18 ms·

Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run the Content Moderation Learning Curve

323 points by ilamont 4y ago

readonthegoapp 4y ago
this post was good. i'd like to propose the tldr; version: Implement the Santa Clara Principles. Cheers. https://santaclaraprinciples.org/ interesting that this article got posted to HN 4 times in total, and only the most recent one - this one - got any real traction. karma of OP on this one is a bazillion compared to the other posters.
arvigeus 4y ago
I had some ideas about how one can run a free speech social media without actual or shadow banning and without letting “problematic” accounts disturbing others. I think my ideas completely died around level 13. I mean I can make them work to fit the extra requirements, but it will be just a game of whack-a-mole where some other powerful entity dictates the rules for you. Welcome to hell…
SergeAx 4y ago
"Level Eleven: [...] “Forgive the interruption, boss, but a lot of our most active users are getting angry at you specifically, because the hate speech, spam, and copyright filters are blocking their dank memes, and sometimes they’re getting removed from the platform for violating the rules too many times. They think you’re sitting here and removing their accounts personally.” Why does everyone blame me?!? Okay, let’s set up a “trust council” who will handle all content moderation questions and appeals." Here's the first obvious mistake. One should just ignore tinfoil-hat claims, not trying to respond. Also, replacing a manager (who is reporting to CEO) with committee is almost never a good idea. Here's another one: "Hire more people in Germany and now review reports as much as possible, but default to taking down reported content". There should be "...in Germany" addition. Country-law abiding takedown should affect only that one country.
jfengel 4y ago
We appear to be at Level 4 already: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitt...
- pelagicAustral 4y ago
  I guess Kanye's on /pol/ now.
sosuke 4y ago
It all starts with images and video? Over simplification of course but leave off images, videos and make links not href. Would you be safer from this complicated mess? Then third party apps would probably come out enriching things. But not on our servers or under our moderation. Use a non-mono space font to cut down on ACSII art (^_^)b
- mcguire 4y ago
  And I'm sure all four of your users will enjoy your system. I'm exaggerating, but there is a reason that HN is not the most popular social media site in the world.
machina_ex_deus 4y ago
90% of the problems come from laws not people. Except the CSAM laws (which are justified as they relate to real physical harm), I think all other laws shouldn't have existed. DMCA, hate speech, mocking presidents, it's all the same. If you're dealing with law might as well just pay good lawyers and stick to your principles instead of gently bending over.
- martythemaniak 4y ago
  I've always wondered, what are people like you doing on HN anyway, a forum that is really far away from any notion of free speech.
  - briantakita 4y ago
    It's always fun to introduce glitches into the matrix of groupthink to demonstrate the futility of dogma veiling simple social power dynamics (aka "soft power")...otoh, HN has some great content. Like any platform with great content, people have to learn how to interact with each other in a pro-social way. People are just going to disagree at times on some subjects. And that's ok...These disagreements often lead to motivate one to create solutions which leads to innovation. The "we don't like your kind round here" meme is backwards thinking & leads to the cloistered groupthink that is the subject of comedy. The game of "soft power" is a net-negative game so there are winners & losers. The losers don't just go away, so they need to advocate for their God given rights to survive. There is no option not to play the game because the game is ever expanding until the particular systems collapse.
  - machina_ex_deus 4y ago
    What's the point in getting someone who already agrees to listen? You want to find those willing to listen that don't agree. I don't want to reinforce my ego that I have people agreeing with me, I could get plenty of that if I wanted, I want those disagreeing and willing to listen to see the other side. I want to see what's actually a convincing argument that's changing opinion. But hey, everyone's so used to the likes and points system, they forget that speaking is to covey a message, not to get internet points for your ego. If that's all free speech means to you, no wonder you give it away easily. I happily paid those -5 internet points. If that surprised any of the downvoters, maybe they will think again what's the point of speech that does nothing. It's funny how none of them responded with actual speech, maybe because they think talking is about getting those downvotes and not about interacting with people.
mmastrac 4y ago
Doesn't banning Kanye West from the platform go against his whole "free speech" thing? The absolutists say that there should just be more free speech to drown out the hateful speech. Why isn't he just encouraging people to drown it out instead? I find the unlimited free speech arguments to be disingenuous and lazy most of the time. There's always a limit to speech, and it's not easy to find. That doesn't mean we shouldn't explore the space to find it (and that we'll have to acknowledge it's a dynamic and changing boundary).
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  Yes it does, at least in the United States... but I imagine he determined that free speech has limits in other parts of the world.
  - AftHurrahWinch 4y ago
    > I imagine he determined that free speech has limits in other parts of the world How unfortunate that we're left to imagine this, rather than having the new ownership articulate a content moderation policy that reflects their curation decisions.
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    But Twitter has long supported allowing speech in different regions based on local laws. For example, I had set my region to Germany because Twitter would automatically block more content for German users (due to Nazi content being illegal in Germany). So, is your imaginary conclusion that Elon has changed Twitter's policy from: "speech is restricted for users in a locale according to the local laws" to "speech is restricted platform wide according based on the most restrictive laws that exist in the world"? It would seem very anti-free speech to me if this new system allows China to determine which content is available on Twitter, or we impose the UK's onerous libel laws on all American users.
    - encryptluks2 4y ago
      I believe he's changed it based on whatever he is feeling at the moment is the best choice, which could change tomorrow. I honestly don't think he has a clue what he is doing or what free speech actually is. The picture Ye posted is not illegal in the United States and so therefore it appears he no longer supports free speech.
AftHurrahWinch 4y ago
Is this the 12th time this article has been posted? @dang is there any chance HN will resume de-duplicating submissions in the future? Do you need a hand with anything? Don't tell my boss but I've got a few spare cycles this sprint. ;) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33448038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33448038 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33442277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33442277 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33749415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33749415 [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472646 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454735 [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33461866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33461866 [6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33481049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33481049 [7]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33510043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33510043 [8]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33715919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33715919 [9]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33489801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33489801 [10]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33714846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33714846 [11]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33832866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33832866
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  Most of those probably didn't get enough points to hit the front page. This is the first time I've seen the article, so I'm happy it was let through.
  - nicce 4y ago
    That's the point of limiting reposts. To reduce the resubmissions in case you get lucky to get into the front page. Everyone gets the same chances with time limited single shot. Otherwise, spamming will take over.
- textbookrental 4y ago
  They seem to be trying to keep anything critical of Elon off the front page.
SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
