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I'm certain it will make parts of the user experience worse, but at least for the Threads app, this seems at least a little necessary - if you're aiming to be t

I'm certain it will make parts of the user experience worse, but at least for the Threads app, this seems at least a little necessary - if you're aiming to be the "new" twitter or whatever social need twitter was fulfilling, you need to break free of the shackles of IG/Meta moderation, which is very unforgiving and brutal in very subtle ways that aren't always easy to figure out. But basically, I find a platform like Threads/Twitter are probably unusable for a lot of people unless you can say "hey, you're an asshole" every now and then without Meta slapping you on the wrist or suppressing your content. One of the only visible actions Meta has taken on my account was once when a cousin commented on a musical opinion I had posted to facebook, I jokingly replied "I'll fight you" and I caught an instant 2 week posting ban and a flag on my account for "violence." Couldn't even really appeal it, or the hoops were so ridiculous that I didn't try. The hilarious thing is these bans will still let you consume the sites' content (gotta get those clicks), you just are unable to interact with it. This kind of moderation is pointless as users will always get around it anyway - leading to stuff like "unalive" to replace killing/suicide references, or "acoustic" to refer to an autistic person, etc. Just silliness, as you'll always be able to find a way to creatively convey your point such that auto-moderators don't catch it.

baggachipz 2y ago
A tale as old as time. On old forums and groups: h4xor, ghey, etc.
- wbl 2y ago
  Clbuttic
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
circlingthesun 2y ago
I once posted a picture of an email stating my train was delayed in French. So the word 'retard' appeared in it. Instagram banned me from monetization or partnerships or something on my account, because the word for delay in French is offensive in English.
- somedude895 2y ago
  I wonder how many Spanish speakers got banned for discussing Vantablack at the time.
- dmd 2y ago
  Pilots flying an Airbus get called a “retard” every time they land!
  - ElectRabbit 2y ago
    Even worse: they cannot get open mental healthcare for this without loosing their license. Loose-loose-situation.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- sowut 2y ago
  retar dio
- y33t 2y ago
  In Chinese there's a common word that sounds like a particularly offensive racial slur to the untrained American ear. I've seen Chinese speakers called out for this in person, but everything got straightened out pretty quickly. This was pre-social media, but it's not hard to imagine a social media uproar over it these days.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Enjoy the uproar then https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54107329.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54107329.amp This prof lost a gig
criley2 2y ago
For the record, Twitter currently punishes people who call VIP's mean names and seems to take action against all negativity pointed towards certain ideologies that fit with the owners preferences, and they're talking about some opaque "positivity" changes which actually sound like automating the current manual moderation behind their censorship of wrongthink. We should stop pretending that that website resembles its preceding namesake, because it does not.
hbn 2y ago
Me and my friend share a joke instagram account where we'll randomly make stupid posts just to entertain ourselves. One time he posted a picture of himself holding a chair, standing on one foot with a goofy smile on his face, captioned "I'll hit you with this chair! Just kidding!" It got the account suspended until we deleted the post, claiming the post, and I quote, "could encourage physical violence and lead to a risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety." I sent an appeal, saying it was a clear joke that isn't directed at anyone, but after supposed "review" they determined the post is indeed against ToS.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  A cynic of the large social media platforms might suspect they were deliberately underinvesting in their moderation workforce... so they could then justify doing away with the cost as soon as politically convenient. At its base, moderation = time = money Better quality moderation? More money. The platforms would rather not carry that cost and therefore be more profitable. Convenient how that worked out.
- o11c 2y ago
  Frankly, if "ban people for joke violence" is the price we have to pay for "ban people for real violence", I'll take it.
  - emmelaich 2y ago
    But what if banning joke violence increases the chance of real violence?
    - intended 2y ago
      Not the person you responded to, but I assume they would be ok with unbanning the joke in that case. I would rather people not die.
SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
The only people that would say this is unnecessary are the people that not currently being censored, and have no concept that they ever would be. Because they’re the Good People that think the Good Things.
- CobrastanJorji 2y ago
  You're all very likely correct, but given the timing, it's hard to assume good intent on Meta's part. This same week, they've "donated" $1 million to Trump's "inauguration fund," and added strong Trump ally to Meta's board. Significant changes to moderation might be good or might be bad, but given the other news, only the truly ingenuous would trust that it's intended to improve things. Same thing with when Bezos declared that the Washington Post would no longer be endorsing presidential candidates, claiming that it was a neutral decision about returning the paper to its roots with unfortunate but coincidental timing. Despite that potentially being a reasonable decision in a vacuum, only an idiot would have believed that Bezos was being honest about his motivation.
madeofpalk 2y ago
I think you misunderstand what Meta is doing here. They’re not stopping moderation of posts. Meta used to pay third party company fact checking companies to put disclaimers on “misinformation” posts on Facebook. They’re going to stop that now. They’re still going to continue their other more traditional moderation where you’ll be banned for making an obvious tongue in cheek joke or whatever.
- Dig1t 2y ago
  Moving the moderation team from California to Texas is also noteworthy. Presumably because the political climate of California is so skewed from the rest of the country.
  - bagels 2y ago
    Probably much more to do with cost
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  I don't, see my response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42626739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42626739
ok_dad 2y ago
> "acoustic" to refer to an autistic person Is autistic an illegal word or something? What the fuck?
- pests 2y ago
  It’s self-censorship, some of which I find extremely weird and cringe. Go on Twitter and you will see people self-censor the normal swear words too. Shit becomes “sht”, fuck becomes “fck” Very dystopian.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    X today seems to not let any posts about death, swearing, etc get recommended. Whereas if you replace those words with "unalive" and **'s, then you get far more views. I'm sure there is some kind of filter.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    It's been trivially demonstrable that the use of "forbidden" terms or swearing can affect your ranking on their algorithms, whether it be displaying your comment, or your post on someone's feed, etc., at least on Meta's platforms. So no matter how "cringe" you may find it, it's done out of some degree of necessity and precisely because of these dumb moderation mechanisms, not out of any misguided, altruistic self censorship.
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      >It's been trivially demonstrable that the use of "forbidden" terms or swearing can affect your ranking on their algorithms Is it though? A lot of this self censorship seems to be a cargo cult thing where people just copy what they've seen other people do and assume it's necessary when it's really not.
      - zahlman 2y ago
        >Is it though? Yes. There are countless stories from Youtube creators who had their videos taken down or demonetized or had to edit and reupload them, because the AI detected that words such as "suicide" were spoken. And it's common knowledge that requests for review are routinely denied (presented as "we reviewed your case and the ruling stands", a judgment often received in less time than the runtime of the video).
timeon 2y ago
> but at least for the Threads app Sorry for OT but what is the point of Threads? Twitter/X is already thing if you do not care about corporate-owned social media.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  > corporate-owned social media In what sense do you think X is not a "corporate owned" company?

