6 ms·

Hm, I just posted "stop the steal" on my Facebook page (along with a disclaimer), and it's still there six minutes later. Maybe it takes 24 hours to get picked

Hm, I just posted "stop the steal" on my Facebook page (along with a disclaimer), and it's still there six minutes later. Maybe it takes 24 hours to get picked up? Or do they just cloak the posting?

nostromo 6y ago
In most cases you'd be shadow-banned. (The post looks fine to you, but is invisible to everyone else.) Or, they just put their thumbs on the scale and make sure your post isn't shown to anyone (or very few people) rather than your typical audience.
- blisterpeanuts 6y ago
  Okay. A non-friend was able to view it a few seconds ago, so it's definitely not totally invisible. But I only have about 600 friends (haha) so I guess they don't care about small fry. If they have 1.73 billion daily users, that's a lot of data to scan. I'm guessing they'll only go after the big fish.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Every post gets scanned. They detect things like blacklisted links in real-time.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Algorithms. It will find you eventually.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    Facebook's shadowban mechanism is more elaborate than that. They will still show the post to people they think you are closest to, while hiding it from the general newsfeed where most things show. The Facebook newsfeed is quite similar to TV, because you can only change channels, but have very little control over what is displayed.
    - joombaga 6y ago
      How do you know how Facebook's shadowban mechanism works? Has it been reverse-engineered? My search-fu us failing me.
      - forgotmypw17 6y ago
        I can't tell you that, I'm sorry.
      - pfundstein 6y ago
        Either he's personally familiar with the system or he has taken a theory and extrapolated upwards. I'm leaning towards the latter.
        forgotmypw17 6y ago
        Did you just assume my gender?
- tim44 6y ago
  Shadow banning is some real underhanded sh#t. On reddit I explained that mayor Pete's M4A wasn't the same M4A as the world understood it. A user immediately responds accusing of me editing my comment to deceive. I say prove it you f#cking liar, there are services that archive. Then I'm hit with the ban for being profane and harassing. Yup, turns out the comment had been very quickly shadow-banned lol. I should have known. But this might inform people that its not only conservatives who's speech is threatened; it's anyone who speaks contrary to the mainstream.
  - graeme 6y ago
    People who use profanity and personal insults tend to heavily degrade the quality of a forum. And when banned, they react angrily and make alternate accounts again and again. A shadowban reduces the incentive to dodge bans via new usernames. Reddit mods don’t have Ip address access or other tools, so shadowbans are a necessary tool. You weren’t banned for speaking contrary to the mainstream. You were banned for insults and personal attacks, indicating you weren’t likely to lead to productive conversations.
    - tim44 6y ago
      Hey I broke the rules, what can I say. But that wasn't really the point. This is also an interesting take on profanity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13412107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13412107 But let me actually amend my comment above here, it wasn't even that bad, the actual words were "lying a#s." I just felt like there was an interaction that didn't need to happen because people see different sets of comments, my original comment being nothing but fact and dry. I don't know how we can talk much about profanity derailing discussion when discussion is so fundamentally broken.
      - graeme 6y ago
        Yeah I actually do think that the profanity can indicate more honesty. The trouble is, if it’s also combined with a personal attack on others it inflames conversations. Two people can then rile themselves up and derail an entire thread. Of course the comment replying to you did the same thing: made a personal attack on you, and it derailed you into a personal attack with swearing.
DamnYuppie 6y ago
I have some experience on doing this type of work for large publications. We would always show the user their own content but would not show it to anyone else.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Facebook goes an extra step and displays it for people you're closest to while hiding it for others.
  - blisterpeanuts 6y ago
    That's kind of creepy, actually.
dundercoder 6y ago
Something like this. https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js
jandrese 6y ago
You might have a high enough meta score to get away with it. If you create a brand new account and post "stop the steal" it will probably be dead instantly. Or if you have a long history of posting unfounded inflammatory conspiracy theories.
ogre_codes 6y ago
It's not entirely clear what they are filtering from this article. They might just be filtering pages, groups, and articles with he name in the title.

