6 ms·

A lot of short, knee-jerk reactions on this thread, not to mention snark and downright flame. Seeing as this is at the top of HN right now, can we try to elevat

by sxyuan 6y ago

A lot of short, knee-jerk reactions on this thread, not to mention snark and downright flame. Seeing as this is at the top of HN right now, can we try to elevate the level of discourse a little bit? A few questions to consider: 1. Is content moderation necessary in online platforms? I think the answer to this question is self-evident, but others may disagree and so I think it's worth posing. FWIW, HN has moderation, both official (e.g., dang) and unofficial (anyone with enough karma to flag/downvote). There's also built-in protections against flamewars (i.e., algorithmic moderation). I don't think HN would be the same place without these elements. Feel free to disagree. 2. If the answer to #1 is yes, how should content moderation happen? This is a tough problem, and it's a lot to easier to find fault than to propose workable solutions. I definitely would prefer a more democratic moderation scheme for these mega-platforms that dominate online media today. But in some sense, every form of online moderation (HN included) has been top-down. And as we've seen in the US and elsewhere, democracy itself is prone to fracturing. It's almost like we need a constitution for online governance. But could we ever agree on such a constitution in the first place? Does it need to be legislated (and if so, how do we get global consensus)? Can it be bootstrapped from the bottom up? 3. Setting aside the question of who gets to decide, should moderation be based on tone, factuality, importance of the topic, ...? How does one determine factuality? Is there something special about political matters that makes it off-limits for moderation? What if politics intersects with other matters (which probably is the case more often than not) - as in the case of COVID? And of course, it's probably impossible to separate these questions from the question of "who gets to decide". That lies at the heart of all of these "what about X" complaints elsewhere in the thread. Truth often matters less than trust, and trust is in short supply these days. Again, it's easy to criticize, but these are difficult questions. There are few easy choices. And unfortunately for the people who work on these platforms, inaction is also a choice, as I'm sure they're well aware.

helen___keller 6y ago
Just to emphasize something thats generally unstated but I think pretty important: the only reason this is even remotely newsworthy or controversial is due to how large and influential Youtube is. If I could choose between two worlds, in the first there is a single mega-platform that is moderated ultra-fairly so all people can use it, and in the second there is no megaplatform but a lot of small platforms that each moderate with nakedly partisan editorial lean, I would much prefer the latter. It would be more free both for publishers and consumers, in my opinion. Right now we are all stuck trying to act like megaplatforms can house everyone fairly. They can't. Current events prove it. Facebook tried, Reddit tried, Twitter tried, and Youtube tried, and all ended up taking editorial stances that are often construed as partisan. If we had a competitive landscape of smaller platforms, everyone could have a platform that works for them, with editorial decisions that work for them. This could all be decided by the free market instead of everyone collectively wringing their hands about freedom when a tech giant makes a stand on misinformation. I don't know how society can deal with the tech giant's moats, but I think that's the real demon to slay.
- sxyuan 6y ago
  I agree with where you start out, but I think a proliferation of partisan platforms would simply lead to more filter bubbles and more polarization. I would much rather see the Fairness Doctrine reinstated (in the US, anyhow) and expanded to Internet platforms, than to see everyone flocking to their platform of choice, becoming even more oblivious to alternate viewpoints.
  - helen___keller 6y ago
    I understand your point of view (and used to feel the same myself), but I'd say the last few years has changed my mind. The way I see it, you either get filter bubbles, or you get miserable people who ditch your platform [subtext: and then the only remaining users are the rage-posters]. And in my opinion letting mainstream platforms rot into a cesspool of rageposters is worse for polarization. I don't want to see people posting about how rigged the election is, or posting about what bad things hunter biden did, or posting about how hypocritical progressives were this week, or any of the other top conservative topics. I just want no part of it. It's a dead horse to me. If a platform wants to shove that stuff in my face I'm either going to find a way to hide it, or I'm going to leave the platform. There's a time and place for having debates and seeing others point of view. If we had a proliferation of partisan platforms, I could go to the platform dedicated for open debate, or I could go to the opposing views' platform. I actually do this today (e.g. browsing foxnews if I want to see what's up in conservative-land). But when I'm chilling on reddit the last thing I have ever wanted is to see a trending post near the top of /r/all from the_donald posting some meme about Hillary Clinton passing out and being chucked into a car (this happened on several occasions leading up to the 2016 election).
carapace 6y ago
The obvious solution is to break up YouTube. Moderation doesn't scale. It's NP-Hard or whatever. Dynamical systems theory tells us that when you have a large densely-interconnected system (like YT) you get dramatic behavior. In other words, YouTube is always going to create memetic storms and we can predict that (even though we can't predict the exact content of the storms.) Adding regulators won't help. Cybernetics revealed the law of requisite variety, to wit: "the variety in the regulator must be equal to or greater than the variety in the system being regulated" http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/LAW_VARIE.html http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/LAW_VARIE.html YouTube is doomed, the question is do we let it take us down with it?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marksbrown 6y ago
Easy - the tech monopolies must be broken up. Make it illegal for any company to have more than a quarter of the market. Make any market without at least say five competitors not a free market. I'd go with punitive taxation on global turnover myself. Until this is done, their influence is only going to grow.
rantwasp 6y ago
1) an online platform should be moderated (and it is moderated by humans and machine - anybody that tells you otherwise is delusional). 2) the content moderation is up to the owner of the platform. they do whatever they want as long as they operate within the laws of the country/state where they are running their business. an online platform is not a democracy. the owner decides. 3) see 2) moderation is up to the owner. You don't get to come into my house and tell me what kind of dishwasher I should have. If the owner of the platform does a bad job, he will go out of business. If its interests are not aligned with something that happen on the platform I think its reasonable to ban that activity. side comment: in what world do we live where a freaking pandemic is politicized? This alone should make a lot of people scratch their heads and wonder what is wrong with our society.

