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>I mean, having best-years-of-4chan-like content everywhere. With some form of self-moderation, like subreddits, for sure. It's an interesting thought. I rath

>I mean, having best-years-of-4chan-like content everywhere. With some form of self-moderation, like subreddits, for sure. It's an interesting thought. I rather like the idea as the different political kinks of the big companies are rather obvious. You'd still have the problem of moderation in terms of various types of pornography (country specific), automated cruft/spam and the edge conditions of various degrees of violence in videos. Of course, Usenet seemed to manage just fine. Maybe the problem is that a system like youtube or Facebook is monolithic. Placing responsibility in one groups' lap can't be a healthy thing in the long run. That, and people shouldn't get so triggered by what they see on a little screen.

mschuster91 5y ago
> Of course, Usenet seemed to manage just fine. The amount of Usenet servers allowing binary-containing posts is next to zero because of piracy and child porn issues, and the text-only stuff never became mass-market enough to show up on the attention radar of media and wide society.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I think this last point is key. The problem, I think - and this is pure supposition on my part - is that the algorithm that optimises for "engagement" (i.e. emotional reaction) also kinda accidentally optimises for the shady shit. You could always find shady shit on Usenet if you wanted it. But you have to go looking for it. Because there wasn't an algorithm feeding you whatever it thought would keep you interested, it wasn't front and centre. As you say, it never became mass-market enough. Because most people aren't really into the shady shit. Everyone might google for 2 girls 1 receptacle once for kicks, but it's not what most people want to see all day. Without the algorithm, it dies in user sub and most people don't even see it.
jandrese 5y ago
> Of course, Usenet seemed to manage just fine. Usenet collapsed under the weight of spam and trolls. People tried to keep it going with some bolted on moderation tools but they never worked very well and eventually people moved on to more moderated platforms. Even if you remove alt.binaries the rest of the Usenet had a massive spam problem that was never fully solved. Once a community grows large enough you can't get around the need for moderation, it takes far too few bad faith actors to increase the noise level beyond the point that the average person can tolerate. It doesn't take long for the quality people to leave in search of a less noisy venue.

mschuster91 5y ago

> Of course, Usenet seemed to manage just fine. The amount of Usenet servers allowing binary-containing posts is next to zero because of piracy and child porn issues, and the text-only stuff never became mass-market enough to show up on the attention radar of media and wide society.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I think this last point is key. The problem, I think - and this is pure supposition on my part - is that the algorithm that optimises for "engagement" (i.e. emotional reaction) also kinda accidentally optimises for the shady shit. You could always find shady shit on Usenet if you wanted it. But you have to go looking for it. Because there wasn't an algorithm feeding you whatever it thought would keep you interested, it wasn't front and centre. As you say, it never became mass-market enough. Because most people aren't really into the shady shit. Everyone might google for 2 girls 1 receptacle once for kicks, but it's not what most people want to see all day. Without the algorithm, it dies in user sub and most people don't even see it.

jandrese 5y ago

> Of course, Usenet seemed to manage just fine. Usenet collapsed under the weight of spam and trolls. People tried to keep it going with some bolted on moderation tools but they never worked very well and eventually people moved on to more moderated platforms. Even if you remove alt.binaries the rest of the Usenet had a massive spam problem that was never fully solved. Once a community grows large enough you can't get around the need for moderation, it takes far too few bad faith actors to increase the noise level beyond the point that the average person can tolerate. It doesn't take long for the quality people to leave in search of a less noisy venue.