Moderation:
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Moderation:
- is absolutely necessary
- cannot be automated
- doesn’t scale if done by humans
- is rife with ridiculous failure modes
- is philosophically intractableI’m increasingly of the mind that content moderation is •the• central problem of the social Internet right now, and I’m not sure we have anything like a solution in sight.
From @sandofsky: https://mastodon.social/@sandofsky/113181384256449181
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@inthehands It seems to me that the direct implication of points 1-3 is that large-scale social media is not a good idea.
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A lot of people — and a lot of money — want humans to interact at scales we’ve never interacted with each other before. There’s no historical precedent, none, for “anybody on the planet can send you a message at any time.”
Moderation of speech and behavior is an age-old problem, but we’ve at least had locality to keep in manageable up until the last 2-3 decades. We’re in completely uncharted territory here as a species.
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@inthehands @sandofsky There are heaps of people out of work, so I don't know if "requires humans" is the financial concern we're trained to pretend it is.
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@Linza @sandofsky
Sadly, that’s a total non-solution. It leads to companies trying to solve the problem with cheap labor, and creates utterly appalling working conditions:
https://apnews.com/article/kenya-facebook-content-moderation-lawsuit-8215445b191fce9df4ebe35183d8b322 -
Khionu S :trans_furr_white:replied to Paul Cantrell last edited by
@inthehands @sandofsky to be a little pedantic: automation is 100% possible and should be used. End to end automation is the issue. Destructive or severe actions (banning, permanent deletion, revoking privileges, etc) should always require a human to hit, at minimum, a confirmation button
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@inthehands Did you quote the right post?
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This from @mathling is a good metaphor. And for some perspective on our current situation: consider how utterly out of reach a 20th-century water treatment plant would be for a medieval city. That’s how far away we are from really figuring this out — if not in centuries, then at least in technology and human process distance.
https://mastodon.social/@mathling/113182720688542148 -
Paul Cantrellreplied to Khionu S :trans_furr_white: last edited by
@khionu
Fine, s/automated/fully automated/ -
@mighty_orbot
Yes, I did. -
@inthehands Only it’s talking about app reviews, not social media moderation.
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@mighty_orbot
And what do you think app reviews are? -
@inthehands @sandofsky Then pay people. We don't have a moderation shortage, we have a wage shortage.
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@inthehands Well, they’re definitely not social media here. This is about Apple refusing to authorize an app for sale/download because it (supposedly) doesn’t meet their requirements.
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The biggest problem is cultural issues. A lot of places are vastly behind on LGBT issues, feminism, etc.
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@Dseitz
Pretty sure the problem is people more than places. There’s an alarming quantity of fashiness marbled through just about every place on Earth. -
@mighty_orbot
I did not say “social media.” You may have heard that, but I didn’t say it. (What phrase did I use? It was not an accident.)This is about Apple accepting or rejecting user-submitted content to be shared with other users based on (1) how it affects those other users and (2) how it affects the company. That is the •definition• of moderation.
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@inthehands “… it should be clear that improvements in communication tend to divide mankind …” by Harold Innis in Changing Concepts of Time
Someone with a degree in communication science gave me that quote years ago when I was wondering what was wrong with people on social media.
Remember what happened when the printing press was invented, or radio became a commodity?
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@inthehands “Moderation” and “social internet” usually imply social media. A storefront isn’t “social internet”. And it has nothing to do with this: https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/113182678876034236
I’m not sure what you’re complaining about otherwise; surely we all know it’s a bad idea for Apple NOT to screen apps before making them available for download.
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Chris Dickinsonreplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by
@inthehands yes to all of this. it’s also never been so easy to put a number to how “popular” the sentiment you’re sharing with others is — stuff like favorites, follower counts, and trending topics really changes the goals of communication from what we’re used to as a species