by sxyuan 6y ago

helen___keller 6y ago

Just to emphasize something thats generally unstated but I think pretty important: the only reason this is even remotely newsworthy or controversial is due to how large and influential Youtube is. If I could choose between two worlds, in the first there is a single mega-platform that is moderated ultra-fairly so all people can use it, and in the second there is no megaplatform but a lot of small platforms that each moderate with nakedly partisan editorial lean, I would much prefer the latter. It would be more free both for publishers and consumers, in my opinion. Right now we are all stuck trying to act like megaplatforms can house everyone fairly. They can't. Current events prove it. Facebook tried, Reddit tried, Twitter tried, and Youtube tried, and all ended up taking editorial stances that are often construed as partisan. If we had a competitive landscape of smaller platforms, everyone could have a platform that works for them, with editorial decisions that work for them. This could all be decided by the free market instead of everyone collectively wringing their hands about freedom when a tech giant makes a stand on misinformation. I don't know how society can deal with the tech giant's moats, but I think that's the real demon to slay.

sxyuan 6y ago
I agree with where you start out, but I think a proliferation of partisan platforms would simply lead to more filter bubbles and more polarization. I would much rather see the Fairness Doctrine reinstated (in the US, anyhow) and expanded to Internet platforms, than to see everyone flocking to their platform of choice, becoming even more oblivious to alternate viewpoints.
- helen___keller 6y ago
  I understand your point of view (and used to feel the same myself), but I'd say the last few years has changed my mind. The way I see it, you either get filter bubbles, or you get miserable people who ditch your platform [subtext: and then the only remaining users are the rage-posters]. And in my opinion letting mainstream platforms rot into a cesspool of rageposters is worse for polarization. I don't want to see people posting about how rigged the election is, or posting about what bad things hunter biden did, or posting about how hypocritical progressives were this week, or any of the other top conservative topics. I just want no part of it. It's a dead horse to me. If a platform wants to shove that stuff in my face I'm either going to find a way to hide it, or I'm going to leave the platform. There's a time and place for having debates and seeing others point of view. If we had a proliferation of partisan platforms, I could go to the platform dedicated for open debate, or I could go to the opposing views' platform. I actually do this today (e.g. browsing foxnews if I want to see what's up in conservative-land). But when I'm chilling on reddit the last thing I have ever wanted is to see a trending post near the top of /r/all from the_donald posting some meme about Hillary Clinton passing out and being chucked into a car (this happened on several occasions leading up to the 2016 election).

carapace 6y ago

The obvious solution is to break up YouTube. Moderation doesn't scale. It's NP-Hard or whatever. Dynamical systems theory tells us that when you have a large densely-interconnected system (like YT) you get dramatic behavior. In other words, YouTube is always going to create memetic storms and we can predict that (even though we can't predict the exact content of the storms.) Adding regulators won't help. Cybernetics revealed the law of requisite variety, to wit: "the variety in the regulator must be equal to or greater than the variety in the system being regulated" http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/LAW_VARIE.html http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/LAW_VARIE.html YouTube is doomed, the question is do we let it take us down with it?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

marksbrown 6y ago

Easy - the tech monopolies must be broken up. Make it illegal for any company to have more than a quarter of the market. Make any market without at least say five competitors not a free market. I'd go with punitive taxation on global turnover myself. Until this is done, their influence is only going to grow.

rantwasp 6y ago

1) an online platform should be moderated (and it is moderated by humans and machine - anybody that tells you otherwise is delusional). 2) the content moderation is up to the owner of the platform. they do whatever they want as long as they operate within the laws of the country/state where they are running their business. an online platform is not a democracy. the owner decides. 3) see 2) moderation is up to the owner. You don't get to come into my house and tell me what kind of dishwasher I should have. If the owner of the platform does a bad job, he will go out of business. If its interests are not aligned with something that happen on the platform I think its reasonable to ban that activity. side comment: in what world do we live where a freaking pandemic is politicized? This alone should make a lot of people scratch their heads and wonder what is wrong with our society.