5 ms·

I agree it would be nice but it would also be a boon for bad actors who want to manipulate the system. Reddit now closely guards its algorithms (it didn't used

I agree it would be nice but it would also be a boon for bad actors who want to manipulate the system. Reddit now closely guards its algorithms (it didn't used to) to make it more difficult to game the system. For every honest curious developer who wants to vet the system, there are plenty more people out to spread miss-information.

ouid 5y ago
reddit is not a paragon here
- robbomacrae 5y ago
  I agree. Is anyone? Full disclosure: I used to work at Reddit. I was just putting in my 2 cents why Elon's proposal might not be immediately actionable without a lot of hard thought about how to deal with bad actors without the obscurity layer.
bradly 5y ago
> I agree it would be nice but it would also be a boon for bad actors who want to manipulate the system. Has this ever happened, though? How is it different from giving hackers source code?
- ChadNauseam 5y ago
  Yeah. The issues is that in the environment they work in, there are no known secure recommendation algorithms that give good recommendations. So the only option is security by obscurity.
atoav 5y ago
At some point this concern becomes invalid in my book: Take democratic elections — hiding the rules of how elections work, because you are afraid someone might game them would be absurd. Because the point of democratic elections is to get results that most people can accept and for this transparency and simplicity is crucial. If it would turn out someone is gaming the system it would be time to change the rules and/or how they are enforced. Now you can't really equate Reddit with an democratic election, but places like those are the closest we have come to an public square in the online world and hiding the mechanisms which decide who gets how much visibility is not without effect (on the trust within the system).
- ridaj 5y ago
  The cost of actually administering fairness in elections (maintaining voter rosters, verifying identities, preventing double-voting and providing public auditability while ensuring voter anonymity, prosecuting fraudsters...) is quite high compared with what an ad-supported global platform can afford. Just look at how tough it's been for Twitter to kick out inauthentic actors, eg Russian troll farms or spam bots. Spending more resources on botfighting is difficult from Twitter's standpoint since it doesn't by itself drive revenue or engagement, and they are fighting determined permanent attackers, some even state-funded. Speaking of, the primary revenue feed for Twitter is advertising, which directly competes with fairness and transparency goals: ad business is predicated on the idea that more $ = more speech, regardless of the intrinsic value of the speech; and since there is no practical way to know where the $ came from, it does an end run around transparency goals.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  In democratic elections one voter has one vote. There are no bots, no persons with multiple accounts, no trolls, no denial of service, etc, etc.
  - mtgx 5y ago
  - forty 5y ago
    Solution: verify identity of every users to make sure they are real people and make them accountable for what they say publicly.
    - rmbyrro 5y ago
      They won't do it unless it's regulated across all platforms worldwide. Adds too much friction and scares away those who want anonymity. KYC works for financial institutions because it's regulated across the board. And let me tell, it's a pain.
      - 5y ago

ouid 5y ago

reddit is not a paragon here

robbomacrae 5y ago
I agree. Is anyone? Full disclosure: I used to work at Reddit. I was just putting in my 2 cents why Elon's proposal might not be immediately actionable without a lot of hard thought about how to deal with bad actors without the obscurity layer.

bradly 5y ago

> I agree it would be nice but it would also be a boon for bad actors who want to manipulate the system. Has this ever happened, though? How is it different from giving hackers source code?

ChadNauseam 5y ago
Yeah. The issues is that in the environment they work in, there are no known secure recommendation algorithms that give good recommendations. So the only option is security by obscurity.

atoav 5y ago

At some point this concern becomes invalid in my book: Take democratic elections — hiding the rules of how elections work, because you are afraid someone might game them would be absurd. Because the point of democratic elections is to get results that most people can accept and for this transparency and simplicity is crucial. If it would turn out someone is gaming the system it would be time to change the rules and/or how they are enforced. Now you can't really equate Reddit with an democratic election, but places like those are the closest we have come to an public square in the online world and hiding the mechanisms which decide who gets how much visibility is not without effect (on the trust within the system).

ridaj 5y ago
The cost of actually administering fairness in elections (maintaining voter rosters, verifying identities, preventing double-voting and providing public auditability while ensuring voter anonymity, prosecuting fraudsters...) is quite high compared with what an ad-supported global platform can afford. Just look at how tough it's been for Twitter to kick out inauthentic actors, eg Russian troll farms or spam bots. Spending more resources on botfighting is difficult from Twitter's standpoint since it doesn't by itself drive revenue or engagement, and they are fighting determined permanent attackers, some even state-funded. Speaking of, the primary revenue feed for Twitter is advertising, which directly competes with fairness and transparency goals: ad business is predicated on the idea that more $ = more speech, regardless of the intrinsic value of the speech; and since there is no practical way to know where the $ came from, it does an end run around transparency goals.
credit_guy 5y ago
In democratic elections one voter has one vote. There are no bots, no persons with multiple accounts, no trolls, no denial of service, etc, etc.
- mtgx 5y ago
- forty 5y ago
  Solution: verify identity of every users to make sure they are real people and make them accountable for what they say publicly.
  - rmbyrro 5y ago
    They won't do it unless it's regulated across all platforms worldwide. Adds too much friction and scares away those who want anonymity. KYC works for financial institutions because it's regulated across the board. And let me tell, it's a pain.
    - 5y ago