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If you know how to build a bug-free system with content classification rules that are properly implemented for 2 billion people in every conceivable circumstanc

If you know how to build a bug-free system with content classification rules that are properly implemented for 2 billion people in every conceivable circumstance, I think Facebook (or any other big social media company) would pay you a lot of money to implement that. Like, an unbelievably large sum of money.

lmm 5y ago
That's beside the point. If your classification system isn't good enough to use on celebrities, it's not good enough to use on regular people either - bans are just as annoying for them, even if they have less voice to complain.
- lavabiopsy 5y ago
  I'm not sure what the point here is other than that bans are annoying? Also, I don't think it was suggested to use a classification system with no bans?
  - lmm 5y ago
    People aren't objecting to the fact that the rules misclassify people sometimes. They're objecting to the two-tier system that lets celebrities avoid bans but doesn't let regular users do so.
    - lavabiopsy 5y ago
      I think you may have missed something in the post chain? Those are both the same thing in this context.
otterley 5y ago
I’m not sure that this is a problem that can be solved solely through software and automation. It’s a business problem. Automation is a means to solve this problem - and the one Facebook uses to save money and operate at scale - but when it comes to making content judgments, people are often better than machines at doing it. “Report” buttons can be an input into the mechanism, but they need not be authoritative. The problem for Facebook is that adding people is going to be expensive and hurt their bottom line. So they are likely incented to treat these disparities as collateral damage on the road to ever-increasing profits.
- lavabiopsy 5y ago
  So are you saying you could develop the solution but Facebook won't offer you enough? I don't think it makes a difference whether the system is automated or not.
  - otterley 5y ago
    No, I’m saying Facebook could probably solve this problem with the managers they already have, but with different priorities set by top management, and at greater expense.
    - lavabiopsy 5y ago
      Sorry but that seems to be understating the issue. Are you saying it's only a matter of changing the entire company's priorities and increasing the budget by large amounts? If it were that easy then it seems any other wealthy company would have solved it by now. And in any case, have you tried applying at Facebook? If you have the answer to their problems and are capable, then why not?
      - otterley 5y ago
        I’m not particularly interested in solving Facebook’s self-created problems. Fifteen years ago, I was interested in helping them from a tech growth side, but I can’t imagine working there now, especially in light of the company culture. My priorities would clash with those of the existing upper management all the way up to the CEO (who is completely unchecked by the Board, BTW). As for this particular issue, I consider celebrities and politicians who stir up trouble largely as fat to be cut. Anyone who builds that much gravity and controversy tends to cause more problems than add value, and detracts from democratizing the platform.
        lavabiopsy 5y ago
        Well I think that seems to answer it then -- if nobody who is capable wants to work there for any amount of money, then nothing will change, and the self-inflicted problems will probably get worse. And I believe the smart thing to do from a business perspective would be to severely limit the reach of posts by problem users and then charge them increasing amounts of money to promote posts to the decreasing pool of users who won't block it.
native_samples 5y ago
Sure, I'll do that. It's not as hard as you make it sound. Spam classifiers work fine for example. Nobody complains about special exemption lists for the Gmail spam filter because it doesn't need any. The term spam is not precisely defined but a strong social consensus exists on what the word means and that's sufficient for voting on mail streams to work. So I'd just build one of those and collect my big pile of cash. But that's not the sort of content classification you mean, is it. So the problem isn't technical. Rather it's an entirely self inflicted problem by Facebook. The cause is an attempt to broker a compromise between the original spirit of the site and internal activists who are bent on controlling information and manipulating opinion. The reason they make so many bad judgement calls is because they're not trying to impose clearly defined rules, but rather, ever shifting and deliberately ill-posed left wing standards like "misinformation" or "hate speech". Because these terms are defined and redefined on a near daily basis by ideological warriors and not some kind of universal social consensus, it is absolutely inevitable that the site ends up like this. A death spiral in which no amount of moderation can ever be sufficient for some of their loudest employees simply cannot be avoided once you cross the Rubicon of arbitrary vague censorship rules. If Facebook want to reduce the number of embarrassing incidents, they can do it tomorrow. All they have to do is stop trying to label misinformation or auto-classify posts as racist/terrorism-supporting/etc. Stand up and loudly defend the morality of freedom of speech. Refocus their abuse teams on auto-generated commercial spam, like webmail companies do, and leave the rest alone. This isn't hard, they did it in the early days of the site. It may mean firing employees who don't agree, but those employees would never get tired of waging war against opinions they don't like no matter how much was spent on moderation, so it's ultimately futile trying to please them.
- lavabiopsy 5y ago
  I'm sorry, I am having a really hard time understanding this comment. You're suggesting they just apply a email spam filter and that will fix everything? Can you explain how this would work, considering that Facebook is not an email service, and any spam filter would likely face the same issues with abuse that have already been mentioned anyway? Also I really don't follow how your last two paragraphs have anything to do with that, it seems you're saying a lot of unprovable and out-of-context politically motivated things, and then saying they should just give up on the problem entirely and have no moderation whatsoever? Isn't that the whole thing you're trying to solve though? I don't get it. Please avoid the off-topic political comments if you want to make your arguments easy to follow, and just focus on what the solution is and how to get there. Rule of thumb I've noticed: if a comment could be viewed as a political rant, it's probably not going to be very convincing.

