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I think it’s a bit harder than you realize. > How are these bad actors coordinating hashtags in a way that can't be detected? They manage to do it in China de

I think it’s a bit harder than you realize. > How are these bad actors coordinating hashtags in a way that can't be detected? They manage to do it in China despite the massive censorship there. https://sg.news.yahoo.com/chinese-vpn-providers-hide-literature-disguise-names-031019230.html https://sg.news.yahoo.com/chinese-vpn-providers-hide-literat... > it doesn't require a huge amount of resources Are you suggesting that the Chinese government just isn’t trying hard enough, and if they really wanted to they could stop all dissidents in China for forever?

handoflixue 3y ago
I never said it was perfect. I'm saying that if you invest resources, you can accomplish a lot - even if it isn't perfect. China would be a perfect example of my point: they've succeeded in vastly reducing the amount of censored content available, and the average person has no real desire to work around that. I really don't get how you think your example disagrees with me - do you think China hasn't accomplished anything there?
- subjectsigma 3y ago
  Well, they set out to eliminate VPN usage and prevent their citizens from criticizing the government. There’s still VPNs and people still criticize the government. I don’t think the “average person” is using a VPN but I would be shocked if subtle ways to dodge censorship weren’t widely known. It’s also a treadmill - the problem isn’t fundamentally solved, every time a new hashtag is squashed another one pops up. They will just keep manually identifying and banning them for forever. Flipping the question around, I’m not really sure how Facebook’s current systems don’t fit your definition of “it’s not perfect but it works”?
  - handoflixue 3y ago
    > I’m not really sure how Facebook’s current systems don’t fit your definition of “it’s not perfect but it works”? I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit we could easily address with a small increase in spending, and I think it's fair to shame companies for not doing that. I also think there's a lot of mid-height fruit that could plausibly be addressed with a lot of spending. I think it's fair to praise companies that ARE doing that, but it's hardly a source of shame. And of course, there's plenty of fruit we're never going to deal with, no matter how much we spend. I think Facebook is under-spending and missing out on low hanging fruit

handoflixue 3y ago

I never said it was perfect. I'm saying that if you invest resources, you can accomplish a lot - even if it isn't perfect. China would be a perfect example of my point: they've succeeded in vastly reducing the amount of censored content available, and the average person has no real desire to work around that. I really don't get how you think your example disagrees with me - do you think China hasn't accomplished anything there?

subjectsigma 3y ago
Well, they set out to eliminate VPN usage and prevent their citizens from criticizing the government. There’s still VPNs and people still criticize the government. I don’t think the “average person” is using a VPN but I would be shocked if subtle ways to dodge censorship weren’t widely known. It’s also a treadmill - the problem isn’t fundamentally solved, every time a new hashtag is squashed another one pops up. They will just keep manually identifying and banning them for forever. Flipping the question around, I’m not really sure how Facebook’s current systems don’t fit your definition of “it’s not perfect but it works”?
- handoflixue 3y ago
  > I’m not really sure how Facebook’s current systems don’t fit your definition of “it’s not perfect but it works”? I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit we could easily address with a small increase in spending, and I think it's fair to shame companies for not doing that. I also think there's a lot of mid-height fruit that could plausibly be addressed with a lot of spending. I think it's fair to praise companies that ARE doing that, but it's hardly a source of shame. And of course, there's plenty of fruit we're never going to deal with, no matter how much we spend. I think Facebook is under-spending and missing out on low hanging fruit