And of course the sequel (1 December, yesterday, about a month later): Elon Musk Continues Along The Content Moderation Learning Curve, But Doesn’t Seem To Be Learning A Damn Thing https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/01/elon-musk-continues-along-the-content-moderation-learning-curve-but-doesnt-seem-to-be-learning-a-damn-thing/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/01/elon-musk-continues-alon...
cameronh90 4y ago
> People are leaving the site because of it, and advertisers are pulling ads” This seems to be, arguably, where the real problems start. I doubt many people expect Twitter to host actually illegal content. However, as long as a social media site is beholden to advertisers, it's going to have an existential requirement to pull certain content, irrespective of how they or anyone else feels about those restrictions. Until Twitter can figure out a way to fund itself other than by advertising, the idea of it being a free speech platform is a pipe dream.
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago
  Advertisers are responding to the expectations of the public. "Brand safety" is an issue of public perception. If people didn't care about brands being side-by-side with white supremacist hate speech, there'd be no push from advertisers to remove it. So my hypothesis is that, indirectly, the advertisers are helping represent the interests of the vast majority of users who don't want to see that crap, but are unable to have their voices heard over the clamouring minority who want to tweet out swastikas and misgender trans people for the lulz.
- debacle 4y ago
  Twitter is already losing advertisers in droves. And not because of its own actions. It seems that, similar to newspapers, purchasing ads is also in some manner purchasing control of the platform.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
That's a great write-up! I would rather bang rusty carpet tacks through my thumb, than own a large social media site.
pfisherman 4y ago
I do and don’t understand all the hubbub about “free speech” on Twitter and other social platforms. I can understand the perspective that if someone is making claims that your platform / forum allows “free speech” then people are justified in being upset when this is not the case. On the other hand the rule since the days of dial up BBSs is: the sysop can do whatever they want with their system, and you are owed nothing. If people do not like how they operate, then they migrate somewhere else. Sure it sucks when you get on the wrong side of a sysop and get banned from a popular board, but that’s just the game. The era of mobile phones / internet is truly the eternal September. :)
- pannSun 4y ago
  "I don't understand why people are upset when they get banned from the 40% of all roads, parks, and sidewalks that are owned by GloboCorp. In the old days of private homes, sure it sucked when you got thrown out of a houseparty, but that's just the game. It's both private property, there is no difference."
  - someNameIG 4y ago
    Oh no, you got banned from those places for wearing a nazi armband, but there's multiple other roads, parks, and sidewalks, that allow that (e.g. 4chan), just as easily accessible.
    - mvnuweucxqokii 4y ago
      Alternatively, oh no you got banned for spreading factual information like there is insufficient evidence to rule out the possibility of a lab leak, so now you'll be relegated to places where you can have no impact on the public discourse.
      - someNameIG 4y ago
        4chan is also available for that
    - 4y ago
WhackyIdeas 4y ago
I wonder if Elon Musk is still excited about his investment now?
cypress66 4y ago
He probably got scared by advertisers or Apple or something. Ideally in my opinion, Twitter should have a setting by default that hides all of that content, but if you disable it you get 4chan-like moderation (so anything that's legal). In countries with a lesser degree of freedom of speech (I think swastikas are illegal in Germany for example), you wouldn't be able to disable that setting.
- scythe 4y ago
  My idea, which I've posted before, is that you require users to pay to turn off the filter. (After all, if they're bad for ad revenue, they can't be "the product".) This also mostly enforces region-locking, at least requiring some effort to bypass.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    In what way would it enforce region-locking, and why would that be a good thing?
    - scythe 4y ago
      Usually your payment method is tied to your country of residence (bank/currency), and from the platform's perspective (as a business) region-verification locks on content/behavior are demanded by national governments.
      - luckylion 4y ago
        Ah, so it would verify country of origin and then allow you to unlock some filter, while also applying a new one based on the country? Finally a problem that bitcoin reliably solves! "Here's my money, I'm from the internet, we have no censorship laws".
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    But that leads to dog wagging. Twitter as a platform would be incentivized to encourage hate speech etc in order to have something to entice people to pay to access it.
user3939382 4y ago
His argument breaks down here: > Fire the engineers! Bring me new engineers who don’t suck. And, I guess, maybe hire someone to manage at least some of these things. We can call them… “director of trust.” That sounds good! Level Nine: “We’re the trustworthy free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, and spam, and we follow Block illegal (civil and criminal) content and spam. Hate crime is already covered under that umbrella. The problem again is the plague on our society, advertising. Ideal brand association isn’t compatible with free speech, you have to pick one, and SV picks ads. Lumberg: If the ad industry could just go ahead and disappear from the planet that would be great.
buzzdenver 4y ago
Elon went from free speech absolutist to "Twitter aims to serve center 80% of people, who wish to learn, laugh & engage in reasoned debate." Quite the u-turn. I'm sure he put zero thought into that 80% figure, but even banning 2% instead of 20% is a shockingly huge number.
- new2this 4y ago
  I remember some stat that the loudest voices are the 8% on either end of the political spectrum. I couldn't find where I heard that, but Pew has some data that mirrors that. I think that 20% is coming from this: "The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%"[1] [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-po...
- _greim_ 4y ago
  It's unclear what "serving the center 80% means" but I doubt it means banning the remaining 20%.
- memish 4y ago
  Paul Graham says it's more like 90 or 95%. "You could probably expand that 80% to 90% or even 95%. The extremists seem like they're more numerous than they are, because they talk so much and so loudly, but they're really a tiny minority." https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1598720168737345539 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1598720168737345539
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hintymad 4y ago
> “Excuse me, boss, we’re getting reports that there are child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSAM) images and videos on the site.” God people just love projecting and assuming the worst. Didn't Twitter close 500K additional accounts for child sexual exploitation? And Twitter didn't change their content moderation policy on child porn, no?
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  > And Twitter didn't change their content moderation policy on child porn, no? They have gutted their moderation teams though - looks like there's one (1) left for all of Asia[1] - tens of millions of Twitter users. [1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-child-sexual-abuse-material https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-child-sexual-abuse-m...
  - hintymad 4y ago
    Yes, and this is the type of argument I also look for: looking at nuances and facts and what people do, instead of coming up with the most non-sensical worst-case scenarios and projecting them to the people we don't like.
hannofcart 4y ago
Shouldn't this post be titled: 'Elon, let me...' instead of 'Elon: Let me ...' The latter construction makes it sound like Elon is saying those words while in fact the author of the article is saying those words _to_ Elon.
- atom058 4y ago
  I belive both versions are technically correct (I'm not a linguist), but your suggestion is less ambiguous
scythe 4y ago
This argument can be simplified as a nonalemma. You can promote or suppress content by centralized, decentralized, or null mechanisms. So nine combinations: No promotion, no suppression: chatter (the early Internet) Centralized promotion and centralized or no suppression: traditional media Centralized promotion, decentralized suppression: modern electoral politics, basically No promotion, any suppression: silence (obviously) Decentralized promotion, decentralized suppression: echo-chamber/hive-mind/hug-box, see also: why FB/Twitter don't have downvotes, and Reddit discourages them Decentralized promotion, no suppression: inflammatory content takes over Decentralized promotion, centralized suppression: the modern social media model But wait, there's a bonus: Decentralized promotion, semi-centralized (approved user) suppression: Hacker News
slibhb 4y ago
