5 ms·

If regular people are allowed to share media with the world, and some kinds of content remain illegal, content moderation will need to exist. Unless you're sug

If regular people are allowed to share media with the world, and some kinds of content remain illegal, content moderation will need to exist. Unless you're suggesting that we return to an era in which the only way to publish content is with the approval of someone like a newspaper editor or book publisher, these jobs will need to be done.

brimble 5y ago
Send messages directly to people you know, or become a publisher (on your own website). If social media as we know it dropped off the face of the Earth tomorrow, it'd still be easier than ever before in history to get one's message out, by a long shot. It'd be significantly tougher for advertisers and PR agencies, however.
- specialist 5y ago
  Yes and: Before Facebook and Twitter, we had blogs. And before that zines and pamphlets. It's so weird that defenders of algorithmic hate machines accept them as some sort of natural law, forgetting that humanity somehow muddled along for millennial without the benefit of dopamine hijacking.
- hn_version_0023 5y ago
  > It'd be significantly tougher for advertisers and PR agencies, however. Good. We shouldn’t allow habitual liars to determine what’s possible, or make their lives easier. I’d happily grind the social media, advertising, and public relations “industries” into dust for the good of us all.
- kleinsch 5y ago
  You write on a many-to-many social media website kept up by active content moderation...
  - brimble 5y ago
    Twice in one thread! I'll just recycle this from my other post: "Yet you participate in society. Curious!"
    - bhelkey 5y ago
      This doesn't apply here. One-to-one platforms exist and are popular. Also, I very much doubt that this conversation is required or in any way helps your career. There are alternatives, you chose to come on this site and participate in the comments. Your stated view isn't that many-to-many moderated social media website should do better, it is that many-to-many moderated social media websites shouldn't exist. Because this is a recreational activity, and because the alternatives you suggested are massively popular, 'Yet you participate in society. Curious!' does not apply.
      - brimble 5y ago
        It is not possible to use popular forms of communication to criticize popular forms of communication, in good faith. Message received loud and clear. It's not a good message, to put it about as nicely as I possibly can, but I've received it.
        yunohn 5y ago
        That’s not what everyone else is saying, necessarily - it’s just that you think getting rid of FB et all will remove the need for content moderation, by forcing only one-to-one communication alternatives. None of that is reasonable or desirable by most humans.
        brimble 5y ago
        > it’s just that you think getting rid of FB et all will remove the need for content moderation, Nooooo. I mean, yes, content moderation in the modern sense of "trying to mitigate the insanity that is randos posting a firehose of crap that's by-default instantly published to the world and which our stupid algorithms may well choose to shove in lots of people's faces" but no in the sense of selecting what one chooses to publish from among some submissions, which pre-dates the Internet sense of "content moderation" and doesn't seem to be a problem unless you have a publish-by-default-without-review policy that lets some amount of the crap get through, and barely vet your submitters at all. > None of that is reasonable or desirable by most humans. OK. So we choose—choose—to have a job category that will cause significant, lasting harm to some percentage of the workers doing it. But let's stop also insulting them by claiming we're doing it because we "have to".
- mannerheim 5y ago
  If tomorrow everyone switched to email for all their communication needs, the day after tomorrow we would hear moral panic over CSAM in emails, and the day after that, every email provider that doesn't already do so will implement content moderation.
iakov 5y ago
To be honest I loved it more back in the "old days". The barrier of entry to sharing your mind with the world was so much higher - you had to be on the TV, radio or at least a newspaper or a book to do that. Even with the advent of the Internet the barrier was still high - you had to set up your website or blog page, which was a fairly technical endeavor for some time. Now every god damn idiot can have a Twitter page or a Facebook echo chamber group and easily spread their bullshit there. Yeah, I wouldn't mind going back to that era you mention.
- DaltonCoffee 5y ago
  You might have liked it even better in the "older old days" when only the enlightened aristocracy had free speech, and speaking out against them was a crime.
- riffraff 5y ago
  > you had to set up your website or blog page, which was a fairly technical endeavor for some time. usenet and web forums have existed for a very long time before blogs. It didn't take much to spam newsgroups or online bulletin pages.

