Content moderation became an industrial process(logicmag.io)
logicmag.io
Content moderation became an industrial process
https://logicmag.io/04-the-scale-is-just-unfathomable/
67 comments
Because social media platforms operate at this scale, we as a society are being asked to tolerate the fact that even content as universally abhorred and clearly illegal as child pornography can be and is available on our favorite platforms, if only briefly.
Being asked by whom? The same person asking us to tolerate the presence of homeless people? Clearly said content is not so universally abhorred if it continues to be produced and made available. What we are actually being asked is to confront the fact that these things exist in our society and that we can't expect them to be kept neatly swept under the rug for us.
Being asked by whom? The same person asking us to tolerate the presence of homeless people? Clearly said content is not so universally abhorred if it continues to be produced and made available. What we are actually being asked is to confront the fact that these things exist in our society and that we can't expect them to be kept neatly swept under the rug for us.
Child pornography and homeless people are not comparable. Homeless people have a right to shelter, whereas pictures do not have rights. We take down child pornography not because we wish to "sweep it under the rug", but because the pictures are inherently and irredeemably harmful.
At minimum, there needs a mens rea requirement on all child porn statutes.
As of right now, someone emailing you an unsolicited CP image means you have broken the law, with absolutely no intent on your side. In fact, this is an avenue of attacking someone, but sending them these pictures.
A mens rea would require that the person intended or requested these be sent, and necessitate proof of that.
Long story short, I'm against statutory laws by and large. There's almost always a potential justifiable defense, even to homicide. There's also classes of crimes which aren't crimes if there's no mindful intent.
As of right now, someone emailing you an unsolicited CP image means you have broken the law, with absolutely no intent on your side. In fact, this is an avenue of attacking someone, but sending them these pictures.
A mens rea would require that the person intended or requested these be sent, and necessitate proof of that.
Long story short, I'm against statutory laws by and large. There's almost always a potential justifiable defense, even to homicide. There's also classes of crimes which aren't crimes if there's no mindful intent.
In what jurisdiction? The US does have mens rea.
Mere possession isnt enough; it has to be proven that you sought it, or knew what it was and kept it, and (variable) be in possession of 3 or more artifacts. Keeping it, hiding it in a buried folder and renaming the files using terms common only amongst exploitation rings does not help your defense against any of these factors.
Lots of claims of non-solicitation get made--nobody is going to admit otherwise--but after forensics it always turns out to either truly be a really shitty prank or the recipient was way more involved than they were willing to admit.
Nobody gets prosecuted for simply being on the wrong end of an email. There is always more to the story.
Mere possession isnt enough; it has to be proven that you sought it, or knew what it was and kept it, and (variable) be in possession of 3 or more artifacts. Keeping it, hiding it in a buried folder and renaming the files using terms common only amongst exploitation rings does not help your defense against any of these factors.
Lots of claims of non-solicitation get made--nobody is going to admit otherwise--but after forensics it always turns out to either truly be a really shitty prank or the recipient was way more involved than they were willing to admit.
Nobody gets prosecuted for simply being on the wrong end of an email. There is always more to the story.
Then I would encourage you to study the law behind the statutes..
https://yalelawtech.org/2009/11/02/why-mens-rea-should-be-ap...
"In Osborne v. Ohio, the United States Supreme Court explained that laws making possession of pornography a crime, regardless of the circumstances, were constitutional. "
However there are beginning to be some cracks in the strict liability from this case where a 16 year old lied about her age and obtained fake drivers license credentials stating the fraudulent age.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
Obviously, each state can have its own laws. But the key here is "strict liability" versus "mens rea". And no, prosecutorial discretion is no substitute for mens rea.
https://yalelawtech.org/2009/11/02/why-mens-rea-should-be-ap...
"In Osborne v. Ohio, the United States Supreme Court explained that laws making possession of pornography a crime, regardless of the circumstances, were constitutional. "
However there are beginning to be some cracks in the strict liability from this case where a 16 year old lied about her age and obtained fake drivers license credentials stating the fraudulent age.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
Obviously, each state can have its own laws. But the key here is "strict liability" versus "mens rea". And no, prosecutorial discretion is no substitute for mens rea.
What about pictures of other crimes involving children, like dead and mutilated children. The parents can be re-victimized by seeing their dead children online again and again, potentially. If the child survived, it would surely be triggering to see themselves suffering so horribly.
