Monroe). People are I hope aware of the ability of abuse reporting systems to themselves become channels of abuse. Facebook's real names policy is exploited by anti-trans campaigners to force people off the platform, for example. Anyone should be aware of the risks of automated threshold systems being abused: if all you have to do is get 100 accounts to press "report abuse", that will be abused very quickly. Local standards also present problems. Do we really want to go along with e.g. Pakistan arresting people for blasphemy?

milesrout 10y ago
>"brigading", gamergate). Gamergate escalated into real-life death threats against its targets. No it didn't. It really didn't. No more than Twitter normally is. 'I hope you die' and 'I hope you get shot' aren't death threats, they're horrible things to say. There's a difference.
- pjc50 10y ago
  http://www.businessinsider.com/brianna-wu-harassed-twitter-2014-10?IR=T#ixzz3G1NiMaPh http://www.businessinsider.com/brianna-wu-harassed-twitter-2... (Trigger warning: contains mildly redacted actual death threats) (mind you, the whole question of #twitterjoketrial was whether "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" constituted an offence against the Communications Act 2003 by being of a "menacing" character.)
  - mafribe 10y ago
    What reason is there to believe that Wu (aka John Walker Flynt) and the businessinsider report are credible sources? There are financial interest at play here that I'm not being given sufficiently strong reasons to ignore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
  - milesrout 10y ago
    But that's an isolated incident. Those aren't common, and even if they were common, Twitter is great about reporting those people to the police.
tnone 10y ago
Gamergate, never allowed to speak for itself, never defined, never counted, but somehow, the people who invoke it as a boogieman know exactly who did what and why. That should tell you what was going on, especially when what set it off was an abuse victim warning that his abuser was capable of anything for self aggrandizement. Candace Owens / Social Autopsy found that out when she started getting threatening and hateful emails from "gamers" on an address she'd only given out to progressive "anti abuse" activists.

M_Grey 10y ago

You make it sound like speech hasn't always been a contest; nothing about the freedom from government censorship implies anything else either. All you get with "free speech", is the notion that the government can't thumb the scales with their immense power and influence (having the ability to create and enforce laws). The problem does have a way to solve itself, but that probably involves the model we see here on HN, which admittedly is preferable to the model of a locale such as Reddit. That said, each platform is going to want to address the problem on a faster timeline, because the problem directly hits their bottom line.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I have no idea why you bring up the government - no one besides you is discussing government censorship. Are you attempting to steer the conversation towards a discussion of your libertarian principles?

nateberkopec 10y ago

Twitter took years to deploy notification syncing across clients (if I read a message on mobile, it gets marked as read on desktop). Is it really so hard to believe that deploying a "spam filter" for hate speech is difficult for them? I agree that the technology exists (and plenty of other solutions mentioned in the article). But saying that because the technology exists and hasn't been deployed therefore there is no abuse problem is a hilariously bad non sequitir.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
It may be a problem on Twitter, but there is no reason to believe it's a problem on p2p social networks.