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I thought it was interesting when Twitch partners started talking about a Twitch policy that seems to hold the partner responsible for moderating their own chat

I thought it was interesting when Twitch partners started talking about a Twitch policy that seems to hold the partner responsible for moderating their own chat. That is, if you are a partner and you have community members posting prohibited content into your Twitch chat then you stand to pay the penalty through a ban or losing your partnership. You are forced to moderate your own chat thereby relieving Twitch of having to do so (and presumably giving them some plausible argument that they are enforcing some level of site wide moderation). It was interesting to see the reactions of these streamers since they aren't typical business people or legal experts. There was quite some debate amongst them about the fairness of the streamer being held responsible for random trolls that entered their chats. When I considered the viewpoint of individuals instead of corporations it did expand my view of responsibility/accountability.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
Indeed. The problem with imposing liability on moderators is that they're already doing about as well as they reasonably can at a job that isn't easy. Nobody wants a platform full of spam and disinformation. But it's inherently a difficult trade off between heavy-handed censorship that catches too many dolphins in the shark net vs. not catching strictly 100% of the bad stuff. If you start imposing liability on the moderators then it forces the trade off into an all or nothing -- either they give up and stop moderating whatsoever or they have to murder all the dolphins because now a single shark sighting puts them out of business and you can't always tell the difference. It also eliminates the possibility for different platforms to experiment with making the trade off in different ways. Maybe The New York Times wants to have an editor read every user comment before posting it but Reddit has a stronger commitment to free speech. Shouldn't we have both and let the different readers make their choices? Isn't that better than locking in the same compromised criteria for everybody?
- admiral33 7y ago
  I think it's simple. The US postal service uses postal inspectors to try and identify packages containing narcotics[0], and yet we don't make them liable for the packages they miss. Any attempt to moderate undesirable content on a website should not then make you liable for the content you miss. [0]: https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do/ https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do/
  - vageli 7y ago
    > I think it's simple. The US postal service uses postal inspectors to try and identify packages containing narcotics[0], and yet we don't make them liable for the packages they miss. Any attempt to moderate undesirable content on a website should not then make you liable for the content you miss. > [0]: https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do/ https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do/ Then what about sites that would use this to their advantage and half ass the whole thing? (fwiw I'm with you, just entertaining the argument) How do you differentiate between ignorance and malice in response? I guess via emails and memos that would come up in discovery?
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      If you're ignorant or malicious the same thing happens: the government kindly informs you that someone is using your website to break the law, and then you can either do something or become clearly guilty of knowingly supporting them. (The government knows you know because they know they told you.)
      - jacobush 7y ago
        They fix that case swiftly, then go on to ignore new cases?
        whatshisface 7y ago
        Law enforcement, typically tasked with enforcing laws, would not ignore the new cases. Individual citizens enforcing laws themselves is nice but overall we don't depend on vigilantes.
        ethbro 7y ago
        Parent presumably means if the person in the moderator position ignores new cases. To which it seems like a fair response would rely more on free speech perspectives. Essentially, can it be said that the majority of the platform is used for illegal activities? Or are the illegal activities a minority of some other, lawful activities? I'd want a system where Reddit is in the clear, but CreditCardSkimmersChat is not.
jrockway 7y ago
Up until very recently, Twitch's moderation tools have been total garbage. I can only assume that they put the chat moderation stuff into their partner contract so they can get rid of undesirable partners easily. "We hate you, and here is a message that your moderators missed so buh bye." I also think that partners are well aware of the possibility of Twitch getting rid of them at any time with no recourse; this is why they heavily advertise their social media, Discord, and YouTube channels. You don't ever want to put all your eggs in one basket. If they have to move, it is likely that some of their audience will follow them. Overall, I don't think Twitch is using chat moderation as much of a bargaining chip in practice. There are cases of streamers rallying their viewers to abuse other streamers. But in chat, really all you can do is have your bots spam racist messages, ASCII art, or "CUTE BOTS AYAYA CUTE BOTS". Links are mostly banned in practice (not by Twitch but with common extensions), Twitch moderates emotes (aggressively now, even for partners), and whatever hurtful things people say... most people opt out of by watching someone else. All of the stuff that is going to result in legal action tends to happen outside of Twitch (Twitter and Discord are cesspools of drama; read something like /r/OverwatchTMZ for examples). I guess my point is, I don't think Twitch chat is going to be affected much by any regulations. I suppose if your chat consistently harrasses minors, you could be banned. But it seems very very uncommon even in the extremely toxic gaming community. When it does happen, it's incited by the streamer, and so the specifics of chat don't matter.
- alec_kendall 7y ago
  > I also think that partners are well aware of the possibility of Twitch getting rid of them at any time with no recourse; this is why they heavily advertise their social media, Discord, and YouTube channels. I believe this is just good self-marketing, not paranoia. If you're a content creator in today's age, you're going to be trying to get traction on every major platform. It's like in SEO, make sure all your site pages are linked to each other, aka "Make sure people can access all relevant content". It's a way to increase retention and traction, not a fail-safe for being banned.
  - Hnrobert42 7y ago
    It can be both.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