Should people posessing such pictures be treated as harshly as people posessing cp? They certainly are not right now.
I guess intent is different on the production side. It's usually reporting (but often times people just sharing pictures they received from someone, without any censorship or much verification). But what do we know why people want to posess such pictures. It's a picture/video of a horrific crime involving a child, perhaps even more horrific than most CP. I mean how can you compare a child being tickled inappropriately for example with a child intentionally burned by chemicals until it slowly drowns to death because of pulmonary edema.
Sometimes society's rules are hard do make sense of if you try to make sense of them rationally.
Should people posessing such pictures be treated as harshly as people posessing cp? They certainly are not right now.
I guess intent is different on the production side. It's usually reporting (but often times people just sharing pictures they received from someone, without any censorship or much verification). But what do we know why people want to posess such pictures. It's a picture/video of a horrific crime involving a child, perhaps even more horrific than most CP. I mean how can you compare a child being tickled inappropriately for example with a child intentionally burned by chemicals until it slowly drowns to death because of pulmonary edema.
Sometimes society's rules are hard do make sense of if you try to make sense of them rationally.
Laws are a balance of interests. There are legitimate reasons to show violent crimes in a documentary, work of art, or political commentary, which balance against the harm. There are no reasons to show child pornography.
Sexual abuse emphasizes dynamics of objectification, humiliation, powerlessness. I'd argue that victims respond more strongly to pictures of sexual abuse than to pictures of physical violence. Wikipedia says that a million children have been abused to produce child pornography, whereas there are few instances of violence to produce pictures of violence. In this sense, child pornography is inseparable from the crime, whereas with violence, there is a distinction between the crime and the documentation.
That said, I do sympathize with the view that sentences for the possession of child pornography are too harsh, especially when viewing pedophilia as a mental disorder. I strongly support efforts to make therapy more accessible, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevention_Project_Dunkelfeld.
Sexual abuse emphasizes dynamics of objectification, humiliation, powerlessness. I'd argue that victims respond more strongly to pictures of sexual abuse than to pictures of physical violence. Wikipedia says that a million children have been abused to produce child pornography, whereas there are few instances of violence to produce pictures of violence. In this sense, child pornography is inseparable from the crime, whereas with violence, there is a distinction between the crime and the documentation.
That said, I do sympathize with the view that sentences for the possession of child pornography are too harsh, especially when viewing pedophilia as a mental disorder. I strongly support efforts to make therapy more accessible, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevention_Project_Dunkelfeld.
Yes, there's a component that some people are attracted to viewing CP, thus there's incentive to produce it.
This component is probably not that present in an addiction to gore material. People can be sensitive to the way the material was produced and react differently to accidental/documentary, staged voluntary, or staged involuntary recordings. If you search online you'll find accounts of people being horrified, yet attracted to gore.
Psychology of these things is quite interesting.
This component is probably not that present in an addiction to gore material. People can be sensitive to the way the material was produced and react differently to accidental/documentary, staged voluntary, or staged involuntary recordings. If you search online you'll find accounts of people being horrified, yet attracted to gore.
Psychology of these things is quite interesting.
Metaphor is not comparison. We do not need to remove the useful construct of metaphor from language simply because it considers two things which are otherwise distinct along the lines where they are similar. Child pornography and homeless people are both things which 'polite society' would like to not have to deal with at all. It is easy to make an argument for eliminating child pornography on its other aspects (the harm), but the facts of homelessness would identically be targeted by any system which seeks to assist 'polite society' in eliminating utterly from social platforms anything which they would like to not be confronted with. Because the system can't be built to target based on harm. But it can be built to target based on 'I don't want to see that'. And in that way, the metaphor is useful.
Can you describe what that harm is? If a picture is copied to 100 recipients, does the harm multiply by 100 times also? How is that information communicated to the victim?
I can imagine this being the case for defamation. 100 people being told "Johnny is a thief" might cause 100 times as much harm to Johnny's social interactions as 1 person being told that. But how does it work for child porn?
I can imagine this being the case for defamation. 100 people being told "Johnny is a thief" might cause 100 times as much harm to Johnny's social interactions as 1 person being told that. But how does it work for child porn?
