The problem with moderation so far has been the lack of business models that allow new market participants to enter. Big social media companies can engage big IT services companies who will hire thousands of contract workers to do the stuff. But that’s about all there is right now.
A market for content moderation services is a good idea. Players can sell these services both to Big Tech as well as to Fediverse instances and forum moderators etc.
But there is a challenge. The idea of a federated social media model means each instance gets to determine what is acceptable and what is not, and a lot of these decisions involve judgement calls, and neither AI nor context-removed human operators can get it right.
Sounds reasonable to me and I suspect certain parts of Wikipedia might be better for it. I am also reminded of many different cases where content providers need to be legally compliant and take down certain materials (child porn, revenge porn, torture, gore, DOXing, etc.). Do I want to be doing that for my mastodon server? Sounds like a fucking nightmare, yet very important for the web I want to be a part of.
The last thing I want to see on Mastodon is political activists regulating the content that can be seen. You guys can stay on the centralized networks.
What these people really want is a curated forum so they can browse the threads that interest them and they don't have to see any posts in a thread about a topic that triggers them. It is fundamentally incompatible with the desire to consume social media in an infinite timeline style...
If anything the psychological reactance to moderation is a disorder. Specifically it would be categorized as an externalizing disorder in the likes of ODD, CD, and ASP.
No-one is talking about proper moderation in moderation, I assume the reply was meaning people like Discord and Reddit mods who are often irregular people who overstep what is needed from them. It reminds me of American cops and Politicians - I think a certain kind of weird personality is driven just to get any taste of power they can exercise on people.
Being opposed to people like that isn't ODD. Its also something I think will be a problem in selling Mastodon - it's easier to justify a strict dictatorship in a small community when other choices are available, "just go somewhere else then?", than it is on big social media platforms where the expectation (at least in theory) is that they'll be somewhat balanced and impartial. No expects impartiality from a discord mod.
No, it's definitely the other way around. Some people enjoy the power trip of censoring someone they disagree with.
The perfect system of rules for moderation would be one you'd comfortably handle out to your ideological adversaries to enforce. If the outcome is still unfair, there's something wrong with the rules.
I don't disagree that this type of moderator exists. I've left spaces because of this type of moderator. And I have no issue with your other points, but we're talking about different things.
I've also noticed that there's a group of people who absolutely hate to be told what to do. They have an innate psychological reactance toward it. It shows up in defiance to regulation, paying taxes, and yes even the idea that their internet posts could be moderated. It's a strange attractor in personality-space and they are very effective at using the mechanisms of social construction to pass their ideas off as the natural order.
It's more like "a group of people who absolutely hate to be told what to do by people they completely disagree with/have nothing in common with*". It's not a pyschological disorder, as it has to do with survival. Lack of defiance is probably a psychological disorder.
Historically, those tensions were resolved with wars/civil wars/insurgents/civil unrest.
It's definitely a reactance trait. These folks become hostile and antisocial when asked to play by the rules. Keep an eye out for it - it's much more common than you think.
The problem with moderation so far has been the lack of business models that allow new market participants to enter. Big social media companies can engage big IT services companies who will hire thousands of contract workers to do the stuff. But that’s about all there is right now.
A market for content moderation services is a good idea. Players can sell these services both to Big Tech as well as to Fediverse instances and forum moderators etc.
But there is a challenge. The idea of a federated social media model means each instance gets to determine what is acceptable and what is not, and a lot of these decisions involve judgement calls, and neither AI nor context-removed human operators can get it right.
Sounds reasonable to me and I suspect certain parts of Wikipedia might be better for it. I am also reminded of many different cases where content providers need to be legally compliant and take down certain materials (child porn, revenge porn, torture, gore, DOXing, etc.). Do I want to be doing that for my mastodon server? Sounds like a fucking nightmare, yet very important for the web I want to be a part of.
The last thing I want to see on Mastodon is political activists regulating the content that can be seen. You guys can stay on the centralized networks.
At what point does the constant desire to 'moderate content' become a personality disorder?
What these people really want is a curated forum so they can browse the threads that interest them and they don't have to see any posts in a thread about a topic that triggers them. It is fundamentally incompatible with the desire to consume social media in an infinite timeline style...
It would be nice if all people were capable of moderating their own responses, but pretty clearly they cannot.
If anything the psychological reactance to moderation is a disorder. Specifically it would be categorized as an externalizing disorder in the likes of ODD, CD, and ASP.
No-one is talking about proper moderation in moderation, I assume the reply was meaning people like Discord and Reddit mods who are often irregular people who overstep what is needed from them. It reminds me of American cops and Politicians - I think a certain kind of weird personality is driven just to get any taste of power they can exercise on people.
Being opposed to people like that isn't ODD. Its also something I think will be a problem in selling Mastodon - it's easier to justify a strict dictatorship in a small community when other choices are available, "just go somewhere else then?", than it is on big social media platforms where the expectation (at least in theory) is that they'll be somewhat balanced and impartial. No expects impartiality from a discord mod.
No, it's definitely the other way around. Some people enjoy the power trip of censoring someone they disagree with.
The perfect system of rules for moderation would be one you'd comfortably handle out to your ideological adversaries to enforce. If the outcome is still unfair, there's something wrong with the rules.
Something like "I cut, you choose".
I don't disagree that this type of moderator exists. I've left spaces because of this type of moderator. And I have no issue with your other points, but we're talking about different things.
I've also noticed that there's a group of people who absolutely hate to be told what to do. They have an innate psychological reactance toward it. It shows up in defiance to regulation, paying taxes, and yes even the idea that their internet posts could be moderated. It's a strange attractor in personality-space and they are very effective at using the mechanisms of social construction to pass their ideas off as the natural order.
All the things you mention are mechanisms of social construction, not natural order.
It's more like "a group of people who absolutely hate to be told what to do by people they completely disagree with/have nothing in common with*". It's not a pyschological disorder, as it has to do with survival. Lack of defiance is probably a psychological disorder. Historically, those tensions were resolved with wars/civil wars/insurgents/civil unrest.
It's definitely a reactance trait. These folks become hostile and antisocial when asked to play by the rules. Keep an eye out for it - it's much more common than you think.
And specifically to moderate only those things that challenge one's political biases. Its always so drenched in hypocrisy.