People want an algorithm for how to moderate speech. But there's no such thing. You just need people with good judgement and it's hard to define what good judgement is. HN has it. Previous twitter did not have good judgement. It had a left-bias and banned people for saying things like "there are two genders" and "men aren't women tho". It also banned various accounts for jokes (prominently Babylon Bee, a right-wing The Onion). It remains to be seen if Elon will do better or worse. I think he'll do better because he has a sense of humor. But he's also a bit obnoxious so we'll see.
- beambot 4y ago
  > HN has it. @dang is the GOAT.
- tstrimple 4y ago
  > It had a left-bias I don't know what it will take for this lie to die. It has absolutely zero supporting evidence. The data suggests just the opposite. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/01/facebook-youtube-twitter-anti-conservative-claims-baseless-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/01/facebook-youtu... > "There is no evidence to support the claim that the major social media companies are suppressing, censoring or otherwise discriminating against conservatives on their platforms,” Barrett said. “In fact, it is often conservatives who gain the most in terms of engagement and online attention, thanks to the platforms’ systems of algorithmic promotion of content."
  - slibhb 4y ago
    "Left-bias" is putting it mildly. It's becoming increasingly clear that twitter censored certain people/content at the behest of the Biden administration.
    - tstrimple 4y ago
      Show the evidence then. Because the Twitter files confirmed the opposite. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598833927405215744 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598833927405215744
insane_dreamer 4y ago
Ho ho ho, it turns out running a social media company isn't so easy after all. Cutting bloat and pushing out new monetization features is a walk in the park compared to walking the fine line of content.
lynndotpy 4y ago
I really like this post. These are lessons I learned a long time ago, when I was 10 or so running web forums. But there are three big things this misses: 1. What is and is not legal is usually decided in the courts. That's expensive, and lawyers help prevent you from getting to the courts in the first place. 2. The ideal goal for good discussion on a forum is transparency and consistency in moderation. For example, StackExchange sites censor heavily, but with a good effort to be transparent and consistent in doing so. (This is the major flaw with most "free speech" sites-- they make no effort whatsoever. It's just buzzword branding.) 3. When you're beholden to shareholders, then the goal for discussion is to be profitable. Free-speech ideals matter *only* to the extent that they are profitable. You'll generally find the ideals in point 2 on small social media sites (up to ~1000 monthly users who make posts). These are ones where the active users all know one another, and where it's feasible for a user to read and respond to all the posts made on the site. (If you're nostalgic for mid-2000s webforums, then good news: They still exist!) Crucially, these are sites meant to serve a need for community, with no intention of profit. These are sites small enough that the social dynamics are closer to a discord server or group chat. It's easy to tell when good members are or not acting in good faith, and it's feasible for the admins/mods to openly discuss moderation decisions.
- katbyte 4y ago
  What is legal in one country can be very illegal in another
  - lynndotpy 4y ago
    Yes! This is addressed in the article. It's one of the other benefits of small social media. A tiny site with ~1000 monthly users is much less likely to receive urgent takedown-request emails from Malaysia.
HWR_14 4y ago
I'm confused by Level 5. I thought the safe harbor provision stopped applying if the company made a determination whether it was fair use. And not just for that one image/instance, but possibly for all content. That is, if you say "Can we have the intern send some of these to our outside counsel to review for fair use before pulling them down?" you're opening yourself up to a ton of liability for all images.
- mcguire 4y ago
  That is, as the article implies, one of those weird, fuzzy areas where: Yes, you are exposing yourself to some liability. But no, if you try to avoid that liability, you will run off all of your users. How many memes have you seen today that are based on an image from a recent movie?
woah 4y ago
One big online platform that has totally skimped on reasonable moderation is the charmingly named "E-Mail". Child porn, copyright infringement, harassment, hate speech, spam, you name it. Anything goes. It's a complete free-for-all. Giant internet companies like Google and Microsoft make billions of dollars a year through their partnerships with the E-Mail platform. These big companies do make a token effort to remove objectionable content from their servers, but that doesn't matter. Anyone who wants to sidestep this reasonable moderation and spread hateful content on E-Mail can easily do so for a few dollars a month by setting up a darkweb technology known as a "Self-Hosted Mail-Server". Underground terrorist collectives such as the "postfix" organization distribute software making it possible to set up a Self-Hosted Mail-Server in a few clicks. We need to rise up and pressure these billionaire tech companies to stop connecting to any E-Mail providers that do not have a full content council and policy, and a team of content moderators.
- computerex 4y ago
  I'll drop this here: https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-...
- rsynnott 4y ago
  It's point to point, which does make a difference, though I would note that Big Tech companies who provide email are _extremely_ happy to "defederate" from email servers who send spam, or who merely look like they may send spam, or who share an IP range with someone who sent spam once in 2008. Like, the sort of guilt by association that would make even the most trigger-happy Mastodon service admin hesitate. There was a time when it was pretty easy to set up an SMTP server, but, if you want your emails to actually get seen, it's non-trivial today.
- martindbp 4y ago
  This is unfortunately exactly what will happen. What is scary to me is how censorship has become completely accepted by the new generation, including software engineers here in their 20s. No true hacker (this is Hacker News after all) would be OK with corporation or government censorship. Slippery slope is real.
fswd 4y ago
I think out of all of this the worst thing to come of it, is this term, seemingly re-invented here, called "free speech absolutists". Which isn't a thing. It's the inversion of "relative censorship" and much larger concept and strategy to turn everything "relative", i.e relativism, or "The Relativists Clan". Free speech can't be "relative" to somebody's interpretation, otherwise it wouldn't be speech that is free -- free -- of relative-style censorhip. The basis of relative speech is that some speech is harmful and it should be censored. That just means, hey we're not a free speech website. It comes down to be honest, there are people who don't want other people saying things and they will go as far to redefine words and meanings to censor them.
- omnicognate 4y ago
  Free speech absolutism is a clear and useful term for the belief that anybody should be allowed to say anything, i.e. that absolute freedom of speech is inherently a good thing. It's not synonymous with "freedom of speech" (i.e. the "absolutism" part isn't redundant) because there are versions of the idea of freedom of speech that aren't absolute, that don't allow anybody to say anything they like. The version of freedom of speech that is encoded in US consitutional law (the first amendment and the long history of supreme court judgements on the subject) is an example. There are forms of speech that are not protected and there is a mainstream interpretation of freedom of speech that does not see restrictions against defamation, incitement of violence, etc., as infringements of it. A "free speech absolutist" would see these as infringements of freedom of speech, so the term is useful to distinguish that particular view. You're seeing the term used a lot on Hacker News because there are people here who routinely argue that any speech should be allowed on a platform that claims to support freedom of speech. These people are free speech absolutists (at least in the context of the debate about online platforms) and, if they feel their views on the matter are correct, shouldn't be offended to be called that.
CamperBob2 4y ago
A lot of those issues are trivially solvable with the response, "We're a US company. We're not bound to whatever goofy laws there are in your country. If you don't like it, that's your problem, not ours. Block our site, or don't, we don't actually care." Trouble is, that's a good way to build a $5 billion social networking site, not a $50 billion one. Also a good way to get arrested seconds after setting foot in country XYZ.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bjt2n3904 4y ago
