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Any online open forum would have the same problems no matter how hard they tried to prevent it. We can either accept that some level of hate speech is inevitabl

Any online open forum would have the same problems no matter how hard they tried to prevent it. We can either accept that some level of hate speech is inevitably going to slip past the moderators, or we can give up on having open forums altogether. There is no perfect world with perfect moderation of online content. I wish Facebook had the courage to say this themselves.

ben_w 9y ago
Is that provably inevitable for all online forms, or is “nobody knows how to yet”? Governments act like all tech problems are the latter, but I would like to know if this is like encryption that only friends can break (never), or like self driving cars (most people call it impossible until five years after it’s been demonstrated).
- dfox 9y ago
  For me moderating what amounts to open communication platform falls into third category: it is impossible and you should not try to do that. Especially in FB's case where it is quite obvious that various opposing "hate groups" have learned how to game the system, and also how to present results of that such that it supports their rhetoric.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > it is impossible and you should not try to do that. No, it is merely extremely expensive. But that's something that you need to tackle head on when your business model is to provide a service for free to a large chunk of the planet's population. The 'free' bit doesn't absolve you from your responsibility as an operator.
    - jjeaff 9y ago
      Seems like their recent move to get news off the feeds and focus on family and friends should solve the content issue. If someone is posting or liking hate speech or offensive content, I can just block them. I wouldn't add someone as a Facebook friend that would do that kind of thing anyway.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    > it is impossible and you should not try to do that. Can you prove, or at least demonstrate strong evidence for, either of those two claims? “FB are noobs at propaganda” isn’t sufficient, IMO.
- T2_t2 9y ago
  The former, because words are subjective, therefore this is no way to get everything anyone anywhere would ever consider hate speech. It's just an impossible scenario.
mschuster91 9y ago
> Any online open forum would have the same problems no matter how hard they tried to prevent it. Facebook tries to get by with as few moderators as they can, with paying them as low as possible and generally trying to teflon away anything negative from their service (i.e. they negate being responsible for the fake news/hate speech on their platform). I believe that there would certainly be a way to provide fair moderation - for example a ratio of 1 full time CSR (customer services representative) per 1000 users, not the 1 per 20k or worse they are currently trying to do.
- twblalock 9y ago
  > a ratio of 1 full time CSR (customer services representative) per 1000 users That would require 2 million full-time CSRs, because Facebook has a little over 2 billion active users per month.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    If that is the price to avoid externalizing the cost of a lack of moderation to society, then it is 2 million CSRs. I'm sick and tired of Silicon Valley companies thinking they can save money on customer support and have societies pick up the tab. And it's not like Facebook (or Twitter) couldn't get the money: 3€ per user and month should be enough to cover the cost of a properly salaried CSR - and at the same time create a barrier for bots and Nazi trolls.
    - ropiku 9y ago
      > And it's not like Facebook (or Twitter) couldn't get the money What makes you say that ? Facebook barely makes $5/quarter (3 months) in revenue. They couldn't even afford $1/month/user. Meanwhile Twitter has never turned a profit ever.
      - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
        If you can't make more than $5 per quarter per user, maybe you shouldn't be in business. If you have never, ever turned a profit, then what are you, a charity?
danjayh 9y ago
I'm absolutely gobsmacked that people are starting from the position that hate speech should be censored at all. The determination of what constitutes 'hate speech' is made by whoever happens to be in power at the time. Winston Churchill would have given a much different answer than Adolf Hitler. From my point of view, it's chilling that the mechanism to do this has been built in the first place.
- rebeccaskinner 9y ago
  This is a common approach by groups who perpetuate hate speech- to exclaim with faux outrage that any limits on hate speech are tantamount to the dissolution of free speech at the behest of ostensibly powerful minority groups. I won't go so far as to accuse you of being a member of hate groups, but your response certainly echoes the propaganda that they spread, especially in forums like HN. The fact is that society has always drawn lines about what speech and behavior is and isn't acceptable in different venues and circumstances. Facebook's choice to censor hate speech is no different from a bar, restaurant, or department store asking someone to leave for shouting the N-word at fellow shoppers. It's a private non-governmental entity making a choice about how they want their users to act on their platform. Furthermore, free speech claims in favor of hate speech ignore the real material costs in human lives that facilitating hate speech incurs. While I greatly value free speech personally, I also greatly value human lives and the ability of all people to meaningfully participate in society without facing systemic oppression, violence, and hatred. Tolerance must inevitably come face-to-face with intolerance, and if we don't act to stop the worst kinds of hatred and intolerance they fester and decay the ideals that allow tolerance to flourish at all.
  - programmarchy 9y ago
    You’re drawing a false equivalency. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are more like a public squares rather than restaurants or stores. It’s a space where free speech should be defended. Because free speech protects our society from authoritarianism and violence. It’s authoritarians who want to limit free speech, because their ideas have no merit and can only be enforced by violence.
naasking 9y ago
> Any online open forum would have the same problems no matter how hard they tried to prevent it. Then don't make it open. Make it auditable and tied to your public identity, not to an email address you can invent at any time. The OP is right, FB is making huge profits by punting the costs onto society.
- cgmg 9y ago
  Do you want to forcibly prevent others from engaging in anonymous discussion? Have you given any thought to the implications of that?
DenisM 9y ago
FIDO.NET was a fairly polite society. There’s a lot to learn from then if there is will.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  There's only one way I've seen in which one can reliably make and maintain a polite community: build it around a niche topic and moderate away things that stray too far away from it. The moment you let your community be about anything and everything is the moment the "unwashed masses" come and the whole thing starts catering to the lowest common denominator, which is a pretty shitty level. It's not a complete recipe, but I feel it's a necessary condition. This is a big part of why HN is a polite place, or why most niche subreddits are polite places.
  - pferde 9y ago
    Your forum could still be "about anything", yet not cater to lowest common denominator. It's only when you deliberately want to attract (and retain) as many eyeballs as possible, then the quality necessarily has to go out the window.
tripzilch 9y ago
It works just fine with medium to large online forums, given they have a good and motivated moderator team. Just not for global online forums like FB.

