4 ms·

What do you think of spam filters? Do you think Facebook would be a useful product if predatory posts or rampant advertising were allowed? https://knowyourmeme

What do you think of spam filters? Do you think Facebook would be a useful product if predatory posts or rampant advertising were allowed? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-is-bob https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-is-bob What do you think of this? Would you still use hacker news if such posts littered the site? > Information is cheap and people post correct and incorrect facts all the time. Censorship does not scale. Censorship on platforms will never be perfect but there's a great deal of space between perfect censorship and a ridiculous free for all. You need moderation/filtering to make the modern web work.

deleted 6y ago
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jedimastert 6y ago
> Do you think Facebook would be a useful product if predatory posts or rampant advertising were allowed? ...do you think it's not allowed?
- kajecounterhack 6y ago
  Phishing attempts and bot-posting ads are surely disallowed.
sebmellen 6y ago
Is this not a strawman argument? The hosting layer should be agnostic (like, say, https://nearlyfreespeech.net https://nearlyfreespeech.net), but the site admins can do what they'd like with their site (including removing spam).
- kajecounterhack 6y ago
  No, this is literally what happens on FB. Anything public on the main platform is censored by Facebook. Anything in private groups are moderated by site admins (including removing spam, though users can still report classes of entirely banned things like violence, hate speech, etc -- but until a user reports, Facebook doesn't see). Consider the alternative: public groups would get spammed by bots. There would be no more public groups. Agnostic just isn't possible, because now you'll have to ask the question, "well what's spam?" For legal reasons you need to consider things like CSAI (https://protectingchildren.google/intl/en https://protectingchildren.google/intl/en), and then ask yourself questions of morality like "is it OK that the platform I'm building helps to proliferate misinformation that is affecting election outcomes -- potentially damaging democracy, and is causing deaths by way of encouraging people to behave recklessly" ??? There's no way to build the platform and not ask these questions.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    I think you're misinterpreting the definition of hosting — I believe the grandparent was referring to web hosting (not a site "being the host of" specific discourse).
    - kajecounterhack 6y ago
      Oh you read the OP's comment differently. I don't think they were talking about an actual web host, because given context it sounded much more like they were talking about a platform that is "hosting" users. E.g they say ```Trying to censor all of the "bad" stuff is a huge can of worms and is not something huge platforms should even try to be doing.``` << clearly talking about social media platforms Yeah obviously a company providing server resources has / should have nothing to do with user moderation. Same with ISPs. They couldn't do anything if they wanted. I guess some webhosts have policies against hosting adult content but it's probably more about avoiding legal issues (e.g with CSAI) than anything else.
      - Thorrez 6y ago
        >I don't think they were talking about an actual web host This HN post is about a blog hosted by WordPress.com (but not on the hostname wordpress.com). So given that context I think it's clear this is about blog hosting. I agree that "platform" is a bit confusing, but WordPress.com the company can be called both a host and a platform (Wikipedia calls it both[1]). I would say that WordPress.com is in between a regular web host and a social media platform, but closer to web host, especially when a custom domain is used, as it is here. >clearly talking about social media platforms I don't think that's very clear. Especially given the previous debate about Cloudflare taking down Daily Stormer[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress.com [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031922
anonytrary 6y ago
Spam filters as I know them are different. A good spam filter will just be a bifurcation where you can still see what was considered "spam" by looking at the spam tab. When Wordpress, Facebook, et al. decide to show you certain things based off of what they consider is good, you are being denied the full story entirely.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jedimastert 6y ago

> Do you think Facebook would be a useful product if predatory posts or rampant advertising were allowed? ...do you think it's not allowed?

kajecounterhack 6y ago
Phishing attempts and bot-posting ads are surely disallowed.

sebmellen 6y ago

Is this not a strawman argument? The hosting layer should be agnostic (like, say, https://nearlyfreespeech.net https://nearlyfreespeech.net), but the site admins can do what they'd like with their site (including removing spam).

kajecounterhack 6y ago
No, this is literally what happens on FB. Anything public on the main platform is censored by Facebook. Anything in private groups are moderated by site admins (including removing spam, though users can still report classes of entirely banned things like violence, hate speech, etc -- but until a user reports, Facebook doesn't see). Consider the alternative: public groups would get spammed by bots. There would be no more public groups. Agnostic just isn't possible, because now you'll have to ask the question, "well what's spam?" For legal reasons you need to consider things like CSAI (https://protectingchildren.google/intl/en https://protectingchildren.google/intl/en), and then ask yourself questions of morality like "is it OK that the platform I'm building helps to proliferate misinformation that is affecting election outcomes -- potentially damaging democracy, and is causing deaths by way of encouraging people to behave recklessly" ??? There's no way to build the platform and not ask these questions.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  I think you're misinterpreting the definition of hosting — I believe the grandparent was referring to web hosting (not a site "being the host of" specific discourse).
  - kajecounterhack 6y ago
    Oh you read the OP's comment differently. I don't think they were talking about an actual web host, because given context it sounded much more like they were talking about a platform that is "hosting" users. E.g they say ```Trying to censor all of the "bad" stuff is a huge can of worms and is not something huge platforms should even try to be doing.``` << clearly talking about social media platforms Yeah obviously a company providing server resources has / should have nothing to do with user moderation. Same with ISPs. They couldn't do anything if they wanted. I guess some webhosts have policies against hosting adult content but it's probably more about avoiding legal issues (e.g with CSAI) than anything else.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      >I don't think they were talking about an actual web host This HN post is about a blog hosted by WordPress.com (but not on the hostname wordpress.com). So given that context I think it's clear this is about blog hosting. I agree that "platform" is a bit confusing, but WordPress.com the company can be called both a host and a platform (Wikipedia calls it both[1]). I would say that WordPress.com is in between a regular web host and a social media platform, but closer to web host, especially when a custom domain is used, as it is here. >clearly talking about social media platforms I don't think that's very clear. Especially given the previous debate about Cloudflare taking down Daily Stormer[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress.com [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031922

anonytrary 6y ago

Spam filters as I know them are different. A good spam filter will just be a bifurcation where you can still see what was considered "spam" by looking at the spam tab. When Wordpress, Facebook, et al. decide to show you certain things based off of what they consider is good, you are being denied the full story entirely.