Yeah, this guide is pretty ridiculous. So many of these "problems" came from bad legislation and a culture that enabled it. "Hi boss, we're getting millions of DMCA takedown requests." The solution? Fix the brokenness of the DMCA. "Hey boss, we're getting a lot of notifications about misleading info!" Ok, tell the users to not believe everything they read on the Internet. "Hey boss, we're getting lots of reports about hateful content that people find offensive." Ok, delete the report button, tell people if they are threatened to contact their local law enforcement agencies, and supply them with better tools to manage troll armies. So many of these things can be solved by deleting the problem to the appropriate level. But instead, our culture demands for Ministries of Truth and Love.
- tzs 4y ago
  Dealing with a large number of DMCA takedown requests should not be much of a problem. They just need to: 1. Provide a form for copyright owners to use to request a takedown of material they claim is infringing. When the form is submitted verify that all the required fields have been filled in. 2. Take down the content claimed by the form submitted, and notify the user who posted the content. The provider does not need to try to figure out if the material claimed really infringes the claimant's copyright. 3. Provide a form for the user to submit a counterclaim. If the user does not submit a counterclaim, there is nothing more to do. 4. If the user submits a counterclaim, restore the taken down content, and notify the party that requested the takedown. The provider does not have to try to evaluate the merits of the counterclaim, such as whether or not the use was fair use. If the claimant still wants the material taken down they have to take it up with the user, such as by suing them. The provider, having followed the DMCA procedure given above, is protected by the DMCA safe harbor. It only gets hard when a site wants to use some system of their own, like YouTube does, instead of DMCA. Due to the nature of user created content on YouTube and how YouTube is monetized it is better for them if something that infringes gets licensed and stays up, so they have deals with major content distributors to encourage that. For a site like Twitter, where the user content is small text posts instead of longer videos that can have ads within them, I don't think they need more than the DMCA procedure.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
It's all very Brexit reminiscent. "Let's leave the EU and get rid of all this red tape and beaurocracy" leave EU discover why all those rules were necessary slowly re-invent a crappy copy of the above rules, at great personal expense, because the same external forces that existed before require them
- meken 4y ago
  Are we doomed to repeat this cycle ad infinitum? Is this how it’s always been, and will always be…?
- drivebycomment 4y ago
  100%. In both, it's clear people who got rid of the existing framework failed to follow Chesterton's fence.
  - medvezhenok 4y ago
    Knowledge transfer is very lossy across generations and still hasn't really been solved. Perhaps when we achieve singularity or close to that we'll have permanent knowledge repositories and the wisdom of the collective consciousness immortalized:)
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  I think Brexit was much more about 'let's leave the EU and go back to collecting bureaucratic rents instead of letting them go to Brussels.'
snvzz 4y ago
Spam isn't level zero? This pretty much invalidates the whole article.
Trumpi 4y ago
Level 21: We help governments and VIPs cover up their crimes under the guise of moderation.
umvi 4y ago
> “Right, boss, apparently because you keep talking about freedom, a large group of people are taking it to mean they have ‘freedom’ to harass people with slurs and all sorts of abuse. People are leaving the site because of it, and advertisers are pulling ads.” > That seems bad. Quick, have someone write up some rules against hate speech. > Level Four: “We’re the free speech platform without CSAM, infringement or hate speech!” This is where you have to draw the line and say: "Nope, hate speech is too subjective. I disagree with what they are saying, but unless it's against the law I will defend their right to say it"
- Etheryte 4y ago
  Hate speech is illegal in numerous countries, Germany being the most prominent example. That specific case is covered in the article, too.
  - umvi 4y ago
    Well then the crux of the issue is that you cannot build a global free speech platform. What is free speech in USA is illegal speech in Germany, China, etc. If you really want a free speech platform, you can only really deploy it in countries that respect the same level of free speech (or greater) as your own. And that's leaving a lot of money on the table for publicly traded companies, hence free speech morals go out the window in favor of growth/region-specific censorship.
    - medvezhenok 4y ago
      Incitement to violence is illegal in the U.S.A. too. The line between hate speech and incitement to violence can get awfully blurry in some cases.
      - hackerlight 4y ago
        There is a line legally speaking, but not in reality if we're talking about the literal meaning of the words "incitement to violence". There are over three mass shooters in the US that were strictly radicalized by hate speech in online forums. That speech directly caused them to kill people.
Ftuuky 4y ago
It's obvious that a "truly" free social network with absolute free speech has to be something decentralized, bottom-up.
6ak74rfy 4y ago
Think someone at Hacker News should write up a blog post about lessons it learnt moderating this community.
gfodor 4y ago
The poster glosses over the thing that Twitter did that wasn't on the content moderation curve: banning people for COVID-19 "misinformation" and "election interference." This is why something needed to be done. Twitter started picking sides of disputed arguments in the public square, choosing to tilt things in the favor of authorities and 'experts.' This was a horrifying trajectory.
mikojan 4y ago
There is no free speech absolutism. It is public record ("no freedom of reach"): Twitter is drowning out negative comments. It is shielding the public from criticisms of established enterprise, press, government. Freedom of speech to people like J. S. Mill served a very vital purpose. It was not just some abstract negative right. Having access to this type of information isn't any less important as being able to publicize it. It's a travesty. Whether a fringe right-wing crank is at liberty to discuss the merits of Adolf Hitler is a minor issue at this point.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pessimizer 4y ago
Insightful, but about halfway through the problems stop being about running a social network, and start being about running a world-spanning social network that wants to operate in countries and languages that it doesn't bother to have moderators in. I know porn forums that restrict the languages used to languages that they have mods who can understand, but that's obviously a very onerous restriction when you're trying to pull a maximum amount of money out of Malaysia while putting a minimum amount of money or thought into it. You don't have to be social media in Malaysia; someone who speaks the language and is familiar with local laws and politics would be better. > in the end, basically every major social media platform ends up in this same place eventually (the place Twitter was already at when Musk insisted he needed to tear things down and start again). To get to where Twitter was (and I think will ultimately continue to be), it's a bit dishonest to leave out the weekly meetings with administration officials where they ask for political censorship of specific accounts and subjects, and you update them on actions you've taken against the subjects and accounts they gave you last week.
finspeech 4y ago
Level 21: Financialize speech. Give the power of content moderation directly to the people by harnessing markets. Want to ban/allow Ye or Trump? Highest bidder gets to decide. Gives another revenue stream to Twitter and takes the content moderation decisions out of Twitter’s and Elon’s hands.
jshaqaw 4y ago
1. I do respect that freedom of speech is a slippery slope and once lost it is very hard to regain. I wish some of the free speech warriors in the last few days would also recognize that we Jews are not new here. We are a bit touchy by the 500th iteration of a. civilization under strain and a cosmopolitan-traditional value divides propagates the same eternal anti-Jewish conspiracies (they control they control they they) and b. Jews end up disenfranchised or dead. So yeah there is a bit of sensitivity to nipping this stuff in the bud before it takes root. 2. You can have a free for all hellscape of nazi man babies posting dank memes or you can have a business with ad revenue aside beyond scam supplements, gold funds, and maybe direct to consumer pillows. You can't have both. Nobody wants to wake up to find their product advertised alongside the most extreme wack job of the day. The "normies" will flee. Without normies or mainstream media attention the platform just becomes Parler or Gab - a bunch of troll farms and incel man babies - and recedes into irrelevance. I'm a normie. I find/found Twitter useful. Not so useful that I stick around bombarded with swastikas and wack jobs. At the end of the day Twitter is supposed to be a business and it has to be unless Elon buys out all of the bank debt and just subsidizes the whole infrastructure out of pocket (pro-tip this isn't happening).

