You don’t even need “power hungry mods” for that to go wrong, you just need mods who don’t care. That’s EXACTLY where Facebook and Twitter are right now. Getting content removed there is basically impossible, I’ve reported people for death threats and was told they never violated community standards.
If the platform isn’t going to moderate itself, the users should be able to.
On Facebook I had a few death threats. One was a fucking doctor. He described in detail how he would murder me and it was disturbing as fuck. I posted screenshots of the conversation on his yelp page and reported him on Facebook. Yelp swiftly took those down and I don’t think Facebook ever did anything about his psychotic threats. Meanwhile I was banned from groups and temporarily from the platform several times for telling proud bigots they are pieces of shit.
They eventually permanently banned me from Facebook for posting that image of supposedly naked Donald Trump. The kicker was they did it like a year after I posted it. That platform is absolutely horrific with moderation. Basically if you support violence and genocide you’re fine but if you curse at people who do you’re not fine at all.
But users can. They can block people, they can block communities, they have all kinds of autonomy. It’s not complete yet but we do have tools.
I am not saying users should not be able to control what they see. I am saying that the downvote mechanism specifically is ineffective. If you have other ideas I am super down to hear them because I find this subject fascinating and I am always in favor of everyone across-the-board having control over what is in front of them and not unfeeling algorithms that only prioritize engagement.
You don’t even need “power hungry mods” for that to go wrong, you just need mods who don’t care. That’s EXACTLY where Facebook and Twitter are right now. Getting content removed there is basically impossible, I’ve reported people for death threats and was told they never violated community standards.
If the platform isn’t going to moderate itself, the users should be able to.
On Facebook I had a few death threats. One was a fucking doctor. He described in detail how he would murder me and it was disturbing as fuck. I posted screenshots of the conversation on his yelp page and reported him on Facebook. Yelp swiftly took those down and I don’t think Facebook ever did anything about his psychotic threats. Meanwhile I was banned from groups and temporarily from the platform several times for telling proud bigots they are pieces of shit.
They eventually permanently banned me from Facebook for posting that image of supposedly naked Donald Trump. The kicker was they did it like a year after I posted it. That platform is absolutely horrific with moderation. Basically if you support violence and genocide you’re fine but if you curse at people who do you’re not fine at all.
But users can. They can block people, they can block communities, they have all kinds of autonomy. It’s not complete yet but we do have tools.
I am not saying users should not be able to control what they see. I am saying that the downvote mechanism specifically is ineffective. If you have other ideas I am super down to hear them because I find this subject fascinating and I am always in favor of everyone across-the-board having control over what is in front of them and not unfeeling algorithms that only prioritize engagement.