4 ms·

It is interesting to read HN comments demanding more laws and regulations and restrictions on how social media operates. Usually the commenters are unaware that

It is interesting to read HN comments demanding more laws and regulations and restrictions on how social media operates. Usually the commenters are unaware that HN is a social media. HN has algorithmic ranking, it has invisible moderation, it has shadowbanning (sort of), and it has YC sponsored ads injected into the “feed” that get special treatment relative to user submissions. Many regulation proposals seem to have carve outs for sites and networks below a certain size, but if one past without such exceptions then a lot of the community sites we know and love would have no choice but to shut down. I suspect a lot of the proponents of these regulations aren’t really interested in seeing the sites they like subjected to these regulations. It has almost become a talking point about punishing social media companies people don’t like others using.

archgoon 4y ago
> it has shadowbanning (sort of) In what sense does HN have shadow banning (sort of)?
- krapp 4y ago
  In the sense that HN has shadowbanning, but it's publicly reversible, so it's only sort of shadowbanning.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    Uh, no, it's straight up shadowbanning, just because it can be undoed doesn't mean it isn't shadowbanning
ip26 4y ago
Good moderation & ranking is nearly invisible, like good email spam filtering. We forget (or never even knew) just how much we depend on it.
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  It isn't to the people who get actions taken against their commentary that they deem restrictive, though. And while the average person will simply take the moderation action with a grain of salt, I've been in a situation before where I've had to recommend en-masse banning of people who originally had constructive comments that I largely agreed with.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    Oh my, how dare the people you agreed with one one issue, once have different opinion than you on other stuff! Must've been a traumatic experience realizing that is even possible!
    - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
      You misunderstand, and perhaps I didn't describe the situation well enough, but you also seem incredibly bitter. Imagine that you join a small subreddit focused on a hobby for which there's a lot of corporate-induced bullshit and not a whole lot of real information unless you've talked to actual experts in an informal setting (as in, company owners and manufacturers). It has maybe 400 members at the time, and most of those users come from other forums you recognize. Most of the users in that forum are past the novice phase for the most part, so their interest is a focus on deeper discussions that can further their own knowledge and expertise within that hobby. As time goes on, more and more new people start posting, including many who are neophytes and can't tell their heads from their asses. They start to flood the forum with images of whatever it is they've just purchased and make the content that experienced members like to exchange harder and harder to find. Meanwhile, the head mod is absent, he basically squatted on the subreddit, but reddit rules don't actually require one to maintain much activity in the sub. So the moderation team that actually has guidance and leadership are also a bunch of neophytes who begged for moderator status. They don't see anything wrong with the sheer lack of content in the subreddit because the sub is growing by thousands a month, but in the process all of the people who have actual knowledge of the topic are being driven off. So now there's a crisis on multiple fronts: (1) the people who actually know what they're talking about are being driven off and not being replaced and so the sub is literally getting dumber on a daily basis, (2) you've got a core group of folks who actually used to be central to discussions who are now so incensed by moderator indifference that they're acting like idiots on the subreddit, and (3) the mods are paralyzed because they don't want to piss ANYBODY off. That shit is dysfunctional. I agreed with the group of jerks that the subreddit needed to have a shift in what's allowable because it was nigh-impossible to find comment threads worth reading, but I also told them earlier that their best bet would be to create their own subreddit with their own rules (which is exactly what I did when they wanted to forbid talk about a specific topic... that sub has 30K or so readers now), and they wanted none of that. Since the mods were committed to growing the sub and not making the recommended changes, I told the mods after a while of watching these people behave like idiots that the best thing to do was to ban them. Didn't matter that I agreed with them in principle, the way they were going about trying to get the changes they wanted was belligerent.
treis 4y ago
But none of these things are what Google is accused of doing. Google is accused of recommending pro-ISIS videos to someone who ended up killing a bunch of people. Which is not really what 230 was meant to protect against. 230 is there to enable the existence of online platforms. It's not there to let Google wring every dollar out of YouTube they can, damn the societal consequences.
- MBCook 4y ago
  The worry is that the decision will be far more expensive. More like using this case as an excuse to do what they wanted to. Much like Dobbs or a number of other recent cases.
bioemerl 4y ago
If you held YC liable for its user content it would be broadly alright because YC has very very good moderation and for the most part bad stuff gets taken care of very quickly.
- nobody9999 4y ago
  >If you held YC liable for its user content it would be broadly alright because YC has very very good moderation and for the most part bad stuff gets taken care of very quickly. If you held YC liable for its user content, HN would (and quickly) no longer allow user comments. Why? Because YC doesn't want the liability. Doing so would likely kill off most sites that allow user-generated content or, at the very least, cause them to stop accepting such content. Ironically, the folks who would have the best ability to fight the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of lawsuits filed every week would be the ones that have the deepest pockets (Alphabet, Meta). Everyone else would likely just fold unless they had a few million in cash they can use for frivolous lawsuits. And that's the point. Section 230 forces plaintiffs to sue the authors of such content, not those who host that content. There's a lot of nuance with that, as the algorithmic feeds and showing content (allegedly) based on previous user interactions could be argued to be "authorship" of a sort. The arguments on both sides are nuanced and complex -- based on ideas about freedom of expression and private property rights. Personally, I think that, on the whole, Section 230 does more good than harm. But I also believe there is room for disagreement among rational, good faith interlocutors.

