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> Anyone with a good solution would help the world immeasurably and have their pick of customers. I don't buy this. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. are all beh

> Anyone with a good solution would help the world immeasurably and have their pick of customers. I don't buy this. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. are all beholden to a constant growth model - just like every other traded company that's responsible to their own board. Even in ecommerce (which is primarily my background) the players that "complain" about bots actually love the hell out of them because they eat up risk... I'm thinking about companies like Ticketmaster, Supreme, Nike, etc. They implement anti-bot measures "up to a point", which typically is a breakable CAPTCHA and validating purchase quantities to shipping addresses/payment methods (ex: only allow 4 of this hot item to be purchased with this CC number/shipping addr). These big players are where the bulk of the misinformation campaigns are happening and they've been effectively sitting on their hands because if they started booting off bad actors (bots, propagandaists, people sharing factually false information) it would hurt their new account sign-up/content creation/interaction numbers, which will eventually hurt the stock price. Here's why I say all of this... As someone who has done large-scale bot work I feel like there's a huge disconnect with things like Facebook account sign-up where it's effectively always open for someone with the basic capability to bypass a CAPTCHA. Given their resources, I absolutely believe they could easily have a higher barrier of entry when it comes to keeping people with my skillset out - they're just not interested in blocking automated sign-ups and the like. I'm convinced that the big "FAANG", or "GAFA", or whatever players can't really solve this problem because it'd probably hurt their business to cannibalize their own numbers... even if it's the right thing to do. Leadership would get kicked from boards and stuff. Ergo, the problem keeps on truckin' =(

aledalgrande 7y ago
Note: FB actually has a higher barrier, just not right around signup. If they detect "bot behavior" (rules vary), they freeze the account and ask for a government ID. Agree with the fact that companies "complaining" about bots, actually benefit from them. And even use them. I was looking at huge proxy servers providers and they have those same companies in their client list too.
ridaj 7y ago
I don't think the boards of Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit have somehow missed the message that content trustworthiness is as existential a threat to their business as their growth numbers. Just in case they hadn't gotten the point from the market, I'm sure dragging some of their CEOs to one congressional hearing after another sends a very clear signal. In terms of investment, it's also clear that they are putting a lot more resources in both engineering and content reviewer heads towards these problems every year.

aledalgrande 7y ago

Note: FB actually has a higher barrier, just not right around signup. If they detect "bot behavior" (rules vary), they freeze the account and ask for a government ID. Agree with the fact that companies "complaining" about bots, actually benefit from them. And even use them. I was looking at huge proxy servers providers and they have those same companies in their client list too.

ridaj 7y ago

I don't think the boards of Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit have somehow missed the message that content trustworthiness is as existential a threat to their business as their growth numbers. Just in case they hadn't gotten the point from the market, I'm sure dragging some of their CEOs to one congressional hearing after another sends a very clear signal. In terms of investment, it's also clear that they are putting a lot more resources in both engineering and content reviewer heads towards these problems every year.