ben_w 9y ago

Is that provably inevitable for all online forms, or is “nobody knows how to yet”? Governments act like all tech problems are the latter, but I would like to know if this is like encryption that only friends can break (never), or like self driving cars (most people call it impossible until five years after it’s been demonstrated).

dfox 9y ago
For me moderating what amounts to open communication platform falls into third category: it is impossible and you should not try to do that. Especially in FB's case where it is quite obvious that various opposing "hate groups" have learned how to game the system, and also how to present results of that such that it supports their rhetoric.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > it is impossible and you should not try to do that. No, it is merely extremely expensive. But that's something that you need to tackle head on when your business model is to provide a service for free to a large chunk of the planet's population. The 'free' bit doesn't absolve you from your responsibility as an operator.
  - jjeaff 9y ago
    Seems like their recent move to get news off the feeds and focus on family and friends should solve the content issue. If someone is posting or liking hate speech or offensive content, I can just block them. I wouldn't add someone as a Facebook friend that would do that kind of thing anyway.
- ben_w 9y ago
  > it is impossible and you should not try to do that. Can you prove, or at least demonstrate strong evidence for, either of those two claims? “FB are noobs at propaganda” isn’t sufficient, IMO.
T2_t2 9y ago
The former, because words are subjective, therefore this is no way to get everything anyone anywhere would ever consider hate speech. It's just an impossible scenario.

mschuster91 9y ago

> Any online open forum would have the same problems no matter how hard they tried to prevent it. Facebook tries to get by with as few moderators as they can, with paying them as low as possible and generally trying to teflon away anything negative from their service (i.e. they negate being responsible for the fake news/hate speech on their platform). I believe that there would certainly be a way to provide fair moderation - for example a ratio of 1 full time CSR (customer services representative) per 1000 users, not the 1 per 20k or worse they are currently trying to do.

