3 ms·

I think your missing an option that is kinda similar category of 1. The platform only removes illegal content, but moderation is not done by the provider at al

by anfilt 7y ago

I think your missing an option that is kinda similar category of 1. The platform only removes illegal content, but moderation is not done by the provider at all. Instead users moderate the content themselves. Think of how search engines can apply safe search filters going from safe, moderate, and off. So let users mark content with tags/categories, or some kind of rating. Then users can had posts that have or don't have certain content tags or a rating below x ect... Also you have platforms like discord that lets users create areas dedicated to a topic and self moderate.

danShumway 7y ago
> Instead users moderate the content themselves. I like putting users in control of moderation and giving communities the power to self-determine what content they see. This is one of the premises behind the fediverse. However, I think that's just option 3. If we accept that users have a right to filter content, then users should also have the right to use automated tools to filter content. If users make a block-list, they should have the right to share that block-list with other people. By extension, they should also have the right to delegate that filtering to another entity, like a forum moderator. They should be able to pay that entity money to maintain a block list for them. And jumping off of the Discord example, if users have the right to collectively ban people from a community, they should also have the right to automate that process, to share ban-lists, and to grant moderators the ability to ban people on their behalf. I don't see a _fundamental_ difference between Reddit banning someone and a single subreddit moderator banning someone. It's just a question of scale. To circle that back to the antitrust question: I regularly see comments about revoking section 230 that say, "well, this would only apply to large companies." It seems that in general, most people are fine with small communities moderating themselves and banning bad actors, even if the criteria is arbitrary. It only becomes a problem for them when Facebook does it because Facebook is big. We could go to Facebook and say, "you're too big, so you can't moderate on behalf of your users." Or, we could go to Facebook and say, "you're too big, we're breaking you up and making smaller communities." It seems to me that the second option is a lot simpler.
- nradov 7y ago
  Should communities have the right to collectively ban users for being Jewish, or female, or Marxist, or older than 40?
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Do you want a value answer or legal one? The legal answer is that we have narrow exceptions to freedom of association around businesses (and a few other places) refusing service and closing doors to very specific protected classifications. Arguably they should be a little less narrow, but that's straying into a values answer. Of the attributes you list, race and gender are pretty strong protected categories. Age to a lesser degree. Marxism is a political category, there is no law that says Twitter couldn't ban someone for being Marxist. These are very narrow categories, and for most part anything outside of them is fair game. --- From a values perspective, I think our current system is pretty good. We don't restrict the ability to ban users except in very specific cases for very specific protected categories. Those categories are narrowly defined, based on strong needs that communities have for protection. We can expand those protections of course, but the fact that we have very narrow exceptions to users' Right to Filter[0] in narrow situations does not mean that we should ditch the entire thing. Just because your content is technically legal does not mean you have a right to force me to consume it. In other words, I'm quite sympathetic to the argument that our protected categories should be broader in some instances. I'm not sympathetic to the argument that because protected categories exist, a forum shouldn't be able to ban Republicans or Democrats. If you want to take away a community's Right to Filter on an attribute, I