Consider it as if you were a child victim. Imagine coming across these pictures of your abuse, or your family coming across these pictures. Or your coworkers. Or strangers. The pictures reenact the crime, invoking shame, dread, and helplessness. Here are some stories: https://redd.it/8af7io, http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/a-victim-of-chi....
As a moral principle, it should not be legal to share these exploitative pictures. In terms of information, every copy of a picture increases the probability that it comes back to haunt the victim.
Finally, many viewers of child pornography find the pictures horrible or even traumatic. Many people are unfazed, but some experience nightmares or severe anxiety, especially investigators and moderators: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/.
As a moral principle, it should not be legal to share these exploitative pictures. In terms of information, every copy of a picture increases the probability that it comes back to haunt the victim.
Finally, many viewers of child pornography find the pictures horrible or even traumatic. Many people are unfazed, but some experience nightmares or severe anxiety, especially investigators and moderators: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/.
To the first part, it’s hard to imagine someone “stumbling across” child pornography by accident. The first post you linked is more realistic, in that she’s talking about knowing the images still exist, are still in collections and in that sense she’s still victimized. Unlocking some phones isn’t going to change that, nothing will. She’s not seeing it herself, she just knows that since it was distributed, it’s impossible to take it all back.
I agree that it shouldn’t be legal to possess or share child pornography, but I don’t think it’s a justification for mass invasion of privacy either. When someone is detected with child porn they should be in legal jeapordy, but we don’t need to kill crypto to make that happen.
I agree that it shouldn’t be legal to possess or share child pornography, but I don’t think it’s a justification for mass invasion of privacy either. When someone is detected with child porn they should be in legal jeapordy, but we don’t need to kill crypto to make that happen.
Many victims try to find out how their pictures are being shared, as in my second link, because they feel that knowing is better than not knowing. And considering how awful it must feel to know, I think that really says something.
Privacy rights are also important, and I agree with you that police should respect those rights when investigating child pornography, just as with any other crime.
Privacy rights are also important, and I agree with you that police should respect those rights when investigating child pornography, just as with any other crime.
The existing victims are irrelevant; the idea is that by reducing the supply, demand will also diminish.
Communities that end up decimated by drugs tend to have had easy access to them in the years earlier. Drugs and porn both fulfill a cycle of progressively weaker dopamine rushes.
Once a user gets to the point where they need the hard stuff, theyll eventually need harder and this drives demand for further proliferation and production of new content-- the worst possible outcome is the increase of both consumers and producers in the market.
Communities that end up decimated by drugs tend to have had easy access to them in the years earlier. Drugs and porn both fulfill a cycle of progressively weaker dopamine rushes.
Once a user gets to the point where they need the hard stuff, theyll eventually need harder and this drives demand for further proliferation and production of new content-- the worst possible outcome is the increase of both consumers and producers in the market.
I don't think it's absolutely certain that already produced cp is inherently and irredeemably harmful after the fact. It has been debated and researched but it's not really clear if distribution and consumption should be treated with anywhere near the same criminality as production. Also parent brings up a good point that almost all platforms that allow content sharing deal with pretty massive amounts of things like cp, but we as a society never really address the popularity head on, similar to how we have treated drug abuse historically ("it's something bad that only bad people do and there aren't that many of them--certainly none I know!")
Everything old is new again! Centralization can only ever lead to censorship - the edges inherently disagree, and at the very least the centralizing entity doesn't want to get caught in between. Never mind the power that comes with setting the zeitgeist for a large number of people.
I can only hope that the resulting milquetoast is boring enough that the median user actually puts forth the effort to use freer next-gen technologies rather than settle for this technically-lazy "web 2.0" promulgated by Surveillance Valley.
I can only hope that the resulting milquetoast is boring enough that the median user actually puts forth the effort to use freer next-gen technologies rather than settle for this technically-lazy "web 2.0" promulgated by Surveillance Valley.
Good luck getting a large population of users from varying backgrounds and age ranges to want to hang out in a completely unmoderated place where anyone can be attacked, harassed, or shown obscene content.
You're mixing together separate issues, then using the balled up uncertainty in support of a (too) common assumption that only a benevolent central entity (eg God) can sort it out.
Reddit itself was designed around the idea of multiple communities simultaneously existing on its site, with a low barriers for interacting with a plurality at a time. So "backgrounds and ages" is moot.
