4 ms·

There's something dishonest about your profile appearing normal only to yourself, while the rest of the world is getting a 404. If you're suspended, fine, but t

by cube00 6y ago

There's something dishonest about your profile appearing normal only to yourself, while the rest of the world is getting a 404. If you're suspended, fine, but tell the user, but why the need to hide this from them?

nekopa 6y ago
This has been discussed a lot under the term "shadowbanning" in various places. HN does this too, if enough people downvote a comment it will disappear from the conversation, but not from the posters viewpoint (and if you have showdead on, as a reader it shows up as lighter and lighter shades of grey). The rational behind it is that if a spammer notices that their post/account has been banned, they can quickly spin up another one. Apparently this is quite effective against spammers, (or used to be) but of course seems extremely unfair in the case of false negatives. So when you say dishonest - how would you feel if the fine article was written by someone who said he had wasted 2 months on Medium writing posts that try to trick people into downloading malware before he realised that Medium had shadowbanned his account?
saagarjha 6y ago
The usual reason given is because it wastes the time of abusive people because they don’t realize they’re not reaching anyone else. However, I’ve yet to see actually malicious people be tripped up by this :(
jasonkester 6y ago
Indeed. It seems shady until you realize why sites do this. Probably the only way to truly understand is to run a site with user generated content for a while. There will be people using your site that just need to go away. They're different from your typical pharmaceutical spammer because they genuinely think they're not doing anything wrong. If you tell them to stop posting affiliate links to timeshares, they'll put themselves in this box of "banned for doing nothing wrong", and simply start a new account posting affiliate links to timeshares in a slightly different way that hopefully will get around your algorithm. The worst part is that after enough time, and enough tries, you'l have given them (and the pharmaceutical spammers as well) detailed instructions for how to circumvent your spam protection. All every step of this does is add more work to you to run your site for the people who you want to have there. So the simplest and most effective thing you can do is make those people think they have succeeded. Let them promote their timeshares (and v1agra) to their heart's content. Just don't show anybody but them. Real people have friends who read their blog and will point this out if it happens by mistake, and you have a "fix" button in your admin console to hit a few times a year. Trust me. Run your own blog host for a few months and you'll implement this too.
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  Appreciate that perspective, makes sense. But it's still fundamentally injurious to the other person, and furthermore, in an uneven power dynamic. Also, your power doesn't automatically mean you're right. I wonder how to solve it. Maybe shadow banning is quite fair and necessary and the answer is for people to educate themselves about it and go to other places where it won't happen to them. #rollyourown These matters are not simple at all. I'm still trying to decide on whether Fb ultimately is a 'public square' vs. a 'private publisher', as is basically the whole world.
  - pferde 6y ago
    No, power - within your own platform - absolutely means that you're right - again, within your own platform.
- account42 6y ago
  The problem, like with most moderation tools, is when shadowbans and similar measures are not just used against persistent spammers but as an easy way to shut out people without even trying to get them to improve their behavior. Something can be effective and dishonest at the same time.
- nullc 6y ago
  There is a real ethical peril here. You've just created a massive externalities-- the honest poster wasting their time without realizing it, hoping someone notices and tells them, and then having to take it up with you. Shadown banning is an act of fraud against the user, with the hope that it's mostly against malicious already-banned users and that false positives will get it undone. But since the cost of shadow banning is on the users and the benefit is on you, there isn't a particular incentive to not miscalibrate and cause a lot of damage to users. The only backstop is that if you're very far into the false positive domain it'll kill your venue but because shadowbanning is invisible by its nature it requires a truly massive amount of false positives to have that effect. There are also secondary damages that good users worry that they've been silenced and don't comment. E.g. after my last several submissions to HN received no comments I suspected I might be subject to some kind of shadow ban (since HN engages in that sort of thing) and stopped submitting.
kuu 6y ago
Soft/shadow banning. The idea is to make the spammer believe that he/she's still in the platform and they may only realize about the low engagement they have, so they may consider abandoning the platform. If you mention them that they're banned, they might just use another account and persist in their spam. The problem of this approach in this case is that user was not an spammer.