believe you should be required to demonstrate an extremely clear, compelling need to protect that specific attribute. And in particular, I don't see any reason at all to expand those protections to political categories. ---- While we're on the subject of laws, it's always important to remind people that in the US, hate speech is protected speech -- and that's probably not going to change any time in the near future. The Supreme Court has been remarkably consistent on this point for a pretty long time. This has implications for what revoking section 230 means. Before section 230, the Supreme Court ruled that platforms that had no knowledge of the content on their site -- that were not moderating it in any way -- couldn't be constitutionally held liable for speech on their platform[1]. Absent 230, if Facebook wants to call itself a platform, it needs to fall back on that ruling. So if they see someone harassing you for being Jewish, or female, or Marxist, or older than 40, Facebook won't be able to ban that person. Engaging in any moderation will make them liable for all of the content posted on their site. And no company-run corporate platform is going to risk personal liability for all of their content just to ban nazis. Given that reality, I don't think any progressive should be arguing for the removal of section 230. Using a legal standard for moderation will make the Internet way more toxic for underrepresented groups than it already is today. I have heard people (usually non-progressives) make the argument that this is fine, because if no one is banned from any community, everyone can participate. In other words, let the trolls run wild. I don't have much respect for that argument. If you allow every open forum to become toxic, only toxic people will be able to stomach them. Safe spaces foster diversity, and there is no way to build a safe space for user-generated content without moderation. If you don't believe me, then go join 8Chan and have fun, I guess. I know a few progressives are hoping that the user-generated content will go away entirely, and that Jewish/female/Marxist/middle-aged people will just participate on traditional channels. I think this is also kind of naive. No one who's seriously looked at the history of traditional media channels would come away thinking they've been bastions of the progressive movement. Marginalized voices have been excluded from those channels again and again, and it's only by fighting, by circumvention, and by self-publishing their own stories and building their own collectives and communities that those marginalized voices have been able to make themselves heard. ---- [0]: https://anewdigitalmanifesto.com/#right-to-filter https://anewdigitalmanifesto.com/#right-to-filter [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
0x445442 7y ago
I like this. Reddit should not be allowed to remove r/* because they don't agree with the politics of the subreddit. To enforce it, all members, individually, should be eligible to arbitrate the removal. Given the arbitration cost burden to the company, this would make them think twice.
- nvahalik 7y ago
  However, it _is_ Reddit's platform. Do they own it or not? If they don't own it, then who does? What incentive do they have? If people were paying reddit directly, this might make sense. But reddit has to make advertisers happy. They pay the bills.
nradov 7y ago
Most users can't be trusted to moderate content because they will censor content they don't like, even if the content is legal and compliant with the terms of service.
- danShumway 7y ago
  I fail to see the problem. I censor content I don't like on every website I visit, by running an adblocker that filters legal ads that are compliant with that website's terms. The filter list is entirely community maintained, and I can extend it as I see fit, and then share my extensions with any other user. Even though, and I want to stress this -- all of the content I'm blocking is legal. And that's a pretty good setup. I like it a lot. Absent narrow exceptions with extremely compelling justifications, users should be generally allowed to filter any content that they want for any reason, and they should be free to form communities around those filters.