As far as unwanted communications, then it's not like Reddit et al are actually currently preventing such things, and not for a lack of trying! This is an edge concern, and in fact can only be fully solved at the edges. Any central solution necessarily relies on post-facto punishment, which necessarily relies on attribution to immutable top-down-imposed identifiers (and if you think this sounds like a good idea, then we really have no common ground!).
I don't expect to be able to convince you, as all I am essentially saying is that the easy answers are not answers. As I said, I just hope the inevitable mediocrity that comes out of centralization is boring enough to drive most everybody to seek out places that are not centrally controlled. Or at the very minimum, that the minority willing to tolerate unsafe speech will be free to go their own way.
Reddit itself was designed around the idea of multiple communities simultaneously existing on its site, with a low barriers for interacting with a plurality at a time. So "backgrounds and ages" is moot.
As far as unwanted communications, then it's not like Reddit et al are actually currently preventing such things, and not for a lack of trying! This is an edge concern, and in fact can only be fully solved at the edges. Any central solution necessarily relies on post-facto punishment, which necessarily relies on attribution to immutable top-down-imposed identifiers (and if you think this sounds like a good idea, then we really have no common ground!).
I don't expect to be able to convince you, as all I am essentially saying is that the easy answers are not answers. As I said, I just hope the inevitable mediocrity that comes out of centralization is boring enough to drive most everybody to seek out places that are not centrally controlled. Or at the very minimum, that the minority willing to tolerate unsafe speech will be free to go their own way.
You assume that the majority of people are unhappy with a subjective term such as "boring."
The thing is the "moderation" that's being discussed just bare content filtering, more or less one step past the scripts and neural nets.
Which brings up the point that good moderation is something entirely different. Good moderation involves a person actually emphasizing civil discussion and providing an alternative to argument by shock.
Of course, some fair portion of larger social networking systems today might well be described as "what happens when you remove all moderation" in multiple senses of the term. With that situation actually spilling over into a lot of society with attendant problems (as well as the more invisible problem that real problems get ignored).
Some systems now seem to be aiming for an opposite to this. Kialo is one effort but their approach to debate seems to rigid. A more "personal" approach where the debate is open but assumption of reasonableness is simply implicit would work better imo.
Which brings up the point that good moderation is something entirely different. Good moderation involves a person actually emphasizing civil discussion and providing an alternative to argument by shock.
Of course, some fair portion of larger social networking systems today might well be described as "what happens when you remove all moderation" in multiple senses of the term. With that situation actually spilling over into a lot of society with attendant problems (as well as the more invisible problem that real problems get ignored).
Some systems now seem to be aiming for an opposite to this. Kialo is one effort but their approach to debate seems to rigid. A more "personal" approach where the debate is open but assumption of reasonableness is simply implicit would work better imo.
But thats the point of the article - that at this scale, there is only industrialized moderation possible.
They describe 3 models by which this can happen, and the type of moderation you describe is classified as "artisanal" or work shop level moderation.
And I guarantee, every system has been tried, and found wanting.
Because every system which gets anywhere, will attract value and then those who prey on those systems and target the weaknesses of those systems.
They describe 3 models by which this can happen, and the type of moderation you describe is classified as "artisanal" or work shop level moderation.
And I guarantee, every system has been tried, and found wanting.
Because every system which gets anywhere, will attract value and then those who prey on those systems and target the weaknesses of those systems.
In essence it’s the difference between what’s done here on HN, and the travesty that is Twitter.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that HN is good. All societies are biased in various ways, and there are plenty of bigotries and stupidities uttered here on a daily basis.
What you are doing is drawing an us-vs-them distinction. It's not healthy for discourse.
What you are doing is drawing an us-vs-them distinction. It's not healthy for discourse.
HN is objectively better at content moderation than Twitter is. Not perfect, but better.
I would argue that's truly subjective. What's the definition of good content moderation?
Each platform has its purpose.
Each platform has its purpose.
"Objectively?" Could you please define your metric and then carry out a measurement, hopefully in a preregistered and reproducible manner? If not, why so confident? Because your tribe, the HN tribe, is objectively better than the Twitter tribe?
HN has guidelines, which are explicitly stated. Twitter (I gather) has guidelines or standards. So you measure content moderation by the number of posts that break the guidelines that are not moderated out.
Your metric is not scale-invariant.
