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Increasing cost of attacks is effective against good faith people, not spammers. Even Cory Doctorow made this case in "Como is Infosec" [1]. The only problem

by rhaksw 3y ago

Increasing cost of attacks is effective against good faith people, not spammers. Even Cory Doctorow made this case in "Como is Infosec" [1]. The only problem with Cory's argument is, he points people to the SC Principles [2]. The SCP contain exceptions for not notifying about "spam, phishing or malware." But anything can be considered spam, and transparency-with-exceptions has always been platforms' position. They've always argued they can secretly remove content when it amounts to "spam." Nobody has challenged them on that point. The reality is, platforms that use secretive moderation lend themselves to spammers. [1] https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563 https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563 [2] https://santaclaraprinciples.org/ https://santaclaraprinciples.org/

em-bee 3y ago
platforms that use secretive moderation lend themselves to spammers how is that? i can understand it not being useful, but how would it help spammers?
- rhaksw 3y ago
  Spammers game the system while good-faith users get edged out. Spammers are determined actors who perceive threats everywhere, whereas good-faith users never imagine that a platform would secretly remove their content. Today, you see low quality content on social media, not because the world is dumb, but because the people who get their message out know the secret tricks. Secret suppression is extremely common [1]. Many of today's content moderators say exceptions for shadowbans are needed [2]. They think lying to users promotes reality. That's bologna. [1] https://www.removednews.com/p/hate-online-censorship-its-way-worse https://www.removednews.com/p/hate-online-censorship-its-way... [2] https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1689887293002379264 https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1689887293002379264
  - em-bee 3y ago
    so to spammers shadowbanning makes no difference, but good-faith users somehow get discouraged even if they don't know they are shadowbanned just because they get no reaction to their posts? how is an explicit ban any less discouraging? i can't see how shadowbanning makes things worse for good-faith users. and evidently it does work against spammers here on HN (though we don't know if it is the shadow or the banning that makes it effective, but i'll believe dang when he says that it does help)
    - rhaksw 3y ago
      > how is an explicit ban any less discouraging? It's about whose messages are sidelined, not who gets discouraged. With shadow removals, good-faith users' content is elbowed out without their knowledge. Since they don't know about it, they don't adjust behavior and do not bring their comments elsewhere. Over 50% of Reddit users have removed content they don't know about. Just look at what people say when they find out [1]. > and evidently it does work against spammers here on HN It doesn't. It benefits people who know how to work the system. The more secret it is, the more special knowledge you need. [1] https://www.reveddit.com/#say https://www.reveddit.com/#say
DamonHD 3y ago
In my experience, increasing cost or delay even a little bit cuts out a disproportionate amount of bad stuff. I once had the domain 'moronsinahurry' registered, though not with this group in mind...
- rhaksw 3y ago
  In your experience where? No research has been done about whether shadow moderation is good or bad for discourse. It was simply adopted by the entire internet because it's perceived as "easier." Indeed, for platforms and advertisers, it certainly is an easier way to control messaging. It fools good-faith users all the time. I've shared examples of that elsewhere in this thread.
  - DamonHD 3y ago
    I think that you are reading this too narrowly. SPAMers etc are often in a hurry. For example, simply avoiding responding for a second or two to an inbound SMTP connection drops a whole group of bad email attempts on the floor while no one else even notices.[0] Another example: manually delaying admitting new users to a forum (and in the process checking for bad activity from their IP/email etc) seems to shed another bunch of unwanteds, and raising the cost a little with some simple questions on the way in, also. This point about small extra delay and effort deterring disproportionately bad behaviour is quite broad. [0] https://deer-run.com/users/hal/sysadmin/greet_pause.html https://deer-run.com/users/hal/sysadmin/greet_pause.html
    - rhaksw 3y ago
      In your cost/benefit analysis, you overlook the harms created by secretive actions. That's why I asked for details about your experience. The internet has run on secrets for 40 years. That doesn't make it right. Now that everyone and their mother is online, it's time to consider the harms that secrets create.
      - DamonHD 3y ago
        There are bad actors, and many of them are lazy/stupid. Their activity imposes a tax / harms on the rest of us. One way to minimise that harm to the good actors includes some mildly covert measures. The sendmail GreetPause is hardly a secret for example: it catches a common deliberate malicious protocol violation and is publicly documented. This is not unique to the Internet nor new; see also banking and personal security and so on.

