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Actually, no, reasonable people do not want either platforms or governments to moderate content. Who defines what "problematic content" is?

Xylakant 1y ago
You are posting on a platform that has a moderation policy and takes active measures to to moderate away problematic content. The guidelines are here https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and they clearly state what content is off limits.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  We're posting on a platform that has a moderation policy defined by the private entity hosting the service, not the government. YC is free to censor on their own platform, the only issue is when the government is involved in censoring speech.
  - Xylakant 1y ago
    The post I’m responding to explicitly states that platforms should not moderate content.
- floundy 1y ago
  How is this a "gotcha" when I'm on the internet I'm being forced to use? I pick the most agreeable platforms. I like that HN filters out politics, sports, and celebrities, it's more like a themed forum than an open board. HN doesn't deem these topics as "problematic", simply as off-topic. Anyway my point was "problematic content" is often used as a buzzword by censorship happy people, and ends up being synonymous with "something I disagree with." We have just literally seen the real life consequences of pushing for censorship — that it will eventually be used against speech that one agrees with — and nobody quite seems to care.
  - Xylakant 1y ago
    If you read the guidelines, there’s quite a bit about being polite and not inciting flame wars, not only off topic items. It regularly happens that posts or even users get removed for that reason. There are platforms that have much less strict standards with regards to that - yet you consider this the more agreeable platform. Maybe the reason is that it’s actually nicer to have a conversation in a place where you don’t need to deal with an asshole that starts yelling and insulting everyone at the table. Think about this in real life: would you want to frequent a place where the loudest asshole gets to insult everyone present or would you rather go to a bar where at some point the Barkeeper steps in and sorts things out?
    - floundy 1y ago
      You're speaking of some idealized moderation system where tone and politeness is enforced, and human corruptibility does not entice moderators into censoring speech they disagree with? Yeah sure, I'd love to be there. It's just a rare thing to find on the modern web, and it's not guaranteed to last for any length of time. The modern web example of your bar scenario is more like this: the bartender doesn't want to hear [opposing political/societal issue opinion] at the bar and starts kicking out everyone he disagrees with. The kicked out people go start their own bar. Now there's two neighboring bars, MAGABar and LibBar; customers are automatically filtered into attending either bar by an algorithm. If you say anything that the bartender disagrees with, you're permanently banned. The fun part is that you can be permanently banned from BOTH bars if your viewpoints don't fall in line 100% with what the bartender wants to hear. Oh and you can't go to TechBar anymore either, the bartender heard you said something critical of furries at another bar, so now you're banned and not allowed to talk about computers.
oytis 1y ago
Unmoderated platforms are pretty much useless. Having said that, I'd prefer governments to stay away from either moderating or forcing platforms to moderate content
- floundy 1y ago
  Perhaps there's simply no middle ground between something like Voat which turned into a gathering place of bonafide racists, and something like Reddit which is essentially just a confirmation bias hugbox. If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product.
  - DocTomoe 1y ago
    Voat turned into a gathering place for racists because reddit at first only kicked those out - and became more fundamentalist only after voat was the well-known 'bad place for bad people' where 'respectable, but misunderstood people' did not linger. The frog cooks slowly. > If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product. I think this is the main issue: that we walled up our discussion plazas to make them 'profitable products'. I know I am a bit of an idealist here, but I miss the old-timey usenet, basically an agora where you could filter yourself (with the appropriately-called killfile), and which was not controlled by one institution alone). I had some hope with federated systems - but these are often built with censorship mechanisms written right into it, and again give operators too much influence on what their users may or may not see.
    - nathan_compton 1y ago
      All I know for sure about this is that the only platforms I use consistently have very strong moderation. I'm tempted to believe that for most practical purposes you cannot build a functional community without active moderation to which the users either explicitly or implicitly consent, so from my point of view many small, strongly moderated, platforms are better than one big unmoderated one, even if I can control what I see on it.
      - 1y ago
IAmBroom 1y ago
> reasonable people do not want I'm glad you're both a reasonable person, and available to identify all others, so that the set of reasonable people want the same thing.