brimble 5y ago

Send messages directly to people you know, or become a publisher (on your own website). If social media as we know it dropped off the face of the Earth tomorrow, it'd still be easier than ever before in history to get one's message out, by a long shot. It'd be significantly tougher for advertisers and PR agencies, however.

specialist 5y ago
Yes and: Before Facebook and Twitter, we had blogs. And before that zines and pamphlets. It's so weird that defenders of algorithmic hate machines accept them as some sort of natural law, forgetting that humanity somehow muddled along for millennial without the benefit of dopamine hijacking.
hn_version_0023 5y ago
> It'd be significantly tougher for advertisers and PR agencies, however. Good. We shouldn’t allow habitual liars to determine what’s possible, or make their lives easier. I’d happily grind the social media, advertising, and public relations “industries” into dust for the good of us all.
kleinsch 5y ago
You write on a many-to-many social media website kept up by active content moderation...
- brimble 5y ago
  Twice in one thread! I'll just recycle this from my other post: "Yet you participate in society. Curious!"
  - bhelkey 5y ago
    This doesn't apply here. One-to-one platforms exist and are popular. Also, I very much doubt that this conversation is required or in any way helps your career. There are alternatives, you chose to come on this site and participate in the comments. Your stated view isn't that many-to-many moderated social media website should do better, it is that many-to-many moderated social media websites shouldn't exist. Because this is a recreational activity, and because the alternatives you suggested are massively popular, 'Yet you participate in society. Curious!' does not apply.
    - brimble 5y ago
      It is not possible to use popular forms of communication to criticize popular forms of communication, in good faith. Message received loud and clear. It's not a good message, to put it about as nicely as I possibly can, but I've received it.
      - yunohn 5y ago
        That’s not what everyone else is saying, necessarily - it’s just that you think getting rid of FB et all will remove the need for content moderation, by forcing only one-to-one communication alternatives. None of that is reasonable or desirable by most humans.
        brimble 5y ago
        > it’s just that you think getting rid of FB et all will remove the need for content moderation, Nooooo. I mean, yes, content moderation in the modern sense of "trying to mitigate the insanity that is randos posting a firehose of crap that's by-default instantly published to the world and which our stupid algorithms may well choose to shove in lots of people's faces" but no in the sense of selecting what one chooses to publish from among some submissions, which pre-dates the Internet sense of "content moderation" and doesn't seem to be a problem unless you have a publish-by-default-without-review policy that lets some amount of the crap get through, and barely vet your submitters at all. > None of that is reasonable or desirable by most humans. OK. So we choose—choose—to have a job category that will cause significant, lasting harm to some percentage of the workers doing it. But let's stop also insulting them by claiming we're doing it because we "have to".
mannerheim 5y ago
If tomorrow everyone switched to email for all their communication needs, the day after tomorrow we would hear moral panic over CSAM in emails, and the day after that, every email provider that doesn't already do so will implement content moderation.

iakov 5y ago

To be honest I loved it more back in the "old days". The barrier of entry to sharing your mind with the world was so much higher - you had to be on the TV, radio or at least a newspaper or a book to do that. Even with the advent of the Internet the barrier was still high - you had to set up your website or blog page, which was a fairly technical endeavor for some time. Now every god damn idiot can have a Twitter page or a Facebook echo chamber group and easily spread their bullshit there. Yeah, I wouldn't mind going back to that era you mention.

DaltonCoffee 5y ago
You might have liked it even better in the "older old days" when only the enlightened aristocracy had free speech, and speaking out against them was a crime.
riffraff 5y ago
> you had to set up your website or blog page, which was a fairly technical endeavor for some time. usenet and web forums have existed for a very long time before blogs. It didn't take much to spam newsgroups or online bulletin pages.