4 ms·

It bifurcates platforms in two: those with no moderation, and those that have detailed human review for every video. A site like youtube is largely unworkable u

It bifurcates platforms in two: those with no moderation, and those that have detailed human review for every video. A site like youtube is largely unworkable under the latter model, but is more workable under the former model. Either youtube would adopt such a model, or they would pivot to being essentially netflix with all licensed content. In the latter case another site would spring up or an existing site would become popular for people without an existing following to post videos, which would necessarily use a moderationless model.

AlienRobot 2y ago
>It bifurcates platforms in two It won't. If Youtube had no moderation, it would have no ad revenue. This would effectively kill every single website where users can publish content without having to go through a publishing contract first. Youtube, Medium, Newsgrounds, every single comments section on news articles, all web forums, Discord, reviews on Amazon, Steam. I'm not even sure websites like buy me a coffee and patreon would be able to survive, because if they can't moderate their posts, that doesn't mean mastercard can't ban them, as mastercard isn't subject to publishing laws.
- f33d5173 2y ago
  Mastercard et al are able to act as censors of the internet because websites have discretionary moderation policies. If, when mastercard demanded policy changes, websites could only respond with "sorry, it's out of our hands", then mastercard would give it up pretty quick. If they didn't, then bitcoin would become temporarily quite popular until they did. People want to be able to pay for things online, and credit cards are able to boss websites around only insofar as they don't push the envelope too far.
  - jcranmer 2y ago
    That's not going to be how things are likely to work. The financial industry censors disreputable sites because, effectively, disreputable sites are too expensive to support (e.g., high chargeback rates). The big social media sites today aren't going to "gee, golly, we have to completely abandon moderation to deal with liability now"; no, they're going to ramp up their moderation hard, because reputational risk is still a thing (also, they still have liabilities in countries that aren't the US that they are going to be very concerned about!). And when you have sites like Youtube that retain a strict moderation policy, there is going to be absolutely 0 incentive for them to cave to whatever new niche sites crop up that try to play the "we can't enact moderation" card, exactly as happens today.
    - f33d5173 2y ago
      If youtube (and every similar website) was forced to abandon content moderation (or cease being "you"tube), that wouldn't substantially increase their chargeback rate. > ramp up their moderation hard Not good enough. Every claim about a person in every video posted to youtube would need to be fact checked prior to being visible on youtube. You are underestimating the degree to which this kills youtube qua youtube. This is subtantially more true for facebook, or for comment sections. >still have liabilities in countries that aren't the US Already most sites that are required to censor content for a certain locale only block it for IPs from that locale. I doubt this would change.
      - jcranmer 2y ago
        > Every claim about a person in every video posted to youtube would need to be fact checked prior to being visible on youtube. No it doesn't. Defamation requires some form of mens rea of the statement being made (negligence or actual malice depending on who it's about), so liability for defamation in a no-§230 world largely means "will take it down after someone complains" as there's a pretty solid defense that not verifying the statements before uploading doesn't constitute even negligence, much less actual malice. The liability rules in a no-§230 world aren't entirely clear since we're basing everything on just two court cases that existed pre-§230, but the social media companies are going to be extremely willing to throw down millions of dollars in legal fees to persuade judges to evolve liability rules that make their moderation policies feasible. And this comes back to the main point again: no moderation just doesn't scale, not even in channels of merely a hundred people, let alone hundreds of millions. It is naïve to think that companies are going to suddenly decide that "no moderation" is less risk than "tailor both our moderation policies and the law to find some middle ground that is actually feasible."
jcranmer 2y ago
I don't think you truly understand what "no moderation" actually means. No moderation means you have to accept porn (and I don't mean "oh look a titty" not-really-porn; I mean hardcore revenge porn); it means you have to accept the dreggiest of spam imaginable. In general, it means accepting the sort of videos that are so offensive to people that you're going to get sued anyways by people who are upset over content on your site, even though technically you're not liable for it (this already happens today in spades, even with §230 immunity). And an unmoderated site isn't going to be all that fun for users. If there's no curation, you're going to mostly find dreck, which will turn users onto platforms that actually have content worth consuming. If there's curation, well congratulations, content creators still have to pander to the curation rules which is effectively the same moderation environment anyways.