by cube00 6y ago

nekopa 6y ago

This has been discussed a lot under the term "shadowbanning" in various places. HN does this too, if enough people downvote a comment it will disappear from the conversation, but not from the posters viewpoint (and if you have showdead on, as a reader it shows up as lighter and lighter shades of grey). The rational behind it is that if a spammer notices that their post/account has been banned, they can quickly spin up another one. Apparently this is quite effective against spammers, (or used to be) but of course seems extremely unfair in the case of false negatives. So when you say dishonest - how would you feel if the fine article was written by someone who said he had wasted 2 months on Medium writing posts that try to trick people into downloading malware before he realised that Medium had shadowbanned his account?

saagarjha 6y ago

The usual reason given is because it wastes the time of abusive people because they don’t realize they’re not reaching anyone else. However, I’ve yet to see actually malicious people be tripped up by this :(

jasonkester 6y ago

Indeed. It seems shady until you realize why sites do this. Probably the only way to truly understand is to run a site with user generated content for a while. There will be people using your site that just need to go away. They're different from your typical pharmaceutical spammer because they genuinely think they're not doing anything wrong. If you tell them to stop posting affiliate links to timeshares, they'll put themselves in this box of "banned for doing nothing wrong", and simply start a new account posting affiliate links to timeshares in a slightly different way that hopefully will get around your algorithm. The worst part is that after enough time, and enough tries, you'l have given them (and the pharmaceutical spammers as well) detailed instructions for how to circumvent your spam protection. All every step of this does is add more work to you to run your site for the people who you want to have there. So the simplest and most effective thing you can do is make those people think they have succeeded. Let them promote their timeshares (and v1agra) to their heart's content. Just don't show anybody but them. Real people have friends who read their blog and will point this out if it happens by mistake, and you have a "fix" button in your admin console to hit a few times a year. Trust me. Run your own blog host for a few months and you'll implement this too.

mindfulhack 6y ago
Appreciate that perspective, makes sense. But it's still fundamentally injurious to the other person, and furthermore, in an uneven power dynamic. Also, your power doesn't automatically mean you're right. I wonder how to solve it. Maybe shadow banning is quite fair and necessary and the answer is for people to educate themselves about it and go to other places where it won't happen to them. #rollyourown These matters are not simple at all. I'm still trying to decide on whether Fb ultimately is a 'public square' vs. a 'private publisher', as is basically the whole world.
- pferde 6y ago
  No, power - within your own platform - absolutely means that you're right - again, within your own platform.
account42 6y ago
The problem, like with most moderation tools, is when shadowbans and similar measures are not just used against persistent spammers but as an easy way to shut out people without even trying to get them to improve their behavior. Something can be effective and dishonest at the same time.
nullc 6y ago
There is a real ethical peril here. You've just created a massive externalities-- the honest poster wasting their time without realizing it, hoping someone notices and tells them, and then having to take it up with you. Shadown banning is an act of fraud against the user, with the hope that it's mostly against malicious already-banned users and that false positives will get it undone. But since the cost of shadow banning is on the users and the benefit is on you, there isn't a particular incentive to not miscalibrate and cause a lot of damage to users. The only backstop is that if you're very far into the false positive domain it'll kill your venue but because shadowbanning is invisible by its nature it requires a truly massive amount of false positives to have that effect. There are also secondary damages that good users worry that they've been silenced and don't comment. E.g. after my last several submissions to HN received no comments I suspected I might be subject to some kind of shadow ban (since HN engages in that sort of thing) and stopped submitting.

kuu 6y ago

Soft/shadow banning. The idea is to make the spammer believe that he/she's still in the platform and they may only realize about the low engagement they have, so they may consider abandoning the platform. If you mention them that they're banned, they might just use another account and persist in their spam. The problem of this approach in this case is that user was not an spammer.