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As I was typing this, I was thinking about moderation of HN and but was cautious to comment on meta. Speaking generally, without real-world consequences for vi

As I was typing this, I was thinking about moderation of HN and but was cautious to comment on meta. Speaking generally, without real-world consequences for violating community TOS on a service there are no teeth in tracking bad actors, banning them, etc. For a long time, I loathed Facebook's real-name policy. However, to some extent I suspect the amount of identity validation and attribution of comments to actions does have a limiting impact on casual trolling and harassment on that service.

staycoolboy 6y ago
I would like to hear what LinkedIn moderators deal with. I wonder if it is easier/harder/same as Facebook or Reddit. There might be some interesting data here supporting real-name policies. I don't say anything on LinkedIn because I'm scared anything I say can and will be used against me when job hunting. Also: thanks for modding /r/portland. I love PDX. Just wish it was sunnier: it would be the perfect city.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Facebook's real name policy is a complete failure. And professional PR, "influencing", and astroturfing are endemic, especially on political groups. It seems to be trivial for bad actors to hack/farm unused accounts and impersonate people almost at will. Meanwhile nation state-level and/or corporate bad actors have the resources to bypass or subvert the id validation and create fake identities and accounts at industrial scale. I don't think real ID is a solution. Not even if it's linked to some kind of robust physical key - which is obviously going to have privacy implications anyway. AI or automated searching for troll-like activity, most likely followed by manual oversight, is more likely to be successful. But there's the lingering question of whether FB is really interested in pursuing this with any effectiveness or enthusiasm. Given FB's resources and its lack of success to date, the answer seems to be "no."
paganel 6y ago
Don't think the real-name policy helps that much, to be honest. Just in the last couple of days of me commenting on FB I've been called a "retard" (sorry for the word, but that's what the lady used to describe me) and a "troll" (presumably Russian), this latter description accompanied by said commenter saying how I only write down dumb stuff which shows that I don't think before writing (but not saying where and especially why he thought I was wrong in my statements). Compared to all that commenting almost anonymously on HN seems like a breeze of fresh air. Of course in the many years I have been commenting in here there have been ups and downs (a couple of very down points for me were the reactions after the Boston marathon and the endless banana references after the Fukushima disaster), but other than that when one is told that he/she is wrong the person saying it usually comes with his/her own reasons which helps move the conversation forward.

staycoolboy 6y ago

I would like to hear what LinkedIn moderators deal with. I wonder if it is easier/harder/same as Facebook or Reddit. There might be some interesting data here supporting real-name policies. I don't say anything on LinkedIn because I'm scared anything I say can and will be used against me when job hunting. Also: thanks for modding /r/portland. I love PDX. Just wish it was sunnier: it would be the perfect city.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Facebook's real name policy is a complete failure. And professional PR, "influencing", and astroturfing are endemic, especially on political groups. It seems to be trivial for bad actors to hack/farm unused accounts and impersonate people almost at will. Meanwhile nation state-level and/or corporate bad actors have the resources to bypass or subvert the id validation and create fake identities and accounts at industrial scale. I don't think real ID is a solution. Not even if it's linked to some kind of robust physical key - which is obviously going to have privacy implications anyway. AI or automated searching for troll-like activity, most likely followed by manual oversight, is more likely to be successful. But there's the lingering question of whether FB is really interested in pursuing this with any effectiveness or enthusiasm. Given FB's resources and its lack of success to date, the answer seems to be "no."

paganel 6y ago

Don't think the real-name policy helps that much, to be honest. Just in the last couple of days of me commenting on FB I've been called a "retard" (sorry for the word, but that's what the lady used to describe me) and a "troll" (presumably Russian), this latter description accompanied by said commenter saying how I only write down dumb stuff which shows that I don't think before writing (but not saying where and especially why he thought I was wrong in my statements). Compared to all that commenting almost anonymously on HN seems like a breeze of fresh air. Of course in the many years I have been commenting in here there have been ups and downs (a couple of very down points for me were the reactions after the Boston marathon and the endless banana references after the Fukushima disaster), but other than that when one is told that he/she is wrong the person saying it usually comes with his/her own reasons which helps move the conversation forward.