lmm 5y ago

That's beside the point. If your classification system isn't good enough to use on celebrities, it's not good enough to use on regular people either - bans are just as annoying for them, even if they have less voice to complain.

lavabiopsy 5y ago
I'm not sure what the point here is other than that bans are annoying? Also, I don't think it was suggested to use a classification system with no bans?
- lmm 5y ago
  People aren't objecting to the fact that the rules misclassify people sometimes. They're objecting to the two-tier system that lets celebrities avoid bans but doesn't let regular users do so.
  - lavabiopsy 5y ago
    I think you may have missed something in the post chain? Those are both the same thing in this context.

otterley 5y ago

I’m not sure that this is a problem that can be solved solely through software and automation. It’s a business problem. Automation is a means to solve this problem - and the one Facebook uses to save money and operate at scale - but when it comes to making content judgments, people are often better than machines at doing it. “Report” buttons can be an input into the mechanism, but they need not be authoritative. The problem for Facebook is that adding people is going to be expensive and hurt their bottom line. So they are likely incented to treat these disparities as collateral damage on the road to ever-increasing profits.

lavabiopsy 5y ago
So are you saying you could develop the solution but Facebook won't offer you enough? I don't think it makes a difference whether the system is automated or not.
- otterley 5y ago
  No, I’m saying Facebook could probably solve this problem with the managers they already have, but with different priorities set by top management, and at greater expense.
  - lavabiopsy 5y ago
    Sorry but that seems to be understating the issue. Are you saying it's only a matter of changing the entire company's priorities and increasing the budget by large amounts? If it were that easy then it seems any other wealthy company would have solved it by now. And in any case, have you tried applying at Facebook? If you have the answer to their problems and are capable, then why not?
    - otterley 5y ago
      I’m not particularly interested in solving Facebook’s self-created problems. Fifteen years ago, I was interested in helping them from a tech growth side, but I can’t imagine working there now, especially in light of the company culture. My priorities would clash with those of the existing upper management all the way up to the CEO (who is completely unchecked by the Board, BTW). As for this particular issue, I consider celebrities and politicians who stir up trouble largely as fat to be cut. Anyone who builds that much gravity and controversy tends to cause more problems than add value, and detracts from democratizing the platform.
      - lavabiopsy 5y ago
        Well I think that seems to answer it then -- if nobody who is capable wants to work there for any amount of money, then nothing will change, and the self-inflicted problems will probably get worse. And I believe the smart thing to do from a business perspective would be to severely limit the reach of posts by problem users and then charge them increasing amounts of money to promote posts to the decreasing pool of users who won't block it.

native_samples 5y ago

Sure, I'll do that. It's not as hard as you make it sound. Spam classifiers work fine for example. Nobody complains about special exemption lists for the Gmail spam filter because it doesn't need any. The term spam is not precisely defined but a strong social consensus exists on what the word means and that's sufficient for voting on mail streams to work. So I'd just build one of those and collect my big pile of cash. But that's not the sort of content classification you mean, is it. So the problem isn't technical. Rather it's an entirely self inflicted problem by Facebook. The cause is an attempt to broker a compromise between the original spirit of the site and internal activists who are bent on controlling information and manipulating opinion. The reason they make so many bad judgement calls is because they're not trying to impose clearly defined rules, but rather, ever shifting and deliberately ill-posed left wing standards like "misinformation" or "hate speech". Because these terms are defined and redefined on a near daily basis by ideological warriors and not some kind of universal social consensus, it is absolutely inevitable that the site ends up like this. A death spiral in which no amount of moderation can ever be sufficient for some of their loudest employees simply cannot be avoided once you cross the Rubicon of arbitrary vague censorship rules. If Facebook want to reduce the number of embarrassing incidents, they can do it tomorrow. All they have to do is stop trying to label misinformation or auto-classify posts as racist/terrorism-supporting/etc. Stand up and loudly defend the morality of freedom of speech. Refocus their abuse teams on auto-generated commercial spam, like webmail companies do, and leave the rest alone. This isn't hard, they did it in the early days of the site. It may mean firing employees who don't agree, but those employees would never get tired of waging war against opinions they don't like no matter how much was spent on moderation, so it's ultimately futile trying to please them.

lavabiopsy 5y ago
I'm sorry, I am having a really hard time understanding this comment. You're suggesting they just apply a email spam filter and that will fix everything? Can you explain how this would work, considering that Facebook is not an email service, and any spam filter would likely face the same issues with abuse that have already been mentioned anyway? Also I really don't follow how your last two paragraphs have anything to do with that, it seems you're saying a lot of unprovable and out-of-context politically motivated things, and then saying they should just give up on the problem entirely and have no moderation whatsoever? Isn't that the whole thing you're trying to solve though? I don't get it. Please avoid the off-topic political comments if you want to make your arguments easy to follow, and just focus on what the solution is and how to get there. Rule of thumb I've noticed: if a comment could be viewed as a political rant, it's probably not going to be very convincing.