323 points by ilamont 4y ago

this post was good. i'd like to propose the tldr; version: Implement the Santa Clara Principles. Cheers. https://santaclaraprinciples.org/ interesting that this article got posted to HN 4 times in total, and only the most recent one - this one - got any real traction. karma of OP on this one is a bazillion compared to the other posters.

arvigeus 4y ago

I had some ideas about how one can run a free speech social media without actual or shadow banning and without letting “problematic” accounts disturbing others. I think my ideas completely died around level 13. I mean I can make them work to fit the extra requirements, but it will be just a game of whack-a-mole where some other powerful entity dictates the rules for you. Welcome to hell…

SergeAx 4y ago

"Level Eleven: [...] “Forgive the interruption, boss, but a lot of our most active users are getting angry at you specifically, because the hate speech, spam, and copyright filters are blocking their dank memes, and sometimes they’re getting removed from the platform for violating the rules too many times. They think you’re sitting here and removing their accounts personally.” Why does everyone blame me?!? Okay, let’s set up a “trust council” who will handle all content moderation questions and appeals." Here's the first obvious mistake. One should just ignore tinfoil-hat claims, not trying to respond. Also, replacing a manager (who is reporting to CEO) with committee is almost never a good idea. Here's another one: "Hire more people in Germany and now review reports as much as possible, but default to taking down reported content". There should be "...in Germany" addition. Country-law abiding takedown should affect only that one country.

jfengel 4y ago

We appear to be at Level 4 already: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitt...

pelagicAustral 4y ago
I guess Kanye's on /pol/ now.

sosuke 4y ago

It all starts with images and video? Over simplification of course but leave off images, videos and make links not href. Would you be safer from this complicated mess? Then third party apps would probably come out enriching things. But not on our servers or under our moderation. Use a non-mono space font to cut down on ACSII art (^_^)b

mcguire 4y ago
And I'm sure all four of your users will enjoy your system. I'm exaggerating, but there is a reason that HN is not the most popular social media site in the world.

machina_ex_deus 4y ago

90% of the problems come from laws not people. Except the CSAM laws (which are justified as they relate to real physical harm), I think all other laws shouldn't have existed. DMCA, hate speech, mocking presidents, it's all the same. If you're dealing with law might as well just pay good lawyers and stick to your principles instead of gently bending over.

martythemaniak 4y ago
I've always wondered, what are people like you doing on HN anyway, a forum that is really far away from any notion of free speech.
- briantakita 4y ago
  It's always fun to introduce glitches into the matrix of groupthink to demonstrate the futility of dogma veiling simple social power dynamics (aka "soft power")...otoh, HN has some great content. Like any platform with great content, people have to learn how to interact with each other in a pro-social way. People are just going to disagree at times on some subjects. And that's ok...These disagreements often lead to motivate one to create solutions which leads to innovation. The "we don't like your kind round here" meme is backwards thinking & leads to the cloistered groupthink that is the subject of comedy. The game of "soft power" is a net-negative game so there are winners & losers. The losers don't just go away, so they need to advocate for their God given rights to survive. There is no option not to play the game because the game is ever expanding until the particular systems collapse.
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  What's the point in getting someone who already agrees to listen? You want to find those willing to listen that don't agree. I don't want to reinforce my ego that I have people agreeing with me, I could get plenty of that if I wanted, I want those disagreeing and willing to listen to see the other side. I want to see what's actually a convincing argument that's changing opinion. But hey, everyone's so used to the likes and points system, they forget that speaking is to covey a message, not to get internet points for your ego. If that's all free speech means to you, no wonder you give it away easily. I happily paid those -5 internet points. If that surprised any of the downvoters, maybe they will think again what's the point of speech that does nothing. It's funny how none of them responded with actual speech, maybe because they think talking is about getting those downvotes and not about interacting with people.

mmastrac 4y ago

Doesn't banning Kanye West from the platform go against his whole "free speech" thing? The absolutists say that there should just be more free speech to drown out the hateful speech. Why isn't he just encouraging people to drown it out instead? I find the unlimited free speech arguments to be disingenuous and lazy most of the time. There's always a limit to speech, and it's not easy to find. That doesn't mean we shouldn't explore the space to find it (and that we'll have to acknowledge it's a dynamic and changing boundary).

encryptluks2 4y ago
Yes it does, at least in the United States... but I imagine he determined that free speech has limits in other parts of the world.
- AftHurrahWinch 4y ago
  > I imagine he determined that free speech has limits in other parts of the world How unfortunate that we're left to imagine this, rather than having the new ownership articulate a content moderation policy that reflects their curation decisions.
- ncallaway 4y ago
  But Twitter has long supported allowing speech in different regions based on local laws. For example, I had set my region to Germany because Twitter would automatically block more content for German users (due to Nazi content being illegal in Germany). So, is your imaginary conclusion that Elon has changed Twitter's policy from: "speech is restricted for users in a locale according to the local laws" to "speech is restricted platform wide according based on the most restrictive laws that exist in the world"? It would seem very anti-free speech to me if this new system allows China to determine which content is available on Twitter, or we impose the UK's onerous libel laws on all American users.
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    I believe he's changed it based on whatever he is feeling at the moment is the best choice, which could change tomorrow. I honestly don't think he has a clue what he is doing or what free speech actually is. The picture Ye posted is not illegal in the United States and so therefore it appears he no longer supports free speech.

AftHurrahWinch 4y ago

Is this the 12th time this article has been posted? @dang is there any chance HN will resume de-duplicating submissions in the future? Do you need a hand with anything? Don't tell my boss but I've got a few spare cycles this sprint. ;) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33448038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33448038 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33442277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33442277 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33749415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33749415 [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472646 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454735 [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33461866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33461866 [6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33481049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33481049 [7]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33510043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33510043 [8]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33715919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33715919 [9]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33489801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33489801 [10]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33714846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33714846 [11]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33832866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33832866

jakelazaroff 4y ago
Most of those probably didn't get enough points to hit the front page. This is the first time I've seen the article, so I'm happy it was let through.
- nicce 4y ago
  That's the point of limiting reposts. To reduce the resubmissions in case you get lucky to get into the front page. Everyone gets the same chances with time limited single shot. Otherwise, spamming will take over.
textbookrental 4y ago
They seem to be trying to keep anything critical of Elon off the front page.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago

And of course the sequel (1 December, yesterday, about a month later): Elon Musk Continues Along The Content Moderation Learning Curve, But Doesn’t Seem To Be Learning A Damn Thing https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/01/elon-musk-continues-along-the-content-moderation-learning-curve-but-doesnt-seem-to-be-learning-a-damn-thing/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/01/elon-musk-continues-alon...

cameronh90 4y ago

> People are leaving the site because of it, and advertisers are pulling ads” This seems to be, arguably, where the real problems start. I doubt many people expect Twitter to host actually illegal content. However, as long as a social media site is beholden to advertisers, it's going to have an existential requirement to pull certain content, irrespective of how they or anyone else feels about those restrictions. Until Twitter can figure out a way to fund itself other than by advertising, the idea of it being a free speech platform is a pipe dream.

