4 ms·

I agree with your stronger opinion and have for a while since I read [1] (he was calling it hell-banning but foresaw the same problems that emerged) One proble

I agree with your stronger opinion and have for a while since I read [1] (he was calling it hell-banning but foresaw the same problems that emerged) One problem I see with your end-goal of changing moderation tools for a better (and more open and honest) social platform experience is that you will have to use them to do it. You have already documented the problem with this -- they can shadow-ban you like anyone else! Even more, if the top-brass decides they don't like it they could just totally ban you or mention of reveddit from the entire platform. And it appears that they do like this power, even if it is the censorship that is creating the toxic elements of it because pretty much every one of them uses it. And there is, as you mentioned, a legitimate use for it. So they would have to be convinced to spend resources on changing something that they want and already works for them and in a sense "taking away power" from people that have it now which is always difficult. So there seems to be a nearly insurmountable chicken and egg issue with making real change, short of convincing someone with vast resources or someone with vast reach to get involved. Alternatively, your plan of using the toxicity of this censorship to build up enough of a group to make noticeable noise seems to be about the only realistic way. You mentioned doing video shorts like Cheyenne, which can get some notice. Although I suspect her or someone like her might make a much larger initial impact then you just starting out and you may never get traction considering the vast amount of content there. I suspect too, that even with the videos you would have to thread the needle by combing through and picking out particularly egregious abuses of shadow-banning to avoid having people associate you, the project, or any associated group with any controversial subjects. Another idea (of working within the system) might be to get volunteers to directly DM people that have had comments and posts shadow-banned, show them the shocking proof on reveddit, and see if they might be recruited to a sub or discord dedicated to making changes or support in some other way even if it is a mention or hashtag etc. From there more discussion and opportunities for growth might emerge. It is possible this could even be automated to start. One last subjective thought is that this could have an out-sized attraction for people that are libertarians due to the censorship component of it. Libertarians are very ... diverse ... politically, and so if you have some initial traction you might wind up having to "eat your own dogfood" by using your ideas concerning moderation to deal with particularly "hot" topics and people to keep the project/goal on course. I am interested in this and would like to think about it some more. What is the best way to stay in touch? [1]https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/