by rhaksw 3y ago

em-bee 3y ago

platforms that use secretive moderation lend themselves to spammers how is that? i can understand it not being useful, but how would it help spammers?

rhaksw 3y ago
Spammers game the system while good-faith users get edged out. Spammers are determined actors who perceive threats everywhere, whereas good-faith users never imagine that a platform would secretly remove their content. Today, you see low quality content on social media, not because the world is dumb, but because the people who get their message out know the secret tricks. Secret suppression is extremely common [1]. Many of today's content moderators say exceptions for shadowbans are needed [2]. They think lying to users promotes reality. That's bologna. [1] https://www.removednews.com/p/hate-online-censorship-its-way-worse https://www.removednews.com/p/hate-online-censorship-its-way... [2] https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1689887293002379264 https://twitter.com/rhaksw/status/1689887293002379264
- em-bee 3y ago
  so to spammers shadowbanning makes no difference, but good-faith users somehow get discouraged even if they don't know they are shadowbanned just because they get no reaction to their posts? how is an explicit ban any less discouraging? i can't see how shadowbanning makes things worse for good-faith users. and evidently it does work against spammers here on HN (though we don't know if it is the shadow or the banning that makes it effective, but i'll believe dang when he says that it does help)
  - rhaksw 3y ago
    > how is an explicit ban any less discouraging? It's about whose messages are sidelined, not who gets discouraged. With shadow removals, good-faith users' content is elbowed out without their knowledge. Since they don't know about it, they don't adjust behavior and do not bring their comments elsewhere. Over 50% of Reddit users have removed content they don't know about. Just look at what people say when they find out [1]. > and evidently it does work against spammers here on HN It doesn't. It benefits people who know how to work the system. The more secret it is, the more special knowledge you need. [1] https://www.reveddit.com/#say https://www.reveddit.com/#say

DamonHD 3y ago

In my experience, increasing cost or delay even a little bit cuts out a disproportionate amount of bad stuff. I once had the domain 'moronsinahurry' registered, though not with this group in mind...

rhaksw 3y ago
In your experience where? No research has been done about whether shadow moderation is good or bad for discourse. It was simply adopted by the entire internet because it's perceived as "easier." Indeed, for platforms and advertisers, it certainly is an easier way to control messaging. It fools good-faith users all the time. I've shared examples of that elsewhere in this thread.
- DamonHD 3y ago
  I think that you are reading this too narrowly. SPAMers etc are often in a hurry. For example, simply avoiding responding for a second or two to an inbound SMTP connection drops a whole group of bad email attempts on the floor while no one else even notices.[0] Another example: manually delaying admitting new users to a forum (and in the process checking for bad activity from their IP/email etc) seems to shed another bunch of unwanteds, and raising the cost a little with some simple questions on the way in, also. This point about small extra delay and effort deterring disproportionately bad behaviour is quite broad. [0] https://deer-run.com/users/hal/sysadmin/greet_pause.html https://deer-run.com/users/hal/sysadmin/greet_pause.html
  - rhaksw 3y ago
    In your cost/benefit analysis, you overlook the harms created by secretive actions. That's why I asked for details about your experience. The internet has run on secrets for 40 years. That doesn't make it right. Now that everyone and their mother is online, it's time to consider the harms that secrets create.
    - DamonHD 3y ago
      There are bad actors, and many of them are lazy/stupid. Their activity imposes a tax / harms on the rest of us. One way to minimise that harm to the good actors includes some mildly covert measures. The sendmail GreetPause is hardly a secret for example: it catches a common deliberate malicious protocol violation and is publicly documented. This is not unique to the Internet nor new; see also banking and personal security and so on.