It is trivially gamed by malicious actors. It does not reward higher-quality discourse. It rewards overzealous moderators. It rewards edgy or controversial discourse which does not break the guidelines. It rewards users who contribute a bare minimum of information while punishing users who write longer, more informative or interesting posts.
Worst, by what objective measuring device can a post be compared to the guidelines? There are many extremely-subjective suggestions in HN's guidelines alone:
* "Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face."
* "Assume good faith."
* "Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say." (Wanna give us a list of flamewar topics, mods?)
* "Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle." As I write this, there is an ideological battle between JS frameworks on the front page.
* "On HN, users should have an identity that others can relate to."
Could you write a script that measures whether an HN post breaks the guidelines?
It is trivially gamed by malicious actors. It does not reward higher-quality discourse. It rewards overzealous moderators. It rewards edgy or controversial discourse which does not break the guidelines. It rewards users who contribute a bare minimum of information while punishing users who write longer, more informative or interesting posts.
Worst, by what objective measuring device can a post be compared to the guidelines? There are many extremely-subjective suggestions in HN's guidelines alone:
* "Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face."
* "Assume good faith."
* "Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say." (Wanna give us a list of flamewar topics, mods?)
* "Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle." As I write this, there is an ideological battle between JS frameworks on the front page.
* "On HN, users should have an identity that others can relate to."
Could you write a script that measures whether an HN post breaks the guidelines?
> It is trivially gamed by malicious actors. It does not reward higher-quality discourse. It rewards overzealous moderators. It rewards edgy or controversial discourse which does not break the guidelines. It rewards users who contribute a bare minimum of information while punishing users who write longer, more informative or interesting posts.
To the best of my ability to determine, every single thing you said in this paragraph is false. Could you explain how you think some of that works? Because, quite frankly, your comments here look like you just want to complain about HN.
> Could you write a script that measures whether an HN post breaks the guidelines?
No. I could evaluate a bunch of posts, though, and I suspect that my evaluation of that bunch of posts would not be statistically different from others' evaluation of them (assuming fairness and no malice on all the evaluators' part, of course).
It's not automeable, and it's not perfect. But it's also not rocket science.
To the best of my ability to determine, every single thing you said in this paragraph is false. Could you explain how you think some of that works? Because, quite frankly, your comments here look like you just want to complain about HN.
> Could you write a script that measures whether an HN post breaks the guidelines?
No. I could evaluate a bunch of posts, though, and I suspect that my evaluation of that bunch of posts would not be statistically different from others' evaluation of them (assuming fairness and no malice on all the evaluators' part, of course).
It's not automeable, and it's not perfect. But it's also not rocket science.
Why are the platforms this big? Why can’t a small community run its own software like it runs Wordpress, but for social apps and police itself?
A village knew whether someone was yelling obscenities. HN is a smaller community, with its own software.
I think the answer is that there is no good open source software for this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI
A village knew whether someone was yelling obscenities. HN is a smaller community, with its own software.
I think the answer is that there is no good open source software for this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI
That already happens but they're small communities so you don't have much awareness of those that you're not a member of. Anyone can join privately run forums with like-minded people and sensible moderation that they agree with. There's no problem to be solved. When you want small communities, you have forums, when you want lowest-common-denominator drivel, you have Facebook, and when you want to feel tribal warmth by sharing your political opinions with people who agree with you while also being protected from opinions you don't agree with, you have Twitter.
> when you want lowest-common-denominator drivel, you have Facebook, and when you want to feel tribal warmth by sharing your political opinions with people who agree with you while also being protected from opinions you don't agree with, you have Twitter.
That's not exactly fair; you can customize Twitter (to some degree, if you use a third party app) and Facebook (to an even smaller degree) to actually get content you care about. (e.g., there's no small forum I can join that'll get me Charles Stross's musings and a video game developer whose updates I like and a podcast's funny tweets.)
RSS used to be great for that sort of thing, but it's been largely superceded by Twitter, etc.
That's not exactly fair; you can customize Twitter (to some degree, if you use a third party app) and Facebook (to an even smaller degree) to actually get content you care about. (e.g., there's no small forum I can join that'll get me Charles Stross's musings and a video game developer whose updates I like and a podcast's funny tweets.)
RSS used to be great for that sort of thing, but it's been largely superceded by Twitter, etc.
The answer is that most people are unaware of the history of the interent.