BaseballPhysics 4y ago
Advertisers are responding to the expectations of the public. "Brand safety" is an issue of public perception. If people didn't care about brands being side-by-side with white supremacist hate speech, there'd be no push from advertisers to remove it. So my hypothesis is that, indirectly, the advertisers are helping represent the interests of the vast majority of users who don't want to see that crap, but are unable to have their voices heard over the clamouring minority who want to tweet out swastikas and misgender trans people for the lulz.
debacle 4y ago
Twitter is already losing advertisers in droves. And not because of its own actions. It seems that, similar to newspapers, purchasing ads is also in some manner purchasing control of the platform.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

That's a great write-up! I would rather bang rusty carpet tacks through my thumb, than own a large social media site.

pfisherman 4y ago

I do and don’t understand all the hubbub about “free speech” on Twitter and other social platforms. I can understand the perspective that if someone is making claims that your platform / forum allows “free speech” then people are justified in being upset when this is not the case. On the other hand the rule since the days of dial up BBSs is: the sysop can do whatever they want with their system, and you are owed nothing. If people do not like how they operate, then they migrate somewhere else. Sure it sucks when you get on the wrong side of a sysop and get banned from a popular board, but that’s just the game. The era of mobile phones / internet is truly the eternal September. :)

pannSun 4y ago
"I don't understand why people are upset when they get banned from the 40% of all roads, parks, and sidewalks that are owned by GloboCorp. In the old days of private homes, sure it sucked when you got thrown out of a houseparty, but that's just the game. It's both private property, there is no difference."
- someNameIG 4y ago
  Oh no, you got banned from those places for wearing a nazi armband, but there's multiple other roads, parks, and sidewalks, that allow that (e.g. 4chan), just as easily accessible.
  - mvnuweucxqokii 4y ago
    Alternatively, oh no you got banned for spreading factual information like there is insufficient evidence to rule out the possibility of a lab leak, so now you'll be relegated to places where you can have no impact on the public discourse.
    - someNameIG 4y ago
      4chan is also available for that
  - 4y ago

WhackyIdeas 4y ago

I wonder if Elon Musk is still excited about his investment now?

cypress66 4y ago

He probably got scared by advertisers or Apple or something. Ideally in my opinion, Twitter should have a setting by default that hides all of that content, but if you disable it you get 4chan-like moderation (so anything that's legal). In countries with a lesser degree of freedom of speech (I think swastikas are illegal in Germany for example), you wouldn't be able to disable that setting.

scythe 4y ago
My idea, which I've posted before, is that you require users to pay to turn off the filter. (After all, if they're bad for ad revenue, they can't be "the product".) This also mostly enforces region-locking, at least requiring some effort to bypass.
- luckylion 4y ago
  In what way would it enforce region-locking, and why would that be a good thing?
  - scythe 4y ago
    Usually your payment method is tied to your country of residence (bank/currency), and from the platform's perspective (as a business) region-verification locks on content/behavior are demanded by national governments.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      Ah, so it would verify country of origin and then allow you to unlock some filter, while also applying a new one based on the country? Finally a problem that bitcoin reliably solves! "Here's my money, I'm from the internet, we have no censorship laws".
- giantrobot 4y ago
  But that leads to dog wagging. Twitter as a platform would be incentivized to encourage hate speech etc in order to have something to entice people to pay to access it.

user3939382 4y ago

His argument breaks down here: > Fire the engineers! Bring me new engineers who don’t suck. And, I guess, maybe hire someone to manage at least some of these things. We can call them… “director of trust.” That sounds good! Level Nine: “We’re the trustworthy free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, and spam, and we follow Block illegal (civil and criminal) content and spam. Hate crime is already covered under that umbrella. The problem again is the plague on our society, advertising. Ideal brand association isn’t compatible with free speech, you have to pick one, and SV picks ads. Lumberg: If the ad industry could just go ahead and disappear from the planet that would be great.

buzzdenver 4y ago

Elon went from free speech absolutist to "Twitter aims to serve center 80% of people, who wish to learn, laugh & engage in reasoned debate." Quite the u-turn. I'm sure he put zero thought into that 80% figure, but even banning 2% instead of 20% is a shockingly huge number.

new2this 4y ago
I remember some stat that the loudest voices are the 8% on either end of the political spectrum. I couldn't find where I heard that, but Pew has some data that mirrors that. I think that 20% is coming from this: "The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%"[1] [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-po...
_greim_ 4y ago
It's unclear what "serving the center 80% means" but I doubt it means banning the remaining 20%.
memish 4y ago
Paul Graham says it's more like 90 or 95%. "You could probably expand that 80% to 90% or even 95%. The extremists seem like they're more numerous than they are, because they talk so much and so loudly, but they're really a tiny minority." https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1598720168737345539 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1598720168737345539

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hintymad 4y ago

> “Excuse me, boss, we’re getting reports that there are child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSAM) images and videos on the site.” God people just love projecting and assuming the worst. Didn't Twitter close 500K additional accounts for child sexual exploitation? And Twitter didn't change their content moderation policy on child porn, no?

zimpenfish 4y ago
> And Twitter didn't change their content moderation policy on child porn, no? They have gutted their moderation teams though - looks like there's one (1) left for all of Asia[1] - tens of millions of Twitter users. [1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-child-sexual-abuse-material https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-child-sexual-abuse-m...
- hintymad 4y ago
  Yes, and this is the type of argument I also look for: looking at nuances and facts and what people do, instead of coming up with the most non-sensical worst-case scenarios and projecting them to the people we don't like.

hannofcart 4y ago

Shouldn't this post be titled: 'Elon, let me...' instead of 'Elon: Let me ...' The latter construction makes it sound like Elon is saying those words while in fact the author of the article is saying those words _to_ Elon.

atom058 4y ago
I belive both versions are technically correct (I'm not a linguist), but your suggestion is less ambiguous

scythe 4y ago

This argument can be simplified as a nonalemma. You can promote or suppress content by centralized, decentralized, or null mechanisms. So nine combinations: No promotion, no suppression: chatter (the early Internet) Centralized promotion and centralized or no suppression: traditional media Centralized promotion, decentralized suppression: modern electoral politics, basically No promotion, any suppression: silence (obviously) Decentralized promotion, decentralized suppression: echo-chamber/hive-mind/hug-box, see also: why FB/Twitter don't have downvotes, and Reddit discourages them Decentralized promotion, no suppression: inflammatory content takes over Decentralized promotion, centralized suppression: the modern social media model But wait, there's a bonus: Decentralized promotion, semi-centralized (approved user) suppression: Hacker News

slibhb 4y ago

People want an algorithm for how to moderate speech. But there's no such thing. You just need people with good judgement and it's hard to define what good judgement is. HN has it. Previous twitter did not have good judgement. It had a left-bias and banned people for saying things like "there are two genders" and "men aren't women tho". It also banned various accounts for jokes (prominently Babylon Bee, a right-wing The Onion). It remains to be seen if Elon will do better or worse. I think he'll do better because he has a sense of humor. But he's also a bit obnoxious so we'll see.

