5 ms·

Why not give users the power of moderation? Currently the website owner makes the decision for me about what content I should not be seeing. I want instead all

Why not give users the power of moderation? Currently the website owner makes the decision for me about what content I should not be seeing. I want instead all or at least almost all content preserved and the ability to create and subscribe to blocklists. The website can have a default blocklist active to make it palatable for the majority.

swayvil 4y ago
There's a weird bias towards "we need a daddy to tell us how to talk". Maybe it's because moderation is too hard for mere crowdsource+algorithms and maybe it isn't. I dunno. And maybe the owners just want to keep that sweet fascist option open.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  IMHO, the deeper aversion is because user-driven moderation goes hand in hand with user-driven ranking. Which is turn makes it harder to non-obviously put your hand on the scales and insert paid content into high visibility feeds. If TikTok inserts a well-matched piece of paid content into a feed, who would even recognize? If HN inserts a piece of paid content onto the front page, people tend to notice.
  - swayvil 4y ago
    I'm not seeing the hand-in-hand here. We're looking at 2 different moderation processes. Daddy Voting There is no necessary connection that I can see.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Perhaps that's how it should be, though? Paid content -- even if I'm required to see it in my feed and can't filter it out -- should be marked as such. HN has something similar to "paid" content: YC alum companies are allowed to post hiring notices that end up on the front page, and decay down the page according to a pre-determined algorithm. They're obvious in that you can't comment or vote on them, but HN does allow them to be hidden. I think that's the right way to do things; if HN allowed YC companies to post on the front page, and made it look like they were regular posts that got organically upvoted, it would reduce my trust in HN. Any social media platform that puts paid content in a feed, while trying to make it look like regular content, would also lose my trust.
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
This is an interesting model, and there's nothing stopping someone from starting a social media site that works like this. But that doesn't mean that existing ones should be forced to use this model. Let's try them both (and others) and see which ones work best for their users.
- starik36 4y ago
  Actually this model does exist and is pretty successful. Facebook Groups. The admins of these groups are not employees and have the power to limit whatever, whenever.
- kevincox 4y ago
  This is the model that social media had. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram... they all started of just showing you content from people your followed. Or course they now all demand to show you "recommended" content and with that take on the responsibly of how "pleasant" that recommended content is. Where did they do this? I bet few people truly know. My personal guess it's because injected ads and promoted content logged to out of place between your friends posts whereas there is little difference between ads and most popular posts.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Why not just go to a different website that runst he way you want? Or revive NNTP and host community servers or something.
judge2020 4y ago
Even if it proved successful, this definitely won't appease the ruling to not censor speech.
_hcuq 4y ago
How Twitter used to be I think? If I remember correctly, I only got tweets from people I followed, in chronological order. I could unfollow someone and never hear from them again. Now the algorithm decides what I see.
yibg 4y ago
Isn’t that email before decent spam filters? I much prefer my inbox with spam filters.
- netheril96 4y ago
  The current model of social media is analogous to an email host DELETING all emails that are sent to you but it considers to be spam. What I propose is that the email host preserves all emails sent to you, but puts them in your spam folder if it considers so. Moreover, I should be able to disable that and let my email client to do spam filtering on the rules I make.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
    Or, its analogous to a newspaper receiving a bunch of write-in opinions and only deciding to print a select few of them in the paper.

swayvil 4y ago

There's a weird bias towards "we need a daddy to tell us how to talk". Maybe it's because moderation is too hard for mere crowdsource+algorithms and maybe it isn't. I dunno. And maybe the owners just want to keep that sweet fascist option open.

ethbr0 4y ago
IMHO, the deeper aversion is because user-driven moderation goes hand in hand with user-driven ranking. Which is turn makes it harder to non-obviously put your hand on the scales and insert paid content into high visibility feeds. If TikTok inserts a well-matched piece of paid content into a feed, who would even recognize? If HN inserts a piece of paid content onto the front page, people tend to notice.
- swayvil 4y ago
  I'm not seeing the hand-in-hand here. We're looking at 2 different moderation processes. Daddy Voting There is no necessary connection that I can see.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Perhaps that's how it should be, though? Paid content -- even if I'm required to see it in my feed and can't filter it out -- should be marked as such. HN has something similar to "paid" content: YC alum companies are allowed to post hiring notices that end up on the front page, and decay down the page according to a pre-determined algorithm. They're obvious in that you can't comment or vote on them, but HN does allow them to be hidden. I think that's the right way to do things; if HN allowed YC companies to post on the front page, and made it look like they were regular posts that got organically upvoted, it would reduce my trust in HN. Any social media platform that puts paid content in a feed, while trying to make it look like regular content, would also lose my trust.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

This is an interesting model, and there's nothing stopping someone from starting a social media site that works like this. But that doesn't mean that existing ones should be forced to use this model. Let's try them both (and others) and see which ones work best for their users.

starik36 4y ago
Actually this model does exist and is pretty successful. Facebook Groups. The admins of these groups are not employees and have the power to limit whatever, whenever.
kevincox 4y ago
This is the model that social media had. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram... they all started of just showing you content from people your followed. Or course they now all demand to show you "recommended" content and with that take on the responsibly of how "pleasant" that recommended content is. Where did they do this? I bet few people truly know. My personal guess it's because injected ads and promoted content logged to out of place between your friends posts whereas there is little difference between ads and most popular posts.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Why not just go to a different website that runst he way you want? Or revive NNTP and host community servers or something.

judge2020 4y ago

Even if it proved successful, this definitely won't appease the ruling to not censor speech.

_hcuq 4y ago

How Twitter used to be I think? If I remember correctly, I only got tweets from people I followed, in chronological order. I could unfollow someone and never hear from them again. Now the algorithm decides what I see.

yibg 4y ago

Isn’t that email before decent spam filters? I much prefer my inbox with spam filters.

netheril96 4y ago
The current model of social media is analogous to an email host DELETING all emails that are sent to you but it considers to be spam. What I propose is that the email host preserves all emails sent to you, but puts them in your spam folder if it considers so. Moreover, I should be able to disable that and let my email client to do spam filtering on the rules I make.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  Or, its analogous to a newspaper receiving a bunch of write-in opinions and only deciding to print a select few of them in the paper.