3 ms·

I think it's actually a pretty hard problem. > ensure comments meet a basic level of decency Decency is famously difficult to define [0]. One person's idea of

by notJim 8y ago

I think it's actually a pretty hard problem. > ensure comments meet a basic level of decency Decency is famously difficult to define [0]. One person's idea of decency is another's idea of "free and open debate", is another's idea of alternative culture, etc. And the truly bad actors are using throwaway accounts anyway, or will start as soon as you start banning them. I think active moderation and community curation is the only real solution to this. Sub-communities (formed around particular channels or topics) have to define and enforce their own standards of decency. In this case, I can understand Youtube taking the conservative approach of not trusting communities to do that, especially given a lot of the stories that have come out showing that they aren't. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

derefr 8y ago
> And the truly bad actors are using throwaway accounts anyway Have you tried to make a throwaway Google account lately? It's kind of useless to do so. Not so much in the sign-up, but due to the fact that accounts with no history and no clear ties to a physical identity have nothing "vouching" for them, so constantly trip the "Are you a robot?" checks. (And, I imagine, {email, comments, Google Docs shares, etc.} from such accounts also are invisibly thresholded lower on any spam filters they are run through. This is why people write viruses to take over people's existing Google accounts—accounts without "reputation" are kind of worthless for doing anything public-visible.)
- zbentley 8y ago
  I agree. Much like the email reputation systems that evolved over time, I think other companies (like Google/FB/etc.) will eventually create hidden "reputation scores". For brand-new (maybe throwaway) accounts, those scores will harm the ability to participate in many places. After cultivating reputation (sending emails that don't look sketchy, talking to people who are deemed likely--by IP/demographics/click habits--to be your real-life peers), more participation in different communities will be allowed. Situations where reputation is insufficient for participation will be shadowbans more often than not. This type of system solves a lot of the throwaway-for-purposes-of-evil-behavior problem, and may well be able to do that algorithmically, in lieu of human moderators. In return, it requires people to give up a lot of privacy/anonymity to participate. I don't think that's an inherently good or bad tradeoff, but it is definitely one people should be aware of.

by notJim 8y ago

derefr 8y ago

> And the truly bad actors are using throwaway accounts anyway Have you tried to make a throwaway Google account lately? It's kind of useless to do so. Not so much in the sign-up, but due to the fact that accounts with no history and no clear ties to a physical identity have nothing "vouching" for them, so constantly trip the "Are you a robot?" checks. (And, I imagine, {email, comments, Google Docs shares, etc.} from such accounts also are invisibly thresholded lower on any spam filters they are run through. This is why people write viruses to take over people's existing Google accounts—accounts without "reputation" are kind of worthless for doing anything public-visible.)

zbentley 8y ago
I agree. Much like the email reputation systems that evolved over time, I think other companies (like Google/FB/etc.) will eventually create hidden "reputation scores". For brand-new (maybe throwaway) accounts, those scores will harm the ability to participate in many places. After cultivating reputation (sending emails that don't look sketchy, talking to people who are deemed likely--by IP/demographics/click habits--to be your real-life peers), more participation in different communities will be allowed. Situations where reputation is insufficient for participation will be shadowbans more often than not. This type of system solves a lot of the throwaway-for-purposes-of-evil-behavior problem, and may well be able to do that algorithmically, in lieu of human moderators. In return, it requires people to give up a lot of privacy/anonymity to participate. I don't think that's an inherently good or bad tradeoff, but it is definitely one people should be aware of.