archgoon 4y ago

> it has shadowbanning (sort of) In what sense does HN have shadow banning (sort of)?

krapp 4y ago
In the sense that HN has shadowbanning, but it's publicly reversible, so it's only sort of shadowbanning.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Uh, no, it's straight up shadowbanning, just because it can be undoed doesn't mean it isn't shadowbanning

ip26 4y ago

Good moderation & ranking is nearly invisible, like good email spam filtering. We forget (or never even knew) just how much we depend on it.

MisterBastahrd 4y ago
It isn't to the people who get actions taken against their commentary that they deem restrictive, though. And while the average person will simply take the moderation action with a grain of salt, I've been in a situation before where I've had to recommend en-masse banning of people who originally had constructive comments that I largely agreed with.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Oh my, how dare the people you agreed with one one issue, once have different opinion than you on other stuff! Must've been a traumatic experience realizing that is even possible!
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    You misunderstand, and perhaps I didn't describe the situation well enough, but you also seem incredibly bitter. Imagine that you join a small subreddit focused on a hobby for which there's a lot of corporate-induced bullshit and not a whole lot of real information unless you've talked to actual experts in an informal setting (as in, company owners and manufacturers). It has maybe 400 members at the time, and most of those users come from other forums you recognize. Most of the users in that forum are past the novice phase for the most part, so their interest is a focus on deeper discussions that can further their own knowledge and expertise within that hobby. As time goes on, more and more new people start posting, including many who are neophytes and can't tell their heads from their asses. They start to flood the forum with images of whatever it is they've just purchased and make the content that experienced members like to exchange harder and harder to find. Meanwhile, the head mod is absent, he basically squatted on the subreddit, but reddit rules don't actually require one to maintain much activity in the sub. So the moderation team that actually has guidance and leadership are also a bunch of neophytes who begged for moderator status. They don't see anything wrong with the sheer lack of content in the subreddit because the sub is growing by thousands a month, but in the process all of the people who have actual knowledge of the topic are being driven off. So now there's a crisis on multiple fronts: (1) the people who actually know what they're talking about are being driven off and not being replaced and so the sub is literally getting dumber on a daily basis, (2) you've got a core group of folks who actually used to be central to discussions who are now so incensed by moderator indifference that they're acting like idiots on the subreddit, and (3) the mods are paralyzed because they don't want to piss ANYBODY off. That shit is dysfunctional. I agreed with the group of jerks that the subreddit needed to have a shift in what's allowable because it was nigh-impossible to find comment threads worth reading, but I also told them earlier that their best bet would be to create their own subreddit with their own rules (which is exactly what I did when they wanted to forbid talk about a specific topic... that sub has 30K or so readers now), and they wanted none of that. Since the mods were committed to growing the sub and not making the recommended changes, I told the mods after a while of watching these people behave like idiots that the best thing to do was to ban them. Didn't matter that I agreed with them in principle, the way they were going about trying to get the changes they wanted was belligerent.

treis 4y ago

But none of these things are what Google is accused of doing. Google is accused of recommending pro-ISIS videos to someone who ended up killing a bunch of people. Which is not really what 230 was meant to protect against. 230 is there to enable the existence of online platforms. It's not there to let Google wring every dollar out of YouTube they can, damn the societal consequences.

MBCook 4y ago
The worry is that the decision will be far more expensive. More like using this case as an excuse to do what they wanted to. Much like Dobbs or a number of other recent cases.

bioemerl 4y ago

If you held YC liable for its user content it would be broadly alright because YC has very very good moderation and for the most part bad stuff gets taken care of very quickly.

nobody9999 4y ago
>If you held YC liable for its user content it would be broadly alright because YC has very very good moderation and for the most part bad stuff gets taken care of very quickly. If you held YC liable for its user content, HN would (and quickly) no longer allow user comments. Why? Because YC doesn't want the liability. Doing so would likely kill off most sites that allow user-generated content or, at the very least, cause them to stop accepting such content. Ironically, the folks who would have the best ability to fight the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of lawsuits filed every week would be the ones that have the deepest pockets (Alphabet, Meta). Everyone else would likely just fold unless they had a few million in cash they can use for frivolous lawsuits. And that's the point. Section 230 forces plaintiffs to sue the authors of such content, not those who host that content. There's a lot of nuance with that, as the algorithmic feeds and showing content (allegedly) based on previous user interactions could be argued to be "authorship" of a sort. The arguments on both sides are nuanced and complex -- based on ideas about freedom of expression and private property rights. Personally, I think that, on the whole, Section 230 does more good than harm. But I also believe there is room for disagreement among rational, good faith interlocutors.