rhaksw 4y ago
Thanks, I largely agree with all of this except for concerns about me being banned or whatever. I'm not worried about that at all. Reddit banning Reveddit would probably shoot it to the moon because there's absolutely a story there. The thing about censorship is it actually helps the message of whoever's being censored if you know that focusing on the censorship is what wins people over. People naturally want to hear both sides of the argument, and if they're not allowed to hear one, they want to hear that side even more [1]. It's a little sad to hear that that blog post foretold this situation. I knew of the post but didn't realize it predicted the result. If so I wonder why not build something like Reveddit sooner? Oh well. About contact, there's an email in my HN profile. I have to sign off now, but would be happy to chat further there. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0T9XSG73kY&t=4889s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0T9XSG73kY&t=4889s
rhaksw 4y ago
I found some time and wanted to respond to more of your comment, > So there seems to be a nearly insurmountable chicken and egg issue with making real change, short of convincing someone with vast resources or someone with vast reach to get involved. The solution to this is to make more content myself rather than asking others to do it. I already spent months listening to probably a hundred relevant podcasts and reached out to hundreds of people and organizations. I've nearly made several connections, so I think it's only a matter of time until one lands. In the mean time, the best way to actually reach them may be to become a creator myself. For example, originally I was just writing an email describing Reveddit. Then I got a lucky break. A friend invited me to be on his podcast and I was able to share that around. That may have led to me being invited to a conference, for which I was motivated to prepare a good talk and put my face on camera. Now, instead of writing long emails, hoping something catches the reader's eye, I can just share that video. Better still might be to break that content into smaller videos, targeting a different audience with each, and then growing from there. I never wanted to be an influencer, but it seems to be the most effective way of being heard these days. Plus, it beats begging someone popular to write or talk about Reveddit themselves. If I produce video content that's succinct and convincing enough, that makes for a far better email than the written word where I would often ask someone else to write the story for me. The problem may be that they can't write that story because they don't have all of the examples at their fingertips like I do. I've tried compiling these into a spreadsheet and sharing that, but it may still be too overwhelming for journalists at this point. I can get behind that because it's been a gradual buildup for me too. I mean, I didn't tell anyone I knew that I was working on this aside from my nearest family for some years. Then when I first opened up, I had too much to say and lost the thread with some people to whom I related the work. Gradually, I started to make sense of where the public conversation was on this (disinformation vs. free speech) and where I could make a good point while providing room for a listener to ponder what I laid out. More and more I'm able to engage in conversation rather than giving eccentric one-sided speeches. > I suspect too, that even with the videos you would have to thread the needle by combing through and picking out particularly egregious abuses of shadow-banning to avoid having people associate you, the project, or any associated group with any controversial subjects. Well personally I think they're all egregious abuses. Pretending to a toxic person, for example, that their most vile content is publicly visible while it was in fact removed is harmful: it may lead them to think they're still "part of the team" and then act on their seemingly "approved" ideas in the real world. So, demonstrating the egregiousness of the practice is just a matter of showing conversations as they appear when secretly moderated, then showing how they would appear without secret moderation, and then discussing the possible thought processes of the conversation's participants, readers, and society at large. The removed content doesn't necessarily need to be something in the Overton window, you just need to show how the lie hurts civility. But yes, I do now try to meet people where they are so that I can show them what I see from their vantage point. I suspect this strategy is known by most who produce popular content, and I, like you, am just coming to understand it. You don't gain followers by blowing people away with something completely new. I once thought that's all that's needed to go viral, but it isn't. New ideas, or in this case forgotten ideas may need coddling in the early stages. Once you have an audience you probably end up shooting yourself in the foot a few times, but hopefully by that point you're prepared to deal with it. > Another idea (of working within the system) might be to get volunteers to directly DM people that have had comments and posts shadow-banned, show