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The problem is that short of actual drugs appearing there is no way to verify anything illegitimate has transpired. This is just like Twitter's "this is a parod

The problem is that short of actual drugs appearing there is no way to verify anything illegitimate has transpired. This is just like Twitter's "this is a parody account" debacle. And for the most part the people making the videos know this. The platforms don't work if they have to police everything. Proper moderation results in an increase in false positives which paints an overzealous image and will draw the ire of users while driving them elsewhere. What do you reasonably expect?

toofy 3y ago
> What do you reasonably expect? the argument i hear quite a lot is: No real world business would be allowed to continue operation if it repeatedly did little or nothing to address—or worse allowed the patrons to flaunt—illegal activities on premises. If any business had solid and precise evidence that a specific person was committing crimes and they did nothing, it would likely lose its business license. there are obviously good arguments to be made for and against this, but its not something that many want to interrogate.
actionfromafar 3y ago
Why do we have to give up? Why is OK with "Company is too large to police, nothing to see, move on"? Maybe the platforms shouldn't work, in that case. And where is elsewhere, exactly? They are welcome to register their own domain and web site if they want to. Why is it OK for Meta to make money on not policing their platform? We as a society are expected to pick up the tab.
- Nasrudith 3y ago
  Because we would rather not live in a permission society dystopia where one can be called to answer "Who gave you the right to change society?".
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Can you expand on that argument, because I dont' get it. If I open a large mall in the physical world where drug vendors roam free and I give them cover to hide, because I like the money they pay on ads, that's OK too? When someone complains, I just say "I have the right to change society, who are you to tell me I can't".
kerkeslager 3y ago
> The platforms don't work if they have to police everything. Proper moderation results in an increase in false positives which paints an overzealous image and will draw the ire of users while driving them elsewhere. I'm unequivocally against any sort of drug prohibition, but this argument is pretty silly. You know what other business model doesn't work if we enforce laws mandating anti-drug morality? Drug dealing. If your business model doesn't work without doing unethical things, your business model should not work.
- jobs_throwaway 3y ago
  Is selling pens and paper unethical? Because drug dealers can use those too. Same for food. I guess we should make grocery stores screen every person to make sure they're not using the food for anything illegal.
  - arjunaanand 3y ago
    Sure pen and papers won’t be unethical as much as keyboards they are using to type today. However if they use a shop as a platform to start selling drugs, that shop owner will be held liable by law, just like facebook.
    - mewpmewp2 3y ago
      What about phones? I'm sure they use phones in general, should we also ban phones or listen in on everybody by default to avoid it? The phones allow them to make trades much more effectively. In addition, they probably use their hands, feet, voice, maybe these should be disabled for people since birth.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - moefh 3y ago
        You're comparing apples to oranges. We don't expect phone manufacturers or phone companies to prevent people from using phones to send death threats, but Facebook regularly removes death threats sent via Facebook. The argument being argued here is that it's not viable in practice for Facebook to police every single post, not that it shouldn't do it in principle. Your argument seems to be that Facebook shouldn't police messages at all, like phone companies don't monitor conversations. That's a completely different position that even Facebook wouldn't agree on.
brucethemoose2 3y ago
> Proper moderation I would point to oldschool forums (and HN!), where the communities were just large enough to moderate themselves and stop nasty off topic junk like that from appearing. One problem is modern social media has (mostly) yanked this self-moderation power from users. And, as you said, they are too big and too cheap to hire enough mods on payroll to replace them. Another, that I have, is that they make money from the drug dealer posts! If Facebook has to leave it up, OK, but they sure as heck shouldn't display ads or collect metrics. That should be a far more zealous check.
- MostlyStable 3y ago
  Yeah I really think basically all the moderation problems go away (from my very particular perspective of what the problems are and why they are problems) if you at least give users the option of fully controlling what they see (i.e only posts from users they have specifically followed etc.). But that option results in lower "engagement" and time-on-site, so social media companies will probably never go back to providing it.
deleted 3y ago
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toofy 3y ago

> What do you reasonably expect? the argument i hear quite a lot is: No real world business would be allowed to continue operation if it repeatedly did little or nothing to address—or worse allowed the patrons to flaunt—illegal activities on premises. If any business had solid and precise evidence that a specific person was committing crimes and they did nothing, it would likely lose its business license. there are obviously good arguments to be made for and against this, but its not something that many want to interrogate.

actionfromafar 3y ago

Why do we have to give up? Why is OK with "Company is too large to police, nothing to see, move on"? Maybe the platforms shouldn't work, in that case. And where is elsewhere, exactly? They are welcome to register their own domain and web site if they want to. Why is it OK for Meta to make money on not policing their platform? We as a society are expected to pick up the tab.

Nasrudith 3y ago
Because we would rather not live in a permission society dystopia where one can be called to answer "Who gave you the right to change society?".
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Can you expand on that argument, because I dont' get it. If I open a large mall in the physical world where drug vendors roam free and I give them cover to hide, because I like the money they pay on ads, that's OK too? When someone complains, I just say "I have the right to change society, who are you to tell me I can't".

kerkeslager 3y ago

> The platforms don't work if they have to police everything. Proper moderation results in an increase in false positives which paints an overzealous image and will draw the ire of users while driving them elsewhere. I'm unequivocally against any sort of drug prohibition, but this argument is pretty silly. You know what other business model doesn't work if we enforce laws mandating anti-drug morality? Drug dealing. If your business model doesn't work without doing unethical things, your business model should not work.

jobs_throwaway 3y ago
Is selling pens and paper unethical? Because drug dealers can use those too. Same for food. I guess we should make grocery stores screen every person to make sure they're not using the food for anything illegal.
- arjunaanand 3y ago
  Sure pen and papers won’t be unethical as much as keyboards they are using to type today. However if they use a shop as a platform to start selling drugs, that shop owner will be held liable by law, just like facebook.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    What about phones? I'm sure they use phones in general, should we also ban phones or listen in on everybody by default to avoid it? The phones allow them to make trades much more effectively. In addition, they probably use their hands, feet, voice, maybe these should be disabled for people since birth.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - moefh 3y ago
      You're comparing apples to oranges. We don't expect phone manufacturers or phone companies to prevent people from using phones to send death threats, but Facebook regularly removes death threats sent via Facebook. The argument being argued here is that it's not viable in practice for Facebook to police every single post, not that it shouldn't do it in principle. Your argument seems to be that Facebook shouldn't police messages at all, like phone companies don't monitor conversations. That's a completely different position that even Facebook wouldn't agree on.

brucethemoose2 3y ago

> Proper moderation I would point to oldschool forums (and HN!), where the communities were just large enough to moderate themselves and stop nasty off topic junk like that from appearing. One problem is modern social media has (mostly) yanked this self-moderation power from users. And, as you said, they are too big and too cheap to hire enough mods on payroll to replace them. Another, that I have, is that they make money from the drug dealer posts! If Facebook has to leave it up, OK, but they sure as heck shouldn't display ads or collect metrics. That should be a far more zealous check.

MostlyStable 3y ago
Yeah I really think basically all the moderation problems go away (from my very particular perspective of what the problems are and why they are problems) if you at least give users the option of fully controlling what they see (i.e only posts from users they have specifically followed etc.). But that option results in lower "engagement" and time-on-site, so social media companies will probably never go back to providing it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]