Even in bygone eras there were LOTS of communities like this, and they too had to deal with these issues.
Famously - Jewish communities would get targetted by Nazis, or Holocaust deniers. They would get DDOSed or worse.
Spam, trolls and so on were always there.
Many of the terms we use to describe this problem come from that era.
In the end, you ALWAYS end up depending on moderation. Its not the software - its the wetware.
Even in bygone eras there were LOTS of communities like this, and they too had to deal with these issues.
Famously - Jewish communities would get targetted by Nazis, or Holocaust deniers. They would get DDOSed or worse.
Spam, trolls and so on were always there.
Many of the terms we use to describe this problem come from that era.
In the end, you ALWAYS end up depending on moderation. Its not the software - its the wetware.
Or just let it go completely unmoderated.
If that was ever an option, it isn’t now. It would just be a bot war drowning everyone else out, and that’s not free speech either.
It's not about free speech. You are trying to tame chaos, it isn't going to work and you just wasted millions of dollars on nothing.
Go to Reddit, then go to Voat. It makes a difference. You can’t completely win, but you can definitely lose.
Why cant i scroll properly on iPad on that site. Never thought I’d notice!
It is sad to see sites like reddit turn into police states.
Any bit of skin or bad word and content is marked NSWF.
Other topics not on paar with the main stream is banned or deleted by moderators. Topics that back a few years ago would have sparked a good and healthy discussion.
Now people live in a filer bubble. Reality is too scary...
Any bit of skin or bad word and content is marked NSWF.
Other topics not on paar with the main stream is banned or deleted by moderators. Topics that back a few years ago would have sparked a good and healthy discussion.
Now people live in a filer bubble. Reality is too scary...
I used to be a huge reader of reddit's /r/politics. Enough that it was my primary aggregator - until I started to notice that a lot of the stories didn't seem to mesh with reality.
So I switched to an RSS feed of the top 20 news publications - in an attempt to get a relatively unbiased feed (obviously still biased, but hopefully at least more moderate) and the picture I get in my political news is very different now.
It's difficult because so many of these subreddits pretend to be neutral but are extremely biased one way or another - often in subtle ways that aren't disclosed or easily discovered.
So I switched to an RSS feed of the top 20 news publications - in an attempt to get a relatively unbiased feed (obviously still biased, but hopefully at least more moderate) and the picture I get in my political news is very different now.
It's difficult because so many of these subreddits pretend to be neutral but are extremely biased one way or another - often in subtle ways that aren't disclosed or easily discovered.
I've tried this and my problem is that conservative new sources, like Fox, seem to be objectively less reality-based. There are exceptions like the WSJ and the Economist, but for a UK Guardian-loving lefty like me, what conservative news publications would you recommend?
Fox news is about the same amount of biased as Huffpost (which is to say, both are quite biased).
WSJ is definitely fiscally conservative, and otherwise fairly moderate.
Economist is actually quite liberal leaning.
It's possible that your personal bias is very liberal so normal "conservative" positions seem far right. To be fair, news as a whole tends to lean slightly liberal.
http://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444 is a decent source for news bias alignment.
WSJ is definitely fiscally conservative, and otherwise fairly moderate.
Economist is actually quite liberal leaning.
It's possible that your personal bias is very liberal so normal "conservative" positions seem far right. To be fair, news as a whole tends to lean slightly liberal.
http://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444 is a decent source for news bias alignment.
I'm getting downvoted for my post, so perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough. I know there are numerous left-leaning publications that are unreliable, like the Huffington Post. But there are ample others, like the NYT, Washington Post, San Jose Mercury News, etc. I can read instead. I realize none of these publications have a perfect track record, but they are relatively transparent in admitting to and correcting their errors.
On to the point of whether publications like the Economist are left or not. This may be a matter of whether you consider neoliberal policies to be conservative. I personally believe that the Economist's position on privatizing industries, selling national assets, minimizing worker protections in the form of minimum wage laws, etc. to all be extremely conservative.
I happen to be more sympathetic to opening borders to immigration, which the Economist supports. And the Economist is very much anti-death penalty, and, as others have pointed out, they are socially liberal (in the US sense) in a number of other ways. But at the end of the day this is a magazine called The Economist, and their economic views are mostly in direct opposition to mine.
But I'll still read it, because I think it's a mostly fact-based publication.