twblalock 9y ago
> a ratio of 1 full time CSR (customer services representative) per 1000 users That would require 2 million full-time CSRs, because Facebook has a little over 2 billion active users per month.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  If that is the price to avoid externalizing the cost of a lack of moderation to society, then it is 2 million CSRs. I'm sick and tired of Silicon Valley companies thinking they can save money on customer support and have societies pick up the tab. And it's not like Facebook (or Twitter) couldn't get the money: 3€ per user and month should be enough to cover the cost of a properly salaried CSR - and at the same time create a barrier for bots and Nazi trolls.
  - ropiku 9y ago
    > And it's not like Facebook (or Twitter) couldn't get the money What makes you say that ? Facebook barely makes $5/quarter (3 months) in revenue. They couldn't even afford $1/month/user. Meanwhile Twitter has never turned a profit ever.
    - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
      If you can't make more than $5 per quarter per user, maybe you shouldn't be in business. If you have never, ever turned a profit, then what are you, a charity?

danjayh 9y ago

I'm absolutely gobsmacked that people are starting from the position that hate speech should be censored at all. The determination of what constitutes 'hate speech' is made by whoever happens to be in power at the time. Winston Churchill would have given a much different answer than Adolf Hitler. From my point of view, it's chilling that the mechanism to do this has been built in the first place.

rebeccaskinner 9y ago
This is a common approach by groups who perpetuate hate speech- to exclaim with faux outrage that any limits on hate speech are tantamount to the dissolution of free speech at the behest of ostensibly powerful minority groups. I won't go so far as to accuse you of being a member of hate groups, but your response certainly echoes the propaganda that they spread, especially in forums like HN. The fact is that society has always drawn lines about what speech and behavior is and isn't acceptable in different venues and circumstances. Facebook's choice to censor hate speech is no different from a bar, restaurant, or department store asking someone to leave for shouting the N-word at fellow shoppers. It's a private non-governmental entity making a choice about how they want their users to act on their platform. Furthermore, free speech claims in favor of hate speech ignore the real material costs in human lives that facilitating hate speech incurs. While I greatly value free speech personally, I also greatly value human lives and the ability of all people to meaningfully participate in society without facing systemic oppression, violence, and hatred. Tolerance must inevitably come face-to-face with intolerance, and if we don't act to stop the worst kinds of hatred and intolerance they fester and decay the ideals that allow tolerance to flourish at all.
- programmarchy 9y ago
  You’re drawing a false equivalency. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are more like a public squares rather than restaurants or stores. It’s a space where free speech should be defended. Because free speech protects our society from authoritarianism and violence. It’s authoritarians who want to limit free speech, because their ideas have no merit and can only be enforced by violence.

naasking 9y ago

> Any online open forum would have the same problems no matter how hard they tried to prevent it. Then don't make it open. Make it auditable and tied to your public identity, not to an email address you can invent at any time. The OP is right, FB is making huge profits by punting the costs onto society.

cgmg 9y ago
Do you want to forcibly prevent others from engaging in anonymous discussion? Have you given any thought to the implications of that?

DenisM 9y ago

FIDO.NET was a fairly polite society. There’s a lot to learn from then if there is will.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
There's only one way I've seen in which one can reliably make and maintain a polite community: build it around a niche topic and moderate away things that stray too far away from it. The moment you let your community be about anything and everything is the moment the "unwashed masses" come and the whole thing starts catering to the lowest common denominator, which is a pretty shitty level. It's not a complete recipe, but I feel it's a necessary condition. This is a big part of why HN is a polite place, or why most niche subreddits are polite places.
- pferde 9y ago
  Your forum could still be "about anything", yet not cater to lowest common denominator. It's only when you deliberately want to attract (and retain) as many eyeballs as possible, then the quality necessarily has to go out the window.

tripzilch 9y ago

It works just fine with medium to large online forums, given they have a good and motivated moderator team. Just not for global online forums like FB.