Xylakant 1y ago

You are posting on a platform that has a moderation policy and takes active measures to to moderate away problematic content. The guidelines are here https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and they clearly state what content is off limits.

_heimdall 1y ago
We're posting on a platform that has a moderation policy defined by the private entity hosting the service, not the government. YC is free to censor on their own platform, the only issue is when the government is involved in censoring speech.
- Xylakant 1y ago
  The post I’m responding to explicitly states that platforms should not moderate content.
floundy 1y ago
How is this a "gotcha" when I'm on the internet I'm being forced to use? I pick the most agreeable platforms. I like that HN filters out politics, sports, and celebrities, it's more like a themed forum than an open board. HN doesn't deem these topics as "problematic", simply as off-topic. Anyway my point was "problematic content" is often used as a buzzword by censorship happy people, and ends up being synonymous with "something I disagree with." We have just literally seen the real life consequences of pushing for censorship — that it will eventually be used against speech that one agrees with — and nobody quite seems to care.
- Xylakant 1y ago
  If you read the guidelines, there’s quite a bit about being polite and not inciting flame wars, not only off topic items. It regularly happens that posts or even users get removed for that reason. There are platforms that have much less strict standards with regards to that - yet you consider this the more agreeable platform. Maybe the reason is that it’s actually nicer to have a conversation in a place where you don’t need to deal with an asshole that starts yelling and insulting everyone at the table. Think about this in real life: would you want to frequent a place where the loudest asshole gets to insult everyone present or would you rather go to a bar where at some point the Barkeeper steps in and sorts things out?
  - floundy 1y ago
    You're speaking of some idealized moderation system where tone and politeness is enforced, and human corruptibility does not entice moderators into censoring speech they disagree with? Yeah sure, I'd love to be there. It's just a rare thing to find on the modern web, and it's not guaranteed to last for any length of time. The modern web example of your bar scenario is more like this: the bartender doesn't want to hear [opposing political/societal issue opinion] at the bar and starts kicking out everyone he disagrees with. The kicked out people go start their own bar. Now there's two neighboring bars, MAGABar and LibBar; customers are automatically filtered into attending either bar by an algorithm. If you say anything that the bartender disagrees with, you're permanently banned. The fun part is that you can be permanently banned from BOTH bars if your viewpoints don't fall in line 100% with what the bartender wants to hear. Oh and you can't go to TechBar anymore either, the bartender heard you said something critical of furries at another bar, so now you're banned and not allowed to talk about computers.

oytis 1y ago

Unmoderated platforms are pretty much useless. Having said that, I'd prefer governments to stay away from either moderating or forcing platforms to moderate content

floundy 1y ago
Perhaps there's simply no middle ground between something like Voat which turned into a gathering place of bonafide racists, and something like Reddit which is essentially just a confirmation bias hugbox. If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product.
- DocTomoe 1y ago
  Voat turned into a gathering place for racists because reddit at first only kicked those out - and became more fundamentalist only after voat was the well-known 'bad place for bad people' where 'respectable, but misunderstood people' did not linger. The frog cooks slowly. > If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product. I think this is the main issue: that we walled up our discussion plazas to make them 'profitable products'. I know I am a bit of an idealist here, but I miss the old-timey usenet, basically an agora where you could filter yourself (with the appropriately-called killfile), and which was not controlled by one institution alone). I had some hope with federated systems - but these are often built with censorship mechanisms written right into it, and again give operators too much influence on what their users may or may not see.
  - nathan_compton 1y ago
    All I know for sure about this is that the only platforms I use consistently have very strong moderation. I'm tempted to believe that for most practical purposes you cannot build a functional community without active moderation to which the users either explicitly or implicitly consent, so from my point of view many small, strongly moderated, platforms are better than one big unmoderated one, even if I can control what I see on it.
    - 1y ago

IAmBroom 1y ago

> reasonable people do not want I'm glad you're both a reasonable person, and available to identify all others, so that the set of reasonable people want the same thing.