Indeed. The problem with imposing liability on moderators is that they're already doing about as well as they reasonably can at a job that isn't easy. Nobody wants a platform full of spam and disinformation. But it's inherently a difficult trade off between heavy-handed censorship that catches too many dolphins in the shark net vs. not catching strictly 100% of the bad stuff. If you start imposing liability on the moderators then it forces the trade off into an all or nothing -- either they give up and stop moderating whatsoever or they have to murder all the dolphins because now a single shark sighting puts them out of business and you can't always tell the difference. It also eliminates the possibility for different platforms to experiment with making the trade off in different ways. Maybe The New York Times wants to have an editor read every user comment before posting it but Reddit has a stronger commitment to free speech. Shouldn't we have both and let the different readers make their choices? Isn't that better than locking in the same compromised criteria for everybody?

admiral33 7y ago
I think it's simple. The US postal service uses postal inspectors to try and identify packages containing narcotics[0], and yet we don't make them liable for the packages they miss. Any attempt to moderate undesirable content on a website should not then make you liable for the content you miss. [0]: https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do/ https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do/
- vageli 7y ago
  > I think it's simple. The US postal service uses postal inspectors to try and identify packages containing narcotics[0], and yet we don't make them liable for the packages they miss. Any attempt to moderate undesirable content on a website should not then make you liable for the content you miss. > [0]: https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do/ https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do/ Then what about sites that would use this to their advantage and half ass the whole thing? (fwiw I'm with you, just entertaining the argument) How do you differentiate between ignorance and malice in response? I guess via emails and memos that would come up in discovery?
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    If you're ignorant or malicious the same thing happens: the government kindly informs you that someone is using your website to break the law, and then you can either do something or become clearly guilty of knowingly supporting them. (The government knows you know because they know they told you.)
    - jacobush 7y ago
      They fix that case swiftly, then go on to ignore new cases?
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        Law enforcement, typically tasked with enforcing laws, would not ignore the new cases. Individual citizens enforcing laws themselves is nice but overall we don't depend on vigilantes.
        ethbro 7y ago
        Parent presumably means if the person in the moderator position ignores new cases. To which it seems like a fair response would rely more on free speech perspectives. Essentially, can it be said that the majority of the platform is used for illegal activities? Or are the illegal activities a minority of some other, lawful activities? I'd want a system where Reddit is in the clear, but CreditCardSkimmersChat is not.

jrockway 7y ago

Up until very recently, Twitch's moderation tools have been total garbage. I can only assume that they put the chat moderation stuff into their partner contract so they can get rid of undesirable partners easily. "We hate you, and here is a message that your moderators missed so buh bye." I also think that partners are well aware of the possibility of Twitch getting rid of them at any time with no recourse; this is why they heavily advertise their social media, Discord, and YouTube channels. You don't ever want to put all your eggs in one basket. If they have to move, it is likely that some of their audience will follow them. Overall, I don't think Twitch is using chat moderation as much of a bargaining chip in practice. There are cases of streamers rallying their viewers to abuse other streamers. But in chat, really all you can do is have your bots spam racist messages, ASCII art, or "CUTE BOTS AYAYA CUTE BOTS". Links are mostly banned in practice (not by Twitch but with common extensions), Twitch moderates emotes (aggressively now, even for partners), and whatever hurtful things people say... most people opt out of by watching someone else. All of the stuff that is going to result in legal action tends to happen outside of Twitch (Twitter and Discord are cesspools of drama; read something like /r/OverwatchTMZ for examples). I guess my point is, I don't think Twitch chat is going to be affected much by any regulations. I suppose if your chat consistently harrasses minors, you could be banned. But it seems very very uncommon even in the extremely toxic gaming community. When it does happen, it's incited by the streamer, and so the specifics of chat don't matter.

alec_kendall 7y ago
> I also think that partners are well aware of the possibility of Twitch getting rid of them at any time with no recourse; this is why they heavily advertise their social media, Discord, and YouTube channels. I believe this is just good self-marketing, not paranoia. If you're a content creator in today's age, you're going to be trying to get traction on every major platform. It's like in SEO, make sure all your site pages are linked to each other, aka "Make sure people can access all relevant content". It's a way to increase retention and traction, not a fail-safe for being banned.
- Hnrobert42 7y ago
  It can be both.