4 ms·
Put anyone in charge of any space and they'll want to control what people say and think there. Hell look at HN and literally anywhere. Everybody has their own
by Razengan 1y ago
Put anyone in charge of any space and they'll want to control what people say and think there.
Hell look at HN and literally anywhere. Everybody has their own "ideal" world.
I for instance don't want anybody talking shit about anime or video games ever.
- bawolff 1y agoWell yes, because those who don't quickly lose users due to bad signal-noise ratio When was the last time anyone visited an unmoderated usenet group?
- cft 1y ago4chan is well, moderated, but it's outlived Facebook with real names.
- throwaway48476 1y agoDid the government ever moderate usenet?
- Razengan 1y agoFrankly, LLMs with transparent prompts, as well as user-side filters based on LLM prompts (e.g. "Don't show me comment threads talking shit about Attack on Titan") could do a better and more "fair" job than meat-based moderators now. They won't have personal biases, don't need to sleep (ending the infamous "mods are asleep, post xxx" waves), their prompts would be visible to everyone, and there could be ways for the users themselves to update the space's rules/prompts.
- squigz 1y agoLLMs have their own biases. But either way, I want people like dang to be the ones moderating and managing a community - call it "personal bias" if you'd like, but they have a vision for the space, and as long as I as a user think that that vision is of a community I want to be in, then it's fine. If I no longer think it is... I leave.
- pureagave 1y ago100%. We need to look no further than what the US government tried to do to Twitter, YouTube and Facebook during the pandemic.
- Razengan 1y agoAnd what they're doing to TikTok now
- femiagbabiaka 1y agoIf speech in the U.K. was moderated like HN, the situation would be greatly improved.
- pessimizer 1y agoI imagine you'll be saying this with tears flowing from your eyes after the UK blocks HN.
- femiagbabiaka 1y agoGod forbid.
- ryeats 1y agoNope, just the Ministry of Truth, God doesn't even have to get involved.
- RobotToaster 1y agoUntil you get put in prison for reading out a headline wrong lol
- martin-t 1y agoThe evolution of governance of online communities mirrors that of the real-world. First, everyone did what they wanted. As conflict became more common, power hierarchies started to emerge. we're now at a stage where every place needs to be governed, yet its members have no influence over who does it. I have online communities will transition into something resembling democracy where moderators are elected from members by members. --- While HN is fairly lenient, moderators in pretty much all online spaces are effectively dictators, they are not elected and they cannot be removed by ordinary users, no matter how many disagree. And of course, such positions attract people who want power for its own sake and who have agendas they want to push.
- mrkstu 1y agoYou vote for the moderation you like with your digital feet- see X vs BlueSky
- martin-t 1y agoThat's like saying you vote for the government by moving to a different state. This[0] blog post puts it nicely - you _can_ move but you lose all your connections and sometimes even you data. [0]: https://overreacted.io/open-social/ https://overreacted.io/open-social/
- Razengan 1y ago> moderators in pretty much all online spaces are effectively dictators This. How do 1-10 or 20 or even 100 people get the "right" to decide what millions of people talk about and see? What's keeping them from burying/boosting opinions about shit they have strong personal feelings about? Steve Huffman/Spez of Reddit literally edited users' comments, and they autoban anyone saying "Fuck Spez"
- Yeul 1y agoIf HN had existed in 1800 abolitionists would have been banned. Society does not progress by people being nice and hugging eachother.
- pstuart 1y agoThe moderation of this site is top notch and a key component of its quality, and I say that as someone admonished by dang more than once.
- Razengan 1y agoOh please. Vote-based social networks are way too vulnerable to burying the truth and boosting lies. It just takes the first 3-4 viewers to downvote you to prevent the next 10000 people from seeing what you said. There's no downside to downvoting just because you don't like what someone says, even if it's true. And usually no amount of corrections can outshout a lie/mistake with 100+ votes.
- econ 1y agoThere has to be a better formula to design this game. It seems valuable enough to explore. It will be hard to design a formula that can only be gamed by making quality contributions. A quality discussion requires parties who disagree, exchange of ideas and facts and ideally some kind of eventual agreement. The hardest part is to make it enjoyable to use.
- Razengan 1y agoMaybe transparent AI is the only way to fairly govern masses of people? Let people regularly vote on which prompts should be added/removed, and have the AI justify all of its decisions, show which information it used etc.
- integralid 1y agoThat's the most dystopian thing I've read today
- Razengan 1y agoDystopia is the status quo: A handful of people controlling access for millions.