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Good human reviews are, well, nearly impossible at the scale of Twitter or Google. It would require employing hundreds of thousands of reviewers, training them,

Good human reviews are, well, nearly impossible at the scale of Twitter or Google. It would require employing hundreds of thousands of reviewers, training them, and paying them decent salaries for one of the most horrible jobs in the world. So, everybody is trying to automate as much as possible in this area. I am sure that in this case, if there is a human even involved in the escalation, it takes them a few seconds to decide on each case, with poor decision quality.

crote 4y ago
Your point being? If you are building a many-billion-dollar company on user-submitted content, moderation is pretty much a necessity. A hospital can't decide not to sterilize because it is "too difficult" either, can it? Especially when it comes to Google, which tries to entangle itself in every aspect of your life, being banned from all services without any potential for a proper review just because a neural network decided to throw a hissy fit is completely unacceptable.
Kiro 4y ago
Funny how you get downvoted for saying something everyone on HN agreed on when "Open Letter from Facebook Content Moderators" was published, with comments like "That is a simple problem for which Facebook should be able to apply existing technology. There is a lot Facebook can do, but they are not, because they are lazy.", calling for more automation and less traumatic moderation work.
- simoncion 4y ago
  I didn't agree on it. What likely happened was a bunch of excited folks wrote a whole bunch of words, and that volume gave the appearance of consensus. Automated review is not good enough for services that are so large that they are de facto public squares. If the world were just, when you got that big, the rules would change to prohibit you from doing service-wide content filtering. > ...calling for more automation and less traumatic moderation work. Pay me 80% of what I would be making as a programmer (and keep up with changes in the market rate for programmers), and I'd be totally willing to do that moderation work. [0] There are _tons_ of people who have my intestinal fortitude out there... problem is that the enormous "social media" companies don't want to pay enough to get people who are well-suited for the work. [0] You might counter with "Oh, well you can't _possibly_ imagine the things you'll see, you're all bluster and bravado and will quit within the month!". I'd counter with "Yeah, well you have no idea the things that I _have_ seen.".
Wowfunhappy 4y ago
It's the year 2032, and Wings, Jack Dorsey's self-driving taxi service, is a hit. Because Wings doesn't have to pay human drivers, most of their rides are free. The company makes money by showing ads during rides and selling data about users's movement habits. Wings is not profitable yet, but revenue is through the roof, and the company is expected to IPO for a zillion dollars. Unfortunately, Wings's self-driving AI is much likely to destroy property than a human driver. As a result, some members of the public have called for every Wings car to be remotely controlled by a human. However, others push back. Employing good human drivers would be nearly impossible at the scale of Wings. Here is an interview with a poor grandmother who relies on Wings to see her family, and here's how a nonprofit uses Wings to find homes for lost puppies. You don't really don't want to go back to paid Uber and Lyft rides, do you? There are a couple of problems with this analogy. But the core point is this—if a company can't sustain a key aspect of their business at scale, then perhaps they shouldn't be able to scale.
- atemerev 4y ago
  There is an equilibrium point beyond which mass protests and regulations pressure start. Every company is iterating and optimizing to find this equilibrium point, and then stays slightly behind it.
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    I happen to think today's social media companies are well past the equilibrium point.
    - atemerev 4y ago
      Well, I don't see mass protests against Google and Facebook yet, so perhaps they are not. (I do see mass protests against Uber though).
danaris 4y ago
Oh, so they'd have to spend a bunch of money to treat people like human beings? Boo fucking hoo. The money is the problem here. We should require them to spend that money, and if they can't remain profitable while employing sufficient human moderators to not be a net detriment to society, they should not be allowed to keep operating. We've gotten way too far down the rabbit hole of "any company that can conceivably exist must be allowed to exist, so long as they can make a profit." We really need to get back to companies having to provide some meaningful net benefit to society, rather than just making scads of money for their owners.
- atemerev 4y ago
  OK, press for regulation! So far, I haven’t seen any mass action that would be sufficient for the big tech to change their ways. People are mostly content with the status quo.

crote 4y ago

Your point being? If you are building a many-billion-dollar company on user-submitted content, moderation is pretty much a necessity. A hospital can't decide not to sterilize because it is "too difficult" either, can it? Especially when it comes to Google, which tries to entangle itself in every aspect of your life, being banned from all services without any potential for a proper review just because a neural network decided to throw a hissy fit is completely unacceptable.

Kiro 4y ago

Funny how you get downvoted for saying something everyone on HN agreed on when "Open Letter from Facebook Content Moderators" was published, with comments like "That is a simple problem for which Facebook should be able to apply existing technology. There is a lot Facebook can do, but they are not, because they are lazy.", calling for more automation and less traumatic moderation work.

simoncion 4y ago
I didn't agree on it. What likely happened was a bunch of excited folks wrote a whole bunch of words, and that volume gave the appearance of consensus. Automated review is not good enough for services that are so large that they are de facto public squares. If the world were just, when you got that big, the rules would change to prohibit you from doing service-wide content filtering. > ...calling for more automation and less traumatic moderation work. Pay me 80% of what I would be making as a programmer (and keep up with changes in the market rate for programmers), and I'd be totally willing to do that moderation work. [0] There are _tons_ of people who have my intestinal fortitude out there... problem is that the enormous "social media" companies don't want to pay enough to get people who are well-suited for the work. [0] You might counter with "Oh, well you can't _possibly_ imagine the things you'll see, you're all bluster and bravado and will quit within the month!". I'd counter with "Yeah, well you have no idea the things that I _have_ seen.".

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

It's the year 2032, and Wings, Jack Dorsey's self-driving taxi service, is a hit. Because Wings doesn't have to pay human drivers, most of their rides are free. The company makes money by showing ads during rides and selling data about users's movement habits. Wings is not profitable yet, but revenue is through the roof, and the company is expected to IPO for a zillion dollars. Unfortunately, Wings's self-driving AI is much likely to destroy property than a human driver. As a result, some members of the public have called for every Wings car to be remotely controlled by a human. However, others push back. Employing good human drivers would be nearly impossible at the scale of Wings. Here is an interview with a poor grandmother who relies on Wings to see her family, and here's how a nonprofit uses Wings to find homes for lost puppies. You don't really don't want to go back to paid Uber and Lyft rides, do you? There are a couple of problems with this analogy. But the core point is this—if a company can't sustain a key aspect of their business at scale, then perhaps they shouldn't be able to scale.

atemerev 4y ago
There is an equilibrium point beyond which mass protests and regulations pressure start. Every company is iterating and optimizing to find this equilibrium point, and then stays slightly behind it.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  I happen to think today's social media companies are well past the equilibrium point.
  - atemerev 4y ago
    Well, I don't see mass protests against Google and Facebook yet, so perhaps they are not. (I do see mass protests against Uber though).

danaris 4y ago

Oh, so they'd have to spend a bunch of money to treat people like human beings? Boo fucking hoo. The money is the problem here. We should require them to spend that money, and if they can't remain profitable while employing sufficient human moderators to not be a net detriment to society, they should not be allowed to keep operating. We've gotten way too far down the rabbit hole of "any company that can conceivably exist must be allowed to exist, so long as they can make a profit." We really need to get back to companies having to provide some meaningful net benefit to society, rather than just making scads of money for their owners.

atemerev 4y ago
OK, press for regulation! So far, I haven’t seen any mass action that would be sufficient for the big tech to change their ways. People are mostly content with the status quo.