AlienRobot 2y ago

>It bifurcates platforms in two It won't. If Youtube had no moderation, it would have no ad revenue. This would effectively kill every single website where users can publish content without having to go through a publishing contract first. Youtube, Medium, Newsgrounds, every single comments section on news articles, all web forums, Discord, reviews on Amazon, Steam. I'm not even sure websites like buy me a coffee and patreon would be able to survive, because if they can't moderate their posts, that doesn't mean mastercard can't ban them, as mastercard isn't subject to publishing laws.

f33d5173 2y ago
Mastercard et al are able to act as censors of the internet because websites have discretionary moderation policies. If, when mastercard demanded policy changes, websites could only respond with "sorry, it's out of our hands", then mastercard would give it up pretty quick. If they didn't, then bitcoin would become temporarily quite popular until they did. People want to be able to pay for things online, and credit cards are able to boss websites around only insofar as they don't push the envelope too far.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  That's not going to be how things are likely to work. The financial industry censors disreputable sites because, effectively, disreputable sites are too expensive to support (e.g., high chargeback rates). The big social media sites today aren't going to "gee, golly, we have to completely abandon moderation to deal with liability now"; no, they're going to ramp up their moderation hard, because reputational risk is still a thing (also, they still have liabilities in countries that aren't the US that they are going to be very concerned about!). And when you have sites like Youtube that retain a strict moderation policy, there is going to be absolutely 0 incentive for them to cave to whatever new niche sites crop up that try to play the "we can't enact moderation" card, exactly as happens today.
  - f33d5173 2y ago
    If youtube (and every similar website) was forced to abandon content moderation (or cease being "you"tube), that wouldn't substantially increase their chargeback rate. > ramp up their moderation hard Not good enough. Every claim about a person in every video posted to youtube would need to be fact checked prior to being visible on youtube. You are underestimating the degree to which this kills youtube qua youtube. This is subtantially more true for facebook, or for comment sections. >still have liabilities in countries that aren't the US Already most sites that are required to censor content for a certain locale only block it for IPs from that locale. I doubt this would change.
    - jcranmer 2y ago
      > Every claim about a person in every video posted to youtube would need to be fact checked prior to being visible on youtube. No it doesn't. Defamation requires some form of mens rea of the statement being made (negligence or actual malice depending on who it's about), so liability for defamation in a no-§230 world largely means "will take it down after someone complains" as there's a pretty solid defense that not verifying the statements before uploading doesn't constitute even negligence, much less actual malice. The liability rules in a no-§230 world aren't entirely clear since we're basing everything on just two court cases that existed pre-§230, but the social media companies are going to be extremely willing to throw down millions of dollars in legal fees to persuade judges to evolve liability rules that make their moderation policies feasible. And this comes back to the main point again: no moderation just doesn't scale, not even in channels of merely a hundred people, let alone hundreds of millions. It is naïve to think that companies are going to suddenly decide that "no moderation" is less risk than "tailor both our moderation policies and the law to find some middle ground that is actually feasible."

jcranmer 2y ago

I don't think you truly understand what "no moderation" actually means. No moderation means you have to accept porn (and I don't mean "oh look a titty" not-really-porn; I mean hardcore revenge porn); it means you have to accept the dreggiest of spam imaginable. In general, it means accepting the sort of videos that are so offensive to people that you're going to get sued anyways by people who are upset over content on your site, even though technically you're not liable for it (this already happens today in spades, even with §230 immunity). And an unmoderated site isn't going to be all that fun for users. If there's no curation, you're going to mostly find dreck, which will turn users onto platforms that actually have content worth consuming. If there's curation, well congratulations, content creators still have to pander to the curation rules which is effectively the same moderation environment anyways.