On to the point of whether publications like the Economist are left or not. This may be a matter of whether you consider neoliberal policies to be conservative. I personally believe that the Economist's position on privatizing industries, selling national assets, minimizing worker protections in the form of minimum wage laws, etc. to all be extremely conservative.
I happen to be more sympathetic to opening borders to immigration, which the Economist supports. And the Economist is very much anti-death penalty, and, as others have pointed out, they are socially liberal (in the US sense) in a number of other ways. But at the end of the day this is a magazine called The Economist, and their economic views are mostly in direct opposition to mine.
But I'll still read it, because I think it's a mostly fact-based publication.
So the general method for analyzing political leaning/bias is by analyzing not the stated policy positions but the self declared leaning of the audience.
The reason for that is the bias of any given position is very difficult to calculate and political identities are heavily nuanced across the entire spectrum. In addition, most people don't subscribe to well fixed ideological positions on most issues - and the line of being moderate shifts over time.
But yes, as I said earlier, most news is a bit liberal leaning so news isn't perfectly aligned and in general there are much more liberal news sources then conservative news sources.
In general your best bet is to read a lot of news sources, understand that all news has some bias (towards increasing readership, as well as a slight liberal lean), and do your best to kind of meet in the middle. Be aware of general logical fallacies and try to correct for them as best you can, and always question everything.
The reason for that is the bias of any given position is very difficult to calculate and political identities are heavily nuanced across the entire spectrum. In addition, most people don't subscribe to well fixed ideological positions on most issues - and the line of being moderate shifts over time.
But yes, as I said earlier, most news is a bit liberal leaning so news isn't perfectly aligned and in general there are much more liberal news sources then conservative news sources.
In general your best bet is to read a lot of news sources, understand that all news has some bias (towards increasing readership, as well as a slight liberal lean), and do your best to kind of meet in the middle. Be aware of general logical fallacies and try to correct for them as best you can, and always question everything.
This might not appeal to you but there are a lot of reasonable non-nutty right wing news commentators on Youtube. It's not really news but they inform you of news stories and put their opinion on them. They seem more sensible than Fox News and don't have quite the same rigid set of political beliefs. They also have their opposition Youtubers who do their best to find fault in what each other says.
I've started to think the idea of left and right wing are grossly over-simplistic. They might have made sense in the days of mass media where there was no room for personal differences but now you can find popular Youtubers who support a mixture of traditionally left and right ideas.
I've started to think the idea of left and right wing are grossly over-simplistic. They might have made sense in the days of mass media where there was no room for personal differences but now you can find popular Youtubers who support a mixture of traditionally left and right ideas.
My preferred sanity check was the FT but sadly they stopped letting you read a few pieces free a month. Since the Telegraph remade themselves downmarket behind a paywall the only other I can think of is Reuters. Reuters' coverage of environment and climate change is dubious.
Economist describe themselves as "extreme centre" and have supported both right and left at different times. So they're likely to remain hard to precisely pin down. :)
Economist describe themselves as "extreme centre" and have supported both right and left at different times. So they're likely to remain hard to precisely pin down. :)
Economist is libertarian / European liberal, not USAmerican liberal (which is more like "progressive").
Maybe try the National Review? I disagree with a lot of their conservative stances but they are typically well thought out and often at odds with Fox and the completely loony alt-right news sites. But NR is more of a news-magazine, they don't cover everything and don't necessarily cover breaking news.
For example, they advocate protecting marijuana legalizing states at the federal level. (https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/marijuana-policy-shou...).
https://www.nationalreview.com/
For example, they advocate protecting marijuana legalizing states at the federal level. (https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/marijuana-policy-shou...).
https://www.nationalreview.com/
NR is an opinion mag / think tank, not a news magazine.
Reuters seems pretty solid, though I wouldn't classify them as "conservative". They're not clearly liberal, though.
The Economist isn't a conservative news source by almost any possible metric. They are actually very socially liberal (and generally economically centrist).
A lot of their positions (taxation, free education, government spending in infrastructure, universal healthcare, etc.) would be classified as left-leaning or left.
Additionally, I've seen that leftist news sources aren't by any means behind rightist ones in terms of fake news. They just focus on different sets of fake news.
Maybe the fact that you find rightist news more biased is just a result of your own bias. You overlook the bias in the publications that are aligned with your beliefs.