baggachipz 2y ago

A tale as old as time. On old forums and groups: h4xor, ghey, etc.

wbl 2y ago
Clbuttic
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

circlingthesun 2y ago

I once posted a picture of an email stating my train was delayed in French. So the word 'retard' appeared in it. Instagram banned me from monetization or partnerships or something on my account, because the word for delay in French is offensive in English.

somedude895 2y ago
I wonder how many Spanish speakers got banned for discussing Vantablack at the time.
dmd 2y ago
Pilots flying an Airbus get called a “retard” every time they land!
- ElectRabbit 2y ago
  Even worse: they cannot get open mental healthcare for this without loosing their license. Loose-loose-situation.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
sowut 2y ago
retar dio
y33t 2y ago
In Chinese there's a common word that sounds like a particularly offensive racial slur to the untrained American ear. I've seen Chinese speakers called out for this in person, but everything got straightened out pretty quickly. This was pre-social media, but it's not hard to imagine a social media uproar over it these days.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Enjoy the uproar then https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54107329.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54107329.amp This prof lost a gig

criley2 2y ago

For the record, Twitter currently punishes people who call VIP's mean names and seems to take action against all negativity pointed towards certain ideologies that fit with the owners preferences, and they're talking about some opaque "positivity" changes which actually sound like automating the current manual moderation behind their censorship of wrongthink. We should stop pretending that that website resembles its preceding namesake, because it does not.