them the shocking proof on reveddit, and see if they might be recruited to a sub or discord dedicated to making changes or support in some other way even if it is a mention or hashtag etc. From there more discussion and opportunities for growth might emerge. It is possible this could even be automated to start. That sounds like a chicken and egg problem to me. Where do I find such volunteers? Anyway, I'm not sure if Reddit would approve or not, and I'm not keen to influence them towards having mentions of the site shadowbanned in PMs, for example. I've no idea if that's already happening, by the way. I haven't tested it. Before I made Reveddit, I had a bot that would PM people when their content was removed, and Reddit summarily suspended it after 5 days, saying that unsolicited PMs were not permitted. I wasn't even the first to try that. Afterwards, I found several subreddits that had been banned for making bots that auto-mention users for the same reason. I felt silly and annoyed at having redone something that wasn't permitted, yet I still learned something and fortunately realized there was still another way to do what I wanted. There always is. Given Reddit's ban on sending unsolicited PMs along with their crackdown on "brigading", I guess they would frown upon PMing people with links to their removed content, even if it came from real people and not just a bot. On top of that, it might be akin to growing an army to ask people to deliver bad news to other people without any personalization and less self-discovery than happens when someone comes across Reveddit more organically. The army stuff is what's already happening on social media, and I want to relate a slightly different message. I want to raise awareness and share a possibly new direction that may be the last thought on many people's minds. There is a solution to today's problem of society having difficulty communicating. Secretive censorship is holding us back from solving the problem, and upending that will allow those-who-are-willing to come up with good counter arguments to the hateful speech people fear. We don't need to upend each other, only the parts of ourselves that enable these systems to be built and become popular. You are your own worst enemy, and you are your own best advocate. Hate speech is only scary if you don't know how to counter it and you think you're the only one who can counter it. It's okay if you don't know how because there are many capable people who can. The only reason you think that isn't possible anymore is because you didn't know about the degree to which human-driven shadow moderation is disrupting that process. Once you understand that, you're back in the driver's seat, or at least you're now in a vehicle being driven by a capable driver because you have faith in humanity. Plus, most Reveddit traffic does now come from people sharing it. So to some extent what you're describing is already happening without my involvement, and I prefer that to telling people how they should share the tool. I'm after mindfulness, not mindlessness, even when it comes to sharing Reveddit. Perhaps I am being haughty to say so. I gather your point is I should build a better network, and I agree! > One last subjective thought is that this could have an out-sized attraction for people that are libertarians due to the censorship component of it. Libertarians are very ... diverse ... politically, and so if you have some initial traction you might wind up having to "eat your own dogfood" by using your ideas concerning moderation to deal with particularly "hot" topics and people to keep the project/goal on course. Probably true. Interestingly, the r/Libertarian group on Reddit is a huge target of censorship. The mods there lie up and down [1] more than any other place I've seen, and r/LibertarianUncensored is trying to call it out [2]. The "uncensored" group is small, but I expect they will eventually be able to get their message out to more users in r/Libertarian. I mention them in my talk at 18:18 [3], and the slides contain these same two links. Is there another place they hang out, or were you suggesting posting about Reveddit in r/Libertarian? I've already tried there; they removed my comments. I also tried messaging mods of r/neoliberal and did not receive a response. I guess I could try posting there without prior approval and just see what happens. I'm a little tired of trying to post about Reveddit on Reddit itself because it so often gets removed, but I could always try again. Anyone else could too. Something simple like I recently posted in r/detrans [4] might work. [1] https://archive.ph/O0GN8 https://archive.ph/O0GN8 [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/LibertarianUncensored/comments/uotv5a/analysis_criticism_of_mods_at_rlibertarian_will/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LibertarianUncensored/comments/uotv... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCadmiIfbcI&t=1098s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCadmiIfbcI&t=1098s [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/yej7mx/has_secretive_moderation_played_a_role_in_your/ https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/yej7mx/has_secreti...