beambot 4y ago
> HN has it. @dang is the GOAT.
tstrimple 4y ago
> It had a left-bias I don't know what it will take for this lie to die. It has absolutely zero supporting evidence. The data suggests just the opposite. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/01/facebook-youtube-twitter-anti-conservative-claims-baseless-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/01/facebook-youtu... > "There is no evidence to support the claim that the major social media companies are suppressing, censoring or otherwise discriminating against conservatives on their platforms,” Barrett said. “In fact, it is often conservatives who gain the most in terms of engagement and online attention, thanks to the platforms’ systems of algorithmic promotion of content."
- slibhb 4y ago
  "Left-bias" is putting it mildly. It's becoming increasingly clear that twitter censored certain people/content at the behest of the Biden administration.
  - tstrimple 4y ago
    Show the evidence then. Because the Twitter files confirmed the opposite. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598833927405215744 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598833927405215744

insane_dreamer 4y ago

Ho ho ho, it turns out running a social media company isn't so easy after all. Cutting bloat and pushing out new monetization features is a walk in the park compared to walking the fine line of content.

lynndotpy 4y ago

I really like this post. These are lessons I learned a long time ago, when I was 10 or so running web forums. But there are three big things this misses: 1. What is and is not legal is usually decided in the courts. That's expensive, and lawyers help prevent you from getting to the courts in the first place. 2. The ideal goal for good discussion on a forum is transparency and consistency in moderation. For example, StackExchange sites censor heavily, but with a good effort to be transparent and consistent in doing so. (This is the major flaw with most "free speech" sites-- they make no effort whatsoever. It's just buzzword branding.) 3. When you're beholden to shareholders, then the goal for discussion is to be profitable. Free-speech ideals matter *only* to the extent that they are profitable. You'll generally find the ideals in point 2 on small social media sites (up to ~1000 monthly users who make posts). These are ones where the active users all know one another, and where it's feasible for a user to read and respond to all the posts made on the site. (If you're nostalgic for mid-2000s webforums, then good news: They still exist!) Crucially, these are sites meant to serve a need for community, with no intention of profit. These are sites small enough that the social dynamics are closer to a discord server or group chat. It's easy to tell when good members are or not acting in good faith, and it's feasible for the admins/mods to openly discuss moderation decisions.

katbyte 4y ago
What is legal in one country can be very illegal in another
- lynndotpy 4y ago
  Yes! This is addressed in the article. It's one of the other benefits of small social media. A tiny site with ~1000 monthly users is much less likely to receive urgent takedown-request emails from Malaysia.

HWR_14 4y ago

I'm confused by Level 5. I thought the safe harbor provision stopped applying if the company made a determination whether it was fair use. And not just for that one image/instance, but possibly for all content. That is, if you say "Can we have the intern send some of these to our outside counsel to review for fair use before pulling them down?" you're opening yourself up to a ton of liability for all images.

mcguire 4y ago
That is, as the article implies, one of those weird, fuzzy areas where: Yes, you are exposing yourself to some liability. But no, if you try to avoid that liability, you will run off all of your users. How many memes have you seen today that are based on an image from a recent movie?

woah 4y ago

One big online platform that has totally skimped on reasonable moderation is the charmingly named "E-Mail". Child porn, copyright infringement, harassment, hate speech, spam, you name it. Anything goes. It's a complete free-for-all. Giant internet companies like Google and Microsoft make billions of dollars a year through their partnerships with the E-Mail platform. These big companies do make a token effort to remove objectionable content from their servers, but that doesn't matter. Anyone who wants to sidestep this reasonable moderation and spread hateful content on E-Mail can easily do so for a few dollars a month by setting up a darkweb technology known as a "Self-Hosted Mail-Server". Underground terrorist collectives such as the "postfix" organization distribute software making it possible to set up a Self-Hosted Mail-Server in a few clicks. We need to rise up and pressure these billionaire tech companies to stop connecting to any E-Mail providers that do not have a full content council and policy, and a team of content moderators.

computerex 4y ago
I'll drop this here: https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-...
rsynnott 4y ago
It's point to point, which does make a difference, though I would note that Big Tech companies who provide email are _extremely_ happy to "defederate" from email servers who send spam, or who merely look like they may send spam, or who share an IP range with someone who sent spam once in 2008. Like, the sort of guilt by association that would make even the most trigger-happy Mastodon service admin hesitate. There was a time when it was pretty easy to set up an SMTP server, but, if you want your emails to actually get seen, it's non-trivial today.
martindbp 4y ago
This is unfortunately exactly what will happen. What is scary to me is how censorship has become completely accepted by the new generation, including software engineers here in their 20s. No true hacker (this is Hacker News after all) would be OK with corporation or government censorship. Slippery slope is real.

fswd 4y ago

I think out of all of this the worst thing to come of it, is this term, seemingly re-invented here, called "free speech absolutists". Which isn't a thing. It's the inversion of "relative censorship" and much larger concept and strategy to turn everything "relative", i.e relativism, or "The Relativists Clan". Free speech can't be "relative" to somebody's interpretation, otherwise it wouldn't be speech that is free -- free -- of relative-style censorhip. The basis of relative speech is that some speech is harmful and it should be censored. That just means, hey we're not a free speech website. It comes down to be honest, there are people who don't want other people saying things and they will go as far to redefine words and meanings to censor them.

omnicognate 4y ago
Free speech absolutism is a clear and useful term for the belief that anybody should be allowed to say anything, i.e. that absolute freedom of speech is inherently a good thing. It's not synonymous with "freedom of speech" (i.e. the "absolutism" part isn't redundant) because there are versions of the idea of freedom of speech that aren't absolute, that don't allow anybody to say anything they like. The version of freedom of speech that is encoded in US consitutional law (the first amendment and the long history of supreme court judgements on the subject) is an example. There are forms of speech that are not protected and there is a mainstream interpretation of freedom of speech that does not see restrictions against defamation, incitement of violence, etc., as infringements of it. A "free speech absolutist" would see these as infringements of freedom of speech, so the term is useful to distinguish that particular view. You're seeing the term used a lot on Hacker News because there are people here who routinely argue that any speech should be allowed on a platform that claims to support freedom of speech. These people are free speech absolutists (at least in the context of the debate about online platforms) and, if they feel their views on the matter are correct, shouldn't be offended to be called that.

