3 ms·

I kinda wonder about just having a no politics policy. Allow user reports... If N users report a post for being political, or it triggers some regex, penalize t

I kinda wonder about just having a no politics policy. Allow user reports... If N users report a post for being political, or it triggers some regex, penalize the post in some way. Facebook doesn't have to be about politics; Instagram wasn't for a long time, but with the onset of the BLM movement, I've seen my timeline filled to the brim with politics, and at one point, people were even saying that no one was even allowed to post non-political content because it shows how privileged you are to be ignoring the movement. I don't use Facebook for the politics... I just want to know what's going on in my friends lives. You can still have engagement without politics.

Nextgrid 6y ago
Ultimately, politics aren't the issue. Not having clear, consistent & enforced rules as well as no consequences for breaking them is the problem. People aren't encouraged to think twice before they post because there's not going to be any significant consequences for breaking the rules. Even if you somehow manage to get permanently banned from a social network, it's very easy to come back; it doesn't cost anything besides spending some time creating a new account. From a business perspective it makes sense - why would you ban an abusive user that makes you money? Just give them a slap on the wrist to pretend that you want to discourage bad behavior and keep collecting their money. Proper enforcement of the rules with significant consequences when broken (losing the account, and new accounts cost $$$ to register) would discourage a lot of bad behavior to begin with. You could then introduce a karma/reputation system to 1) attach even more value to accounts (you wouldn't want to lose an account it took you years to level up and gain access to exclusive privileges) and 2) allow "trusted" users beyond a certain reputation level to participate in moderation, prioritizing reports from those people and automatically hiding content reported by them pending human review (with appropriate sanctions if the report was made in bad faith) to quickly take down offensive content.
zzzeek 6y ago
you can't solve social problems with technology, only policy. companies like Facebook should be broken up and regulated such that the whole model of profiting from social division is removed. this would be highly beneficial to society and is an appropriate role of government.
AlexandrB 6y ago
While that sounds appealing, that just moves the goalposts. Now, who gets to define what's politics? Is mentioning global warming politics? Is advocating for wearing a mask during COVID-19 politics? And the meta-discussion of what content constitutes politics is also inherently political. As for user reports. I would expect the same kind of dog piling you see now with people flagging people/brands/content they don't like politically as "politics". Post a picture of a The Origin of Species? Politics! Post a link to Chick-fil-a? Politics! Etc.
pjc50 6y ago
Likely to produce a weird world where a bunch of demonstrators get shot downtown and .. you never hear about it.

Nextgrid 6y ago

Ultimately, politics aren't the issue. Not having clear, consistent & enforced rules as well as no consequences for breaking them is the problem. People aren't encouraged to think twice before they post because there's not going to be any significant consequences for breaking the rules. Even if you somehow manage to get permanently banned from a social network, it's very easy to come back; it doesn't cost anything besides spending some time creating a new account. From a business perspective it makes sense - why would you ban an abusive user that makes you money? Just give them a slap on the wrist to pretend that you want to discourage bad behavior and keep collecting their money. Proper enforcement of the rules with significant consequences when broken (losing the account, and new accounts cost $$$ to register) would discourage a lot of bad behavior to begin with. You could then introduce a karma/reputation system to 1) attach even more value to accounts (you wouldn't want to lose an account it took you years to level up and gain access to exclusive privileges) and 2) allow "trusted" users beyond a certain reputation level to participate in moderation, prioritizing reports from those people and automatically hiding content reported by them pending human review (with appropriate sanctions if the report was made in bad faith) to quickly take down offensive content.

zzzeek 6y ago

you can't solve social problems with technology, only policy. companies like Facebook should be broken up and regulated such that the whole model of profiting from social division is removed. this would be highly beneficial to society and is an appropriate role of government.

AlexandrB 6y ago

While that sounds appealing, that just moves the goalposts. Now, who gets to define what's politics? Is mentioning global warming politics? Is advocating for wearing a mask during COVID-19 politics? And the meta-discussion of what content constitutes politics is also inherently political. As for user reports. I would expect the same kind of dog piling you see now with people flagging people/brands/content they don't like politically as "politics". Post a picture of a The Origin of Species? Politics! Post a link to Chick-fil-a? Politics! Etc.

pjc50 6y ago

Likely to produce a weird world where a bunch of demonstrators get shot downtown and .. you never hear about it.