A lot of their positions (taxation, free education, government spending in infrastructure, universal healthcare, etc.) would be classified as left-leaning or left.
Additionally, I've seen that leftist news sources aren't by any means behind rightist ones in terms of fake news. They just focus on different sets of fake news.
Maybe the fact that you find rightist news more biased is just a result of your own bias. You overlook the bias in the publications that are aligned with your beliefs.
> Any bit of skin or bad word and content is marked NSWF.
Trying to make a point about a site that explicitly allows its users to post photos of themselves naked and having sex as being too prudish seems weird.
Trying to make a point about a site that explicitly allows its users to post photos of themselves naked and having sex as being too prudish seems weird.
What's wrong with marking content NSFW? Its not censoring it, simply providing a warning to those who may be in a place where their screen is visible and that might not be appropriate.
The issue is that the bar is so low now you can't tell what is actually NSFW. In fact it is so low that being in reddit itself should count as NSFW.
I have seen this abused on sites like Twitter, where images with purely political content have been marked age-inappropriate.
Reddit doesn't block anyone from seeing NSFW content.
Right, it's not quite the same because it's the submitter in reddit and the community on Twitter. I'm not trying to agree with the top parent comment about reddit.
Twitter doesn't fully block NSFW content, either. They each have a system requiring a click to unveil or profile setting.
The effect is to obscure the content, so that people just scrolling by won't see it. Someone has to notice it's hidden, trust that it something they do want to see and not a disturbing gore or porn pic, and then click to see it. That has the effect of reducing the reach of the media. It's similar to how people would make messages on the craigslist RnR forum disappear by abusing flagging.
On Reddit, people opposing your message can use voting rings and automation to abuse downvoting, which has the effect of hiding content.
They can complain that your image needs to be NSFW, and ask the moderators to change it. I believe moderators can set it for content, but if you are posting in their sub, you are at their mercy anyway.
Twitter doesn't fully block NSFW content, either. They each have a system requiring a click to unveil or profile setting.
The effect is to obscure the content, so that people just scrolling by won't see it. Someone has to notice it's hidden, trust that it something they do want to see and not a disturbing gore or porn pic, and then click to see it. That has the effect of reducing the reach of the media. It's similar to how people would make messages on the craigslist RnR forum disappear by abusing flagging.
On Reddit, people opposing your message can use voting rings and automation to abuse downvoting, which has the effect of hiding content.
They can complain that your image needs to be NSFW, and ask the moderators to change it. I believe moderators can set it for content, but if you are posting in their sub, you are at their mercy anyway.
No, on Reddit, it doesn't simply provide a warning. It also (as of recent updates) blocks it entirely from search on the mobile site.
Well yes but if you use their trash mobile site then the lack of NSFW content is the least of your concerns.
People usually don't want to voluntarily censor things from themselves. They want to impose their personal moral or political ideology on everyone else.
> Other topics not on paar with the main stream is banned or deleted by moderators. Topics that back a few years ago would have sparked a good and healthy discussion.
Like the quality discussion in r/fatpeoplehate? Or the wholesome debates in r/jailbait?
And I think you're confusing admins and moderators. Moderators sometimes do delete certain threads in subreddits they control - but that's what moderation is.
Like the quality discussion in r/fatpeoplehate? Or the wholesome debates in r/jailbait?
And I think you're confusing admins and moderators. Moderators sometimes do delete certain threads in subreddits they control - but that's what moderation is.
Not sure why you are getting down voted. The sea change at reddit is obvious to any long time user. Rational, objective, fact based unemotional comments that don't mesh with the prevailing narrative will be met with insults and a downvote brigade. I used to spend all day on reddit and now I visit maybe once a week to check a TV show subreddit.
Its eternal September. It will always happen.
Technically it is possible to implement a sort of opt-out or even opt-in moderation instead of mandatory moderation for everyone. The problem is the authorities don't like that and will eventually force the owner to censor something for everyone as long as there is at least some amount of centralized control left to the owner.
It’s a cycle. Smaller communities will arise.
"So there's this very complicated moment of a group coming together, where enough individuals, for whatever reason, sort of agree that something worthwhile is happening, and the decision they make at that moment is: This is good and must be protected. And at that moment, even if it's subconscious, you start getting group effects. And the effects that we've seen come up over and over and over again in online communities."
Clay Shirky, 15 years ago