CamperBob2 4y ago

A lot of those issues are trivially solvable with the response, "We're a US company. We're not bound to whatever goofy laws there are in your country. If you don't like it, that's your problem, not ours. Block our site, or don't, we don't actually care." Trouble is, that's a good way to build a $5 billion social networking site, not a $50 billion one. Also a good way to get arrested seconds after setting foot in country XYZ.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bjt2n3904 4y ago

Yeah, this guide is pretty ridiculous. So many of these "problems" came from bad legislation and a culture that enabled it. "Hi boss, we're getting millions of DMCA takedown requests." The solution? Fix the brokenness of the DMCA. "Hey boss, we're getting a lot of notifications about misleading info!" Ok, tell the users to not believe everything they read on the Internet. "Hey boss, we're getting lots of reports about hateful content that people find offensive." Ok, delete the report button, tell people if they are threatened to contact their local law enforcement agencies, and supply them with better tools to manage troll armies. So many of these things can be solved by deleting the problem to the appropriate level. But instead, our culture demands for Ministries of Truth and Love.

tzs 4y ago
Dealing with a large number of DMCA takedown requests should not be much of a problem. They just need to: 1. Provide a form for copyright owners to use to request a takedown of material they claim is infringing. When the form is submitted verify that all the required fields have been filled in. 2. Take down the content claimed by the form submitted, and notify the user who posted the content. The provider does not need to try to figure out if the material claimed really infringes the claimant's copyright. 3. Provide a form for the user to submit a counterclaim. If the user does not submit a counterclaim, there is nothing more to do. 4. If the user submits a counterclaim, restore the taken down content, and notify the party that requested the takedown. The provider does not have to try to evaluate the merits of the counterclaim, such as whether or not the use was fair use. If the claimant still wants the material taken down they have to take it up with the user, such as by suing them. The provider, having followed the DMCA procedure given above, is protected by the DMCA safe harbor. It only gets hard when a site wants to use some system of their own, like YouTube does, instead of DMCA. Due to the nature of user created content on YouTube and how YouTube is monetized it is better for them if something that infringes gets licensed and stays up, so they have deals with major content distributors to encourage that. For a site like Twitter, where the user content is small text posts instead of longer videos that can have ads within them, I don't think they need more than the DMCA procedure.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

It's all very Brexit reminiscent. "Let's leave the EU and get rid of all this red tape and beaurocracy" leave EU discover why all those rules were necessary slowly re-invent a crappy copy of the above rules, at great personal expense, because the same external forces that existed before require them

meken 4y ago
Are we doomed to repeat this cycle ad infinitum? Is this how it’s always been, and will always be…?
drivebycomment 4y ago
100%. In both, it's clear people who got rid of the existing framework failed to follow Chesterton's fence.
- medvezhenok 4y ago
  Knowledge transfer is very lossy across generations and still hasn't really been solved. Perhaps when we achieve singularity or close to that we'll have permanent knowledge repositories and the wisdom of the collective consciousness immortalized:)
anigbrowl 4y ago
I think Brexit was much more about 'let's leave the EU and go back to collecting bureaucratic rents instead of letting them go to Brussels.'

snvzz 4y ago

Spam isn't level zero? This pretty much invalidates the whole article.

Trumpi 4y ago

Level 21: We help governments and VIPs cover up their crimes under the guise of moderation.

umvi 4y ago

> “Right, boss, apparently because you keep talking about freedom, a large group of people are taking it to mean they have ‘freedom’ to harass people with slurs and all sorts of abuse. People are leaving the site because of it, and advertisers are pulling ads.” > That seems bad. Quick, have someone write up some rules against hate speech. > Level Four: “We’re the free speech platform without CSAM, infringement or hate speech!” This is where you have to draw the line and say: "Nope, hate speech is too subjective. I disagree with what they are saying, but unless it's against the law I will defend their right to say it"

Etheryte 4y ago
Hate speech is illegal in numerous countries, Germany being the most prominent example. That specific case is covered in the article, too.
- umvi 4y ago
  Well then the crux of the issue is that you cannot build a global free speech platform. What is free speech in USA is illegal speech in Germany, China, etc. If you really want a free speech platform, you can only really deploy it in countries that respect the same level of free speech (or greater) as your own. And that's leaving a lot of money on the table for publicly traded companies, hence free speech morals go out the window in favor of growth/region-specific censorship.
  - medvezhenok 4y ago
    Incitement to violence is illegal in the U.S.A. too. The line between hate speech and incitement to violence can get awfully blurry in some cases.
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      There is a line legally speaking, but not in reality if we're talking about the literal meaning of the words "incitement to violence". There are over three mass shooters in the US that were strictly radicalized by hate speech in online forums. That speech directly caused them to kill people.

Ftuuky 4y ago

It's obvious that a "truly" free social network with absolute free speech has to be something decentralized, bottom-up.

6ak74rfy 4y ago

Think someone at Hacker News should write up a blog post about lessons it learnt moderating this community.

gfodor 4y ago

The poster glosses over the thing that Twitter did that wasn't on the content moderation curve: banning people for COVID-19 "misinformation" and "election interference." This is why something needed to be done. Twitter started picking sides of disputed arguments in the public square, choosing to tilt things in the favor of authorities and 'experts.' This was a horrifying trajectory.

mikojan 4y ago

There is no free speech absolutism. It is public record ("no freedom of reach"): Twitter is drowning out negative comments. It is shielding the public from criticisms of established enterprise, press, government. Freedom of speech to people like J. S. Mill served a very vital purpose. It was not just some abstract negative right. Having access to this type of information isn't any less important as being able to publicize it. It's a travesty. Whether a fringe right-wing crank is at liberty to discuss the merits of Adolf Hitler is a minor issue at this point.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pessimizer 4y ago

Insightful, but about halfway through the problems stop being about running a social network, and start being about running a world-spanning social network that wants to operate in countries and languages that it doesn't bother to have moderators in. I know porn forums that restrict the languages used to languages that they have mods who can understand, but that's obviously a very onerous restriction when you're trying to pull a maximum amount of money out of Malaysia while putting a minimum amount of money or thought into it. You don't have to be social media in Malaysia; someone who speaks the language and is familiar with local laws and politics would be better. > in the end, basically every major social media platform ends up in this same place eventually (the place Twitter was already at when Musk insisted he needed to tear things down and start again). To get to where Twitter was (and I think will ultimately continue to be), it's a bit dishonest to leave out the weekly meetings with administration officials where they ask for political censorship of specific accounts and subjects, and you update them on actions you've taken against the subjects and accounts they gave you last week.

finspeech 4y ago

Level 21: Financialize speech. Give the power of content moderation directly to the people by harnessing markets. Want to ban/allow Ye or Trump? Highest bidder gets to decide. Gives another revenue stream to Twitter and takes the content moderation decisions out of Twitter’s and Elon’s hands.

jshaqaw 4y ago

1. I do respect that freedom of speech is a slippery slope and once lost it is very hard to regain. I wish some of the free speech warriors in the last few days would also recognize that we Jews are not new here. We are a bit touchy by the 500th iteration of a. civilization under strain and a cosmopolitan-traditional value divides propagates the same eternal anti-Jewish conspiracies (they control they control they they) and b. Jews end up disenfranchised or dead. So yeah there is a bit of sensitivity to nipping this stuff in the bud before it takes root. 2. You can have a free for all hellscape of nazi man babies posting dank memes or you can have a business with ad revenue aside beyond scam supplements, gold funds, and maybe direct to consumer pillows. You can't have both. Nobody wants to wake up to find their product advertised alongside the most extreme wack job of the day. The "normies" will flee. Without normies or mainstream media attention the platform just becomes Parler or Gab - a bunch of troll farms and incel man babies - and recedes into irrelevance. I'm a normie. I find/found Twitter useful. Not so useful that I stick around bombarded with swastikas and wack jobs. At the end of the day Twitter is supposed to be a business and it has to be unless Elon buys out all of the bank debt and just subsidizes the whole infrastructure out of pocket (pro-tip this isn't happening).