Hm, I just posted "stop the steal" on my Facebook page (along with a disclaimer), and it's still there six minutes later. Maybe it takes 24 hours to get picked up? Or do they just cloak the posting?

nostromo 6y ago

In most cases you'd be shadow-banned. (The post looks fine to you, but is invisible to everyone else.) Or, they just put their thumbs on the scale and make sure your post isn't shown to anyone (or very few people) rather than your typical audience.

blisterpeanuts 6y ago
Okay. A non-friend was able to view it a few seconds ago, so it's definitely not totally invisible. But I only have about 600 friends (haha) so I guess they don't care about small fry. If they have 1.73 billion daily users, that's a lot of data to scan. I'm guessing they'll only go after the big fish.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Every post gets scanned. They detect things like blacklisted links in real-time.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Algorithms. It will find you eventually.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Facebook's shadowban mechanism is more elaborate than that. They will still show the post to people they think you are closest to, while hiding it from the general newsfeed where most things show. The Facebook newsfeed is quite similar to TV, because you can only change channels, but have very little control over what is displayed.
  - joombaga 6y ago
    How do you know how Facebook's shadowban mechanism works? Has it been reverse-engineered? My search-fu us failing me.
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      I can't tell you that, I'm sorry.
    - pfundstein 6y ago
      Either he's personally familiar with the system or he has taken a theory and extrapolated upwards. I'm leaning towards the latter.
      - forgotmypw17 6y ago
        Did you just assume my gender?
tim44 6y ago
Shadow banning is some real underhanded sh#t. On reddit I explained that mayor Pete's M4A wasn't the same M4A as the world understood it. A user immediately responds accusing of me editing my comment to deceive. I say prove it you f#cking liar, there are services that archive. Then I'm hit with the ban for being profane and harassing. Yup, turns out the comment had been very quickly shadow-banned lol. I should have known. But this might inform people that its not only conservatives who's speech is threatened; it's anyone who speaks contrary to the mainstream.
- graeme 6y ago
  People who use profanity and personal insults tend to heavily degrade the quality of a forum. And when banned, they react angrily and make alternate accounts again and again. A shadowban reduces the incentive to dodge bans via new usernames. Reddit mods don’t have Ip address access or other tools, so shadowbans are a necessary tool. You weren’t banned for speaking contrary to the mainstream. You were banned for insults and personal attacks, indicating you weren’t likely to lead to productive conversations.
  - tim44 6y ago
    Hey I broke the rules, what can I say. But that wasn't really the point. This is also an interesting take on profanity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13412107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13412107 But let me actually amend my comment above here, it wasn't even that bad, the actual words were "lying a#s." I just felt like there was an interaction that didn't need to happen because people see different sets of comments, my original comment being nothing but fact and dry. I don't know how we can talk much about profanity derailing discussion when discussion is so fundamentally broken.
    - graeme 6y ago
      Yeah I actually do think that the profanity can indicate more honesty. The trouble is, if it’s also combined with a personal attack on others it inflames conversations. Two people can then rile themselves up and derail an entire thread. Of course the comment replying to you did the same thing: made a personal attack on you, and it derailed you into a personal attack with swearing.

DamnYuppie 6y ago

I have some experience on doing this type of work for large publications. We would always show the user their own content but would not show it to anyone else.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
Facebook goes an extra step and displays it for people you're closest to while hiding it for others.
- blisterpeanuts 6y ago
  That's kind of creepy, actually.

dundercoder 6y ago

Something like this. https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js

jandrese 6y ago

You might have a high enough meta score to get away with it. If you create a brand new account and post "stop the steal" it will probably be dead instantly. Or if you have a long history of posting unfounded inflammatory conspiracy theories.

ogre_codes 6y ago

It's not entirely clear what they are filtering from this article. They might just be filtering pages, groups, and articles with he name in the title.