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Do you understand the distinction between moderation and censorship? Moderation is blocking content when the sender wants to communicate something the receiver

by patmcc 4y ago

Do you understand the distinction between moderation and censorship? Moderation is blocking content when the sender wants to communicate something the receiver doesn't want. Censorship is blocking content that both the sender and the receiver want. Gmail running spam filters is moderation. The government blocking you from sending emails to journalists is censorship.

philliphaydon 4y ago
> Censorship is blocking content that both the sender and the receiver want. Except when it isn’t. All media content goes through classification and censorship in New Zealand. You cannot air anything on tv without classification. My comment was on the processor of classification and censorship that occurs during the classification process. > Moderation is blocking content when the sender wants to communicate something the receiver doesn't want. Then Twitter, Facebook, etc do not have moderation teams. They have censorship teams. Because they are blocking content people do want. You might disagree with Trump. But removing his tweets and banning him is censorship as people do agree with him and do want his content.
- patmcc 4y ago
  >>Edit: so HN wants Twitter moderation and censorship but a country censoring videos and text books is a big no no. This was your original comment. Yes, people want moderation of their platforms, otherwise they become unusable. Most people want some degree of censorship (CSAM is the obvious case). But there's a big difference between Twitter censoring something and the government doing it. For example Facebook can say "hey we don't want people posting nude photos" - that's censorship. And that's fine; they don't want to run a site that has nude photos. >>Then Twitter, Facebook, etc do not have moderation teams. They have censorship teams. Because they are blocking content people do want. Yep, they do both, in varying degrees. The government should be more restrained. >>You might disagree with Trump. But removing his tweets and banning him is censorship as people do agree with him and do want his content. Yes, it absolutely is censorship. And if twitter wants to do that I'm fine with that. I don't want the government doing that.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    > This was your original comment. Because people downvoted me to -4 before anyone commented. Since I only talked about censorship in regards to traditional media it was safe to assume people dislike censorship of traditional media. Which is a contradiction to wanting censorship and moderation on social media. > Yes, it absolutely is censorship. And if twitter wants to do that I'm fine with that. I don't want the government doing that. I agree but Twitter in the past is very inconsistent in its moderation and censorship. Stuff that’s an absolute violation of rules is allowed but borderline violations on the right are quickly dealt with. I’m fine with a private company doing it if it’s consistent.
WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
So if Twitter or Facebook take something down that both the sender and the receiver want, but an advertising conglomerate doesn’t, based on worries about brand safety or whatnot, is it censorship or moderation?
quetzthecoatl 4y ago
when I do it's moderation, when they do it's censorship. Between this and the matt taibi twitter discussion, the conclusion is that Americans overwhelmingly are for censorship of " the otherside", but wants to do it in such a way that it can't be called censorship. It's not that they don't want censorship, but they don't want to do it in a transparent way in which a government entity/clerk hands in a takedown request to fb/twitter, instead they want embedded partisan operatives operating through backchannels to takedown content they don't like in absolutely opaque fashion. The point is to claim - "see it's not censorship" even though the end result is the same. All it matters is how it looks like, not what it is.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
“Moderation is blocking content when the sender wants to communicate something the receiver doesn't want. Censorship is blocking content that both the sender and the receiver want.” These definitions don’t work, because there is always some (possibly extremely small) population that wants the content, ergo you could say all moderation is censorship to some people.
osigurdson 4y ago
These are just language tricks. We aren’t censoring anything, we are simply moderating out the voices of our political opponents. There are always trade offs but I think we are better off with zero censorship. What are we worried about? Will we become Jihadists after seeing a Taliban post? Are with that impressionable that anything we see sticks in the brain as truth? If so, perhaps we should try to solve the root problem.

by patmcc 4y ago

philliphaydon 4y ago

> Censorship is blocking content that both the sender and the receiver want. Except when it isn’t. All media content goes through classification and censorship in New Zealand. You cannot air anything on tv without classification. My comment was on the processor of classification and censorship that occurs during the classification process. > Moderation is blocking content when the sender wants to communicate something the receiver doesn't want. Then Twitter, Facebook, etc do not have moderation teams. They have censorship teams. Because they are blocking content people do want. You might disagree with Trump. But removing his tweets and banning him is censorship as people do agree with him and do want his content.

patmcc 4y ago
>>Edit: so HN wants Twitter moderation and censorship but a country censoring videos and text books is a big no no. This was your original comment. Yes, people want moderation of their platforms, otherwise they become unusable. Most people want some degree of censorship (CSAM is the obvious case). But there's a big difference between Twitter censoring something and the government doing it. For example Facebook can say "hey we don't want people posting nude photos" - that's censorship. And that's fine; they don't want to run a site that has nude photos. >>Then Twitter, Facebook, etc do not have moderation teams. They have censorship teams. Because they are blocking content people do want. Yep, they do both, in varying degrees. The government should be more restrained. >>You might disagree with Trump. But removing his tweets and banning him is censorship as people do agree with him and do want his content. Yes, it absolutely is censorship. And if twitter wants to do that I'm fine with that. I don't want the government doing that.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  > This was your original comment. Because people downvoted me to -4 before anyone commented. Since I only talked about censorship in regards to traditional media it was safe to assume people dislike censorship of traditional media. Which is a contradiction to wanting censorship and moderation on social media. > Yes, it absolutely is censorship. And if twitter wants to do that I'm fine with that. I don't want the government doing that. I agree but Twitter in the past is very inconsistent in its moderation and censorship. Stuff that’s an absolute violation of rules is allowed but borderline violations on the right are quickly dealt with. I’m fine with a private company doing it if it’s consistent.

WesolyKubeczek 4y ago

So if Twitter or Facebook take something down that both the sender and the receiver want, but an advertising conglomerate doesn’t, based on worries about brand safety or whatnot, is it censorship or moderation?

quetzthecoatl 4y ago

when I do it's moderation, when they do it's censorship. Between this and the matt taibi twitter discussion, the conclusion is that Americans overwhelmingly are for censorship of " the otherside", but wants to do it in such a way that it can't be called censorship. It's not that they don't want censorship, but they don't want to do it in a transparent way in which a government entity/clerk hands in a takedown request to fb/twitter, instead they want embedded partisan operatives operating through backchannels to takedown content they don't like in absolutely opaque fashion. The point is to claim - "see it's not censorship" even though the end result is the same. All it matters is how it looks like, not what it is.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

“Moderation is blocking content when the sender wants to communicate something the receiver doesn't want. Censorship is blocking content that both the sender and the receiver want.” These definitions don’t work, because there is always some (possibly extremely small) population that wants the content, ergo you could say all moderation is censorship to some people.

osigurdson 4y ago

These are just language tricks. We aren’t censoring anything, we are simply moderating out the voices of our political opponents. There are always trade offs but I think we are better off with zero censorship. What are we worried about? Will we become Jihadists after seeing a Taliban post? Are with that impressionable that anything we see sticks in the brain as truth? If so, perhaps we should try to solve the root problem.