hbn 2y ago

Me and my friend share a joke instagram account where we'll randomly make stupid posts just to entertain ourselves. One time he posted a picture of himself holding a chair, standing on one foot with a goofy smile on his face, captioned "I'll hit you with this chair! Just kidding!" It got the account suspended until we deleted the post, claiming the post, and I quote, "could encourage physical violence and lead to a risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety." I sent an appeal, saying it was a clear joke that isn't directed at anyone, but after supposed "review" they determined the post is indeed against ToS.

ethbr1 2y ago
A cynic of the large social media platforms might suspect they were deliberately underinvesting in their moderation workforce... so they could then justify doing away with the cost as soon as politically convenient. At its base, moderation = time = money Better quality moderation? More money. The platforms would rather not carry that cost and therefore be more profitable. Convenient how that worked out.
o11c 2y ago
Frankly, if "ban people for joke violence" is the price we have to pay for "ban people for real violence", I'll take it.
- emmelaich 2y ago
  But what if banning joke violence increases the chance of real violence?
  - intended 2y ago
    Not the person you responded to, but I assume they would be ok with unbanning the joke in that case. I would rather people not die.

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago

The only people that would say this is unnecessary are the people that not currently being censored, and have no concept that they ever would be. Because they’re the Good People that think the Good Things.

CobrastanJorji 2y ago
You're all very likely correct, but given the timing, it's hard to assume good intent on Meta's part. This same week, they've "donated" $1 million to Trump's "inauguration fund," and added strong Trump ally to Meta's board. Significant changes to moderation might be good or might be bad, but given the other news, only the truly ingenuous would trust that it's intended to improve things. Same thing with when Bezos declared that the Washington Post would no longer be endorsing presidential candidates, claiming that it was a neutral decision about returning the paper to its roots with unfortunate but coincidental timing. Despite that potentially being a reasonable decision in a vacuum, only an idiot would have believed that Bezos was being honest about his motivation.

madeofpalk 2y ago

I think you misunderstand what Meta is doing here. They’re not stopping moderation of posts. Meta used to pay third party company fact checking companies to put disclaimers on “misinformation” posts on Facebook. They’re going to stop that now. They’re still going to continue their other more traditional moderation where you’ll be banned for making an obvious tongue in cheek joke or whatever.

Dig1t 2y ago
Moving the moderation team from California to Texas is also noteworthy. Presumably because the political climate of California is so skewed from the rest of the country.
- bagels 2y ago
  Probably much more to do with cost
JohnMakin 2y ago
I don't, see my response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42626739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42626739

ok_dad 2y ago

> "acoustic" to refer to an autistic person Is autistic an illegal word or something? What the fuck?

pests 2y ago
It’s self-censorship, some of which I find extremely weird and cringe. Go on Twitter and you will see people self-censor the normal swear words too. Shit becomes “sht”, fuck becomes “fck” Very dystopian.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  X today seems to not let any posts about death, swearing, etc get recommended. Whereas if you replace those words with "unalive" and **'s, then you get far more views. I'm sure there is some kind of filter.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  It's been trivially demonstrable that the use of "forbidden" terms or swearing can affect your ranking on their algorithms, whether it be displaying your comment, or your post on someone's feed, etc., at least on Meta's platforms. So no matter how "cringe" you may find it, it's done out of some degree of necessity and precisely because of these dumb moderation mechanisms, not out of any misguided, altruistic self censorship.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >It's been trivially demonstrable that the use of "forbidden" terms or swearing can affect your ranking on their algorithms Is it though? A lot of this self censorship seems to be a cargo cult thing where people just copy what they've seen other people do and assume it's necessary when it's really not.
    - zahlman 2y ago
      >Is it though? Yes. There are countless stories from Youtube creators who had their videos taken down or demonetized or had to edit and reupload them, because the AI detected that words such as "suicide" were spoken. And it's common knowledge that requests for review are routinely denied (presented as "we reviewed your case and the ruling stands", a judgment often received in less time than the runtime of the video).

timeon 2y ago

> but at least for the Threads app Sorry for OT but what is the point of Threads? Twitter/X is already thing if you do not care about corporate-owned social media.

JohnMakin 2y ago
> corporate-owned social media In what sense do you think X is not a "corporate owned" company?