3 ms·

Bluesky struggles to moderate child abuse material in Portuguese

42 points by donohoe 2y ago

pfraze 2y ago
This was from a couple weeks back. We’ve been working hard to clean it up. It’s a constant fight, but we take it seriously. The CP rings showed up at much higher levels than before with the Brazil bump. We run every image through Thorn’s fingerprinting service. That helps us with attempts to upload the media, but then they advertise telegrams and you have to root them out.
- Uehreka 2y ago
  Glad to hear you’re taking this stuff seriously, but you may want to be careful talking about this in detail in public without consulting a lawyer. Even if it seems like nothing is wrong with what you’re saying, anything that could be used to imply that you aren’t (or previously weren’t) in compliance with certain moderation standards could be used against BlueSky in court.
- AndrewKemendo 2y ago
  I’ve always been curious where, in your experience, is the demand for this material coming from? Is it insidious and just totally under the surface everywhere or is it more localized?
Syonyk 2y ago
[flagged]
- searealist 2y ago
  No one wants this material on their platform.
  - Syonyk 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - morpheuskafka 2y ago
      > If you're not even doing basic moderation for the obvious terms in foreign languages So anyone who starts a website allowing public posting needs to hire moderators fluent in the hundreds of languages that will be used there? There's at least 18 languages that are widely officially used across the world, plus more that are national languages of only one country, and over 7,000 total languages in existence. This is why we have Section 230. Otherwise, we would only be able to use "approved" languages online to avoid liability, which would obviously be terrible.
      - lmz 2y ago
        Clearly the lesson here is that no-one should try to be a global website. The US version can allow only English and Spanish. The Canada version can allow English and French... However it would be interesting to figure out what they do with e.g. Portuguese written in sound-alike English words (is that possible?)
      - bugtodiffer 2y ago
        > anyone who starts a website allowing public posting needs to hire moderators fluent in the hundreds of languages that will be used there? In the EU, that's how it goes. I think there's a minimum amount of visits/users though
    - searealist 2y ago
      The internet is littered with stories of how hard it is to battle this stuff. Some have even decided it’s not worth it and shut down. This very comments section calls out some efforts a lot more sophisticated than “basic moderation of the obvious terms”. Your cynicism needs some serious calibration.
- dang 2y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
KomoD 2y ago
Their response wasn't great in my opinion, they dodged some of the questions like: > Why doesn’t Bluesky block known keywords and terms like “child pornography” or “cp”? > Does Bluesky have different strategies for dealing with text posts discussing child sexual abuse or grooming and images of child exploitation?
- viraptor 2y ago
  > Why doesn’t Bluesky block known keywords and terms like “child pornography” or “cp”? That's 90s tech and useless today. Not only are long-term accounts never going to post it verbatim (if they want to survive on the platform), it will block both normal communication about the issue and unrelated things (lots of cp in shell scripts). There are way better approaches to detection available. When anyone tries that anyway, we get the expected results. Like "the event that can't be mentioned" and "unalive" on YouTube.
  - KomoD 2y ago
    See, this would have been a good response from them, instead of just not answering the question.
    - mu53 2y ago
      Its a cat and mouse game. Generally, these large companies use information asymmetry as a tool in the war
    - ErikBjare 2y ago
      I felt it was obvious and didn't need to be said.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
    >lots of cp in shell scripts Then I guess shell scripts are next.
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  The first one seems obvious to me, that's like blocking the terms "murder", "rape", "piracy", "theft" ... etc. Normal discussion involves using those terms.

42 points by donohoe 2y ago

This was from a couple weeks back. We’ve been working hard to clean it up. It’s a constant fight, but we take it seriously. The CP rings showed up at much higher levels than before with the Brazil bump. We run every image through Thorn’s fingerprinting service. That helps us with attempts to upload the media, but then they advertise telegrams and you have to root them out.

Uehreka 2y ago
Glad to hear you’re taking this stuff seriously, but you may want to be careful talking about this in detail in public without consulting a lawyer. Even if it seems like nothing is wrong with what you’re saying, anything that could be used to imply that you aren’t (or previously weren’t) in compliance with certain moderation standards could be used against BlueSky in court.
AndrewKemendo 2y ago
I’ve always been curious where, in your experience, is the demand for this material coming from? Is it insidious and just totally under the surface everywhere or is it more localized?

Syonyk 2y ago

[flagged]

searealist 2y ago
No one wants this material on their platform.
- Syonyk 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - morpheuskafka 2y ago
    > If you're not even doing basic moderation for the obvious terms in foreign languages So anyone who starts a website allowing public posting needs to hire moderators fluent in the hundreds of languages that will be used there? There's at least 18 languages that are widely officially used across the world, plus more that are national languages of only one country, and over 7,000 total languages in existence. This is why we have Section 230. Otherwise, we would only be able to use "approved" languages online to avoid liability, which would obviously be terrible.
    - lmz 2y ago
      Clearly the lesson here is that no-one should try to be a global website. The US version can allow only English and Spanish. The Canada version can allow English and French... However it would be interesting to figure out what they do with e.g. Portuguese written in sound-alike English words (is that possible?)
    - bugtodiffer 2y ago
      > anyone who starts a website allowing public posting needs to hire moderators fluent in the hundreds of languages that will be used there? In the EU, that's how it goes. I think there's a minimum amount of visits/users though
  - searealist 2y ago
    The internet is littered with stories of how hard it is to battle this stuff. Some have even decided it’s not worth it and shut down. This very comments section calls out some efforts a lot more sophisticated than “basic moderation of the obvious terms”. Your cynicism needs some serious calibration.
dang 2y ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

KomoD 2y ago

Their response wasn't great in my opinion, they dodged some of the questions like: > Why doesn’t Bluesky block known keywords and terms like “child pornography” or “cp”? > Does Bluesky have different strategies for dealing with text posts discussing child sexual abuse or grooming and images of child exploitation?

viraptor 2y ago
> Why doesn’t Bluesky block known keywords and terms like “child pornography” or “cp”? That's 90s tech and useless today. Not only are long-term accounts never going to post it verbatim (if they want to survive on the platform), it will block both normal communication about the issue and unrelated things (lots of cp in shell scripts). There are way better approaches to detection available. When anyone tries that anyway, we get the expected results. Like "the event that can't be mentioned" and "unalive" on YouTube.
- KomoD 2y ago
  See, this would have been a good response from them, instead of just not answering the question.
  - mu53 2y ago
    Its a cat and mouse game. Generally, these large companies use information asymmetry as a tool in the war
  - ErikBjare 2y ago
    I felt it was obvious and didn't need to be said.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
  >lots of cp in shell scripts Then I guess shell scripts are next.
naming_the_user 2y ago
The first one seems obvious to me, that's like blocking the terms "murder", "rape", "piracy", "theft" ... etc. Normal discussion involves using those terms.