why not let people say whatever they want? you already hinted the appropriate solution which is that you don't have to listen.

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Arainach 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Community members are a finite resource. Moderators are a downright scare resource.

When you let people spew hateful things you drive away the people you want in the community and are left with a toxic cesspool that no one wants to visit. Your moderators will burn out and leave as well. That's a very reliable way for your space to die.

Then there's the fact that it takes far more energy to refute bullshit than to spew it, and this asymmetry means that "just let them speak" means the toxic liars win.

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raffael_de an hour ago | parent [-]

> Moderators are a downright scare resource.

if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators.

> When you let people spew hateful things you drive away the people you want in the community

can't people just unfollow or block others whose opinions they don't want to see?

> Then there's the fact that it takes far more energy to refute bullshit than to spew it

there is no obligation to refute bullshit to begin with. it's a personal choice about how to spend your time.

> and this asymmetry means that "just let them speak" means the toxic liars win.

what's there to win? there is nothing to win for anybody. there's only something to lose and that's time.

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Arainach 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> what's there to win? there is nothing to win for anybody.

There are ideological battles to be fought by all sorts of parties - convincing groups to hate each other, to support or oppose the governments in power, to spread division and destroy societies.

There are trolls who consider it a battle to be won, and the more they succeed the more everyone else leaves the platform.

The party currently in control of the United States is there largely due to people who were fed divisive narratives (often in online channels) to make them hate other groups and a significant number of them consider it more important to "own the libs" and "hurt the right people" than to have the government actually improve their own circumstances. So yes, there's absolutely things to be won.

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raffael_de 32 minutes ago | parent [-]

most of those dynamics are basically just in your head. for example: why would someone care if a troll considers a "battle" won?

	▲	Arainach 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I listed some of the real world consequences already. Allowing disinformation to spread and assuming that people will figure out what's wrong on their own does not scale and does not work.

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handoflixue 44 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators.

Have you ever been involved with moderating even a small subreddit or Discord server? I'm on a server with one moderator and it routinely gets spammed while the guy is asleep.

> can't people just unfollow or block others whose opinions they don't want to see?

How do I block people BEFORE seeing the opinions I don't want to see? Trolls can roll up a new account for every single post they make, if they want to.

> there is no obligation to refute bullshit to begin with.

No, but if you're neither blocking nor refuting it, then your community is going to quickly become majority bullshit.

	▲	raffael_de 34 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		it seems to me that the networking design is flawed. just to give a simple example: whitelisting (only seeing content of friends and followees) versus blacklisting (seeing everything ranked by an algorithm). wouldn't whitelisting already solve most of those issues? that would actually be my preferred modus anyway.

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toss1 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If a social network has an ACTUAL straight chronological feed of only accts you follow, or lists you curate, that works great.

Somebody posts abhorrent Nazi racist crap, or lies about what is happening, you shut them off, and they'll never be heard by you again. Yes, you need to see/hear the crap or propaganda once for each Nazi or liar, but that's it.

The problem is nearly every social platform needs to increase your engagement get you to click or scroll just another time so they get to show you more adverts and make more money and claim more 'engagement' to juice their stock price. So along with having to listen to the advertisements, you ALSO are REQUIRED to see/listen to the crap and lies.

The good solution — "you don't have to listen" — is not an actual option in the real world.

(NB: This is why Section 230 should only protect web providers if they have no algorithm. Once they have an algo, they exercise more editorial control than any newspaper or broadcast editor — they ARE responsible for the content, not because they posted it, their users did, but because they routed it to you.)

	▲	raffael_de an hour ago \| parent [-]
		the context here is the fediverse and not social platforms based on financial incentives.