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Exactly. The author does not make a sufficient case of why content moderation is necessary, and doesn't even touch client-side moderation.

makeitdouble 5y ago
The article is about business running platforms with UGC. While free forums on the darknet might get away with a tad more lax policies, if you’re a registered business hoping to make any money you won’t have a choice but to moderate in some way. At the very least it will be to follow your country laws, and more often than not your clients will require you to do so.
- brodouevencode 5y ago
  Outside of what the law prescribes - because that's a whole different topic with more grey area than not. If it's what the law prescribes then I'm not contending that. > you won’t have a choice but to moderate in some way This is the way that moderation has been done in the past 10-15 years, but does it have to be? Why couldn't a platform provide user-level controls over what they see instead of making those decisions for them? Early forum software actually did somewhat of a good job of this, and I remember building phpBB extensions that enabled more user-level control. Even with this you can go from super granular to just a couple of primary options. It becomes a tagging/filtering mechanism on behalf of the client. Edit: UGC platforms may discover that there's some value in finding what filtering options their users use.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    To be clear, just following legal requirements is no simple task in most countries, and it might already require a significant moderation effort depending on how motivated your users are. > does it have to be? In most cases moderation is less about what users want or don’t want to see, and more about what you want your platform to be. For instance people are OK with product suggestions when they go on Amazon, but if your job posting site becomes an endless stream of Amazon links you’ll want to curb that. And perhaps your users find interesting products in all these links, but from your perspective it will kill your business (except if you pivot into becoming a product listing site of course)
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  The only real argument in favor of moderation is that the platform owner is legally obligated to do so - which could and should be changed.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    Or better yet, do away with these "platform owners" by using decentralized technologies.

makeitdouble 5y ago

The article is about business running platforms with UGC. While free forums on the darknet might get away with a tad more lax policies, if you’re a registered business hoping to make any money you won’t have a choice but to moderate in some way. At the very least it will be to follow your country laws, and more often than not your clients will require you to do so.

brodouevencode 5y ago
Outside of what the law prescribes - because that's a whole different topic with more grey area than not. If it's what the law prescribes then I'm not contending that. > you won’t have a choice but to moderate in some way This is the way that moderation has been done in the past 10-15 years, but does it have to be? Why couldn't a platform provide user-level controls over what they see instead of making those decisions for them? Early forum software actually did somewhat of a good job of this, and I remember building phpBB extensions that enabled more user-level control. Even with this you can go from super granular to just a couple of primary options. It becomes a tagging/filtering mechanism on behalf of the client. Edit: UGC platforms may discover that there's some value in finding what filtering options their users use.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  To be clear, just following legal requirements is no simple task in most countries, and it might already require a significant moderation effort depending on how motivated your users are. > does it have to be? In most cases moderation is less about what users want or don’t want to see, and more about what you want your platform to be. For instance people are OK with product suggestions when they go on Amazon, but if your job posting site becomes an endless stream of Amazon links you’ll want to curb that. And perhaps your users find interesting products in all these links, but from your perspective it will kill your business (except if you pivot into becoming a product listing site of course)
commandlinefan 5y ago
The only real argument in favor of moderation is that the platform owner is legally obligated to do so - which could and should be changed.
- mindslight 5y ago
  Or better yet, do away with these "platform owners" by using decentralized technologies.