by anfilt 7y ago

danShumway 7y ago

> Instead users moderate the content themselves. I like putting users in control of moderation and giving communities the power to self-determine what content they see. This is one of the premises behind the fediverse. However, I think that's just option 3. If we accept that users have a right to filter content, then users should also have the right to use automated tools to filter content. If users make a block-list, they should have the right to share that block-list with other people. By extension, they should also have the right to delegate that filtering to another entity, like a forum moderator. They should be able to pay that entity money to maintain a block list for them. And jumping off of the Discord example, if users have the right to collectively ban people from a community, they should also have the right to automate that process, to share ban-lists, and to grant moderators the ability to ban people on their behalf. I don't see a _fundamental_ difference between Reddit banning someone and a single subreddit moderator banning someone. It's just a question of scale. To circle that back to the antitrust question: I regularly see comments about revoking section 230 that say, "well, this would only apply to large companies." It seems that in general, most people are fine with small communities moderating themselves and banning bad actors, even if the criteria is arbitrary. It only becomes a problem for them when Facebook does it because Facebook is big. We could go to Facebook and say, "you're too big, so you can't moderate on behalf of your users." Or, we could go to Facebook and say, "you're too big, we're breaking you up and making smaller communities." It seems to me that the second option is a lot simpler.

nradov 7y ago
Should communities have the right to collectively ban users for being Jewish, or female, or Marxist, or older than 40?
- danShumway 7y ago
  Do you want a value answer or legal one? The legal answer is that we have narrow exceptions to freedom of association around businesses (and a few other places) refusing service and closing doors to very specific protected classifications. Arguably they should be a little less narrow, but that's straying into a values answer. Of the attributes you list, race and gender are pretty strong protected categories. Age to a lesser degree. Marxism is a political category, there is no law that says Twitter couldn't ban someone for being Marxist. These are very narrow categories, and for most part anything outside of them is fair game. --- From a values perspective, I think our current system is pretty good. We don't restrict the ability to ban users except in very specific cases for very specific protected categories. Those categories are narrowly defined, based on strong needs that communities have for protection. We can expand those protections of course, but the fact that we have very narrow exceptions to users' Right to Filter[0] in narrow situations does not mean that we should ditch the entire thing. Just because your content is technically legal does not mean you have a right to force me to consume it. In other words, I'm quite sympathetic to the argument that our protected categories should be broader in some instances. I'm not sympathetic to the argument that because protected categories exist, a forum shouldn't be able to ban Republicans or Democrats. If you want to take away a community's Right to Filter on an attribute, I believe you should be required to demonstrate an extremely clear, compelling need to protect that specific attribute. And in particular, I don't see any reason at all to expand those protections to political categories. ---- While we're on the subject of laws, it's always important to remind people that in the US, hate speech is protected speech -- and that's probably not going to change any time in the near future. The Supreme Court has been remarkably consistent on this point for a pretty long time. This has implications for what revoking section 230 means. Before section 230, the Supreme Court ruled that platforms that had no knowledge of the content on their site -- that were not moderating it in any way -- couldn't be constitutionally held liable for speech on their platform[1]. Absent 230, if Facebook wants to call itself a platform, it needs to fall back on that ruling. So if they see someone harassing you for being Jewish, or female, or Marxist, or older than 40, Facebook won't be able to ban that person. Engaging in any moderation will make them liable for all of the content posted on their site. And no company-run corporate platform is going to risk personal liability for all of their content just to ban nazis. Given that reality, I don't think any progressive should be arguing for the removal of section 230. Using a legal standard for moderation will make the Internet way more toxic for underrepresented groups than it already is today. I have heard people (usually non-progressives) make the argument that this is fine, because if no one is banned from any community, everyone can participate. In other words, let the trolls run wild. I don't have much respect for that argument. If you allow every open forum to become toxic, only toxic people will be able to stomach them. Safe spaces foster diversity, and there is no way to build a safe space for user-generated content without moderation. If you don't believe me, then go join 8Chan and have fun, I guess. I know a few progressives are hoping that the user-generated content will go away entirely, and that Jewish/female/Marxist/middle-aged people will just participate on traditional channels. I think this is also kind of naive. No one who's seriously looked at the history of traditional media channels would come away thinking they've been bastions of the progressive movement. Marginalized voices have been excluded from those channels again and again, and it's only by fighting, by circumvention, and by self-publishing their own stories and building their own collectives and communities that those marginalized voices have been able to make themselves heard. ---- [0]: https://anewdigitalmanifesto.com/#right-to-filter https://anewdigitalmanifesto.com/#right-to-filter [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

0x445442 7y ago

I like this. Reddit should not be allowed to remove r/* because they don't agree with the politics of the subreddit. To enforce it, all members, individually, should be eligible to arbitrate the removal. Given the arbitration cost burden to the company, this would make them think twice.

nvahalik 7y ago
However, it _is_ Reddit's platform. Do they own it or not? If they don't own it, then who does? What incentive do they have? If people were paying reddit directly, this might make sense. But reddit has to make advertisers happy. They pay the bills.

nradov 7y ago

Most users can't be trusted to moderate content because they will censor content they don't like, even if the content is legal and compliant with the terms of service.

danShumway 7y ago
I fail to see the problem. I censor content I don't like on every website I visit, by running an adblocker that filters legal ads that are compliant with that website's terms. The filter list is entirely community maintained, and I can extend it as I see fit, and then share my extensions with any other user. Even though, and I want to stress this -- all of the content I'm blocking is legal. And that's a pretty good setup. I like it a lot. Absent narrow exceptions with extremely compelling justifications, users should be generally allowed to filter any content that they want for any reason, and they should be free to form communities around those filters.