rhaksw 4y ago

Thanks, I largely agree with all of this except for concerns about me being banned or whatever. I'm not worried about that at all. Reddit banning Reveddit would probably shoot it to the moon because there's absolutely a story there. The thing about censorship is it actually helps the message of whoever's being censored if you know that focusing on the censorship is what wins people over. People naturally want to hear both sides of the argument, and if they're not allowed to hear one, they want to hear that side even more [1]. It's a little sad to hear that that blog post foretold this situation. I knew of the post but didn't realize it predicted the result. If so I wonder why not build something like Reveddit sooner? Oh well. About contact, there's an email in my HN profile. I have to sign off now, but would be happy to chat further there. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0T9XSG73kY&t=4889s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0T9XSG73kY&t=4889s

rhaksw 4y ago

I found some time and wanted to respond to more of your comment, > So there seems to be a nearly insurmountable chicken and egg issue with making real change, short of convincing someone with vast resources or someone with vast reach to get involved. The solution to this is to make more content myself rather than asking others to do it. I already spent months listening to probably a hundred relevant podcasts and reached out to hundreds of people and organizations. I've nearly made several connections, so I think it's only a matter of time until one lands. In the mean time, the best way to actually reach them may be to become a creator myself. For example, originally I was just writing an email describing Reveddit. Then I got a lucky break. A friend invited me to be on his podcast and I was able to share that around. That may have led to me being invited to a conference, for which I was motivated to prepare a good talk and put my face on camera. Now, instead of writing long emails, hoping something catches the reader's eye, I can just share that video. Better still might be to break that content into smaller videos, targeting a different audience with each, and then growing from there. I never wanted to be an influencer, but it seems to be the most effective way of being heard these days. Plus, it beats begging someone popular to write or talk about Reveddit themselves. If I produce video content that's succinct and convincing enough, that makes for a far better email than the written word where I would often ask someone else to write the story for me. The problem may be that they can't write that story because they don't have all of the examples at their fingertips like I do. I've tried compiling these into a spreadsheet and sharing that, but it may still be too overwhelming for journalists at this point. I can get behind that because it's been a gradual buildup for me too. I mean, I didn't tell anyone I knew that I was working on this aside from my nearest family for some years. Then when I first opened up, I had too much to say and lost the thread with some people to whom I related the work. Gradually, I started to make sense of where the public conversation was on this (disinformation vs. free speech) and where I could make a good point while providing room for a listener to ponder what I laid out. More and more I'm able to engage in conversation rather than giving eccentric one-sided speeches. > I suspect too, that even with the videos you would have to thread the needle by combing through and picking out particularly egregious abuses of shadow-banning to avoid having people associate you, the project, or any associated group with any controversial subjects. Well personally I think they're all egregious abuses. Pretending to a toxic person, for example, that their most vile content is publicly visible while it was in fact removed is harmful: it may lead them to think they're still "part of the team" and then act on their seemingly "approved" ideas in the real world. So, demonstrating the egregiousness of the practice is just a matter of showing conversations as they appear when secretly moderated, then showing how they would appear without secret moderation, and then discussing the possible thought processes of the conversation's participants, readers, and society at large. The removed content doesn't necessarily need to be something in the Overton window, you just need to show how the lie hurts civility. But yes, I do now try to meet people where they are so that I can show them what I see from their vantage point. I suspect this strategy is known by most who produce popular content, and I, like you, am just coming to understand it. You don't gain followers by blowing people away with something completely new. I once thought that's all that's needed to go viral, but it isn't. New ideas, or in this case forgotten ideas may need coddling in the early stages. Once you have an audience you probably end up shooting yourself in the foot a few times, but hopefully by that point you're prepared to deal with it. > Another idea (of working within the system) might be to get volunteers to directly DM people that have had comments and posts shadow-banned, show them the shocking proof on reveddit, and see if they might be recruited to a sub or discord dedicated to making changes or support in some other way even if it is a mention or hashtag etc. From there more discussion and opportunities for growth might emerge. It is possible this could even be automated to start. That sounds like a chicken and egg problem to me. Where do I find such volunteers? Anyway, I'm not sure if Reddit would approve or not, and I'm not keen to influence them towards having mentions of the site shadowbanned in PMs, for example. I've no idea if that's already happening, by the way. I haven't tested it. Before I made Reveddit, I had a bot that would PM people when their content was removed, and Reddit summarily suspended it after 5 days, saying that unsolicited PMs were not permitted. I wasn't even the first to try that. Afterwards, I found several subreddits that had been banned for making bots that auto-mention users for the same reason. I felt silly and annoyed at having redone something that wasn't permitted, yet I still learned something and fortunately realized there was still another way to do what I wanted. There always is. Given Reddit's ban on sending unsolicited PMs along with their crackdown on "brigading", I guess they would frown upon PMing people with links to their removed content, even if it came from real people and not just a bot. On top of that, it might be akin to growing an army to ask people to deliver bad news to other people without any personalization and less self-discovery than happens when someone comes across Reveddit more organically. The army stuff is what's already happening on social media, and I want to relate a slightly different message. I want to raise awareness and share a possibly new direction that may be the last thought on many people's minds. There is a solution to today's problem of society having difficulty communicating. Secretive censorship is holding us back from solving the problem, and upending that will allow those-who-are-willing to come up with good counter arguments to the hateful speech people fear. We don't need to upend each other, only the parts of ourselves that enable these systems to be built and become popular. You are your own worst enemy, and you are your own best advocate. Hate speech is only scary if you don't know how to counter it and you think you're the only one who can counter it. It's okay if you don't know how because there are many capable people who can. The only reason you think that isn't possible anymore is because you didn't know about the degree to which human-driven shadow moderation is disrupting that process. Once you understand that, you're back in the driver's seat, or at least you're now in a vehicle being driven by a capable driver because you have faith in humanity. Plus, most Reveddit traffic does now come from people sharing it. So to some extent what you're describing is already happening without my involvement, and I prefer that to telling people how they should share the tool. I'm after mindfulness, not mindlessness, even when it comes to sharing Reveddit. Perhaps I am being haughty to say so. I gather your point is I should build a better network, and I agree! > One last subjective thought is that this could have an out-sized attraction for people that are libertarians due to the censorship component of it. Libertarians are very ... diverse ... politically, and so if you have some initial traction you might wind up having to "eat your own dogfood" by using your ideas concerning moderation to deal with particularly "hot" topics and people to keep the project/goal on course. Probably true. Interestingly, the r/Libertarian group on Reddit is a huge target of censorship. The mods there lie up and down [1] more than any other place I've seen, and r/LibertarianUncensored is trying to call it out [2]. The "uncensored" group is small, but I expect they will eventually be able to get their message out to more users in r/Libertarian. I mention them in my talk at 18:18 [3], and the slides contain these same two links. Is there another place they hang out, or were you suggesting posting about Reveddit in r/Libertarian? I've already tried there; they removed my comments. I also tried messaging mods of r/neoliberal and did not receive a response. I guess I could try posting there without prior approval and just see what happens. I'm a little tired of trying to post about Reveddit on Reddit itself because it so often gets removed, but I could always try again. Anyone else could too. Something simple like I recently posted in r/detrans [4] might work. [1] https://archive.ph/O0GN8 https://archive.ph/O0GN8 [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/LibertarianUncensored/comments/uotv5a/analysis_criticism_of_mods_at_rlibertarian_will/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LibertarianUncensored/comments/uotv... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCadmiIfbcI&t=1098s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCadmiIfbcI&t=1098s [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/yej7mx/has_secretive_moderation_played_a_role_in_your/ https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/yej7mx/has_secreti...