|
Have we talked about the recent Substack snafu because holy poo poo: https://twitter.com/samthielman/status/1646622634426134529
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 05:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 23:47 |
|
|
Pachylad posted:Have we talked about the recent Substack snafu because holy poo poo: You shouldn't trust libertarian sociopaths with policing the world's public squares.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 06:20
|
|
|
lol at them creating a twitter clone and deciding they’ll adopt the Elon Musk brand of content moderation
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 06:32
|
|
|
Pachylad posted:Have we talked about the recent Substack snafu because holy poo poo: The video from this is deliciously uncomfortable https://www.tiktok.com/embed/7221602731998498094
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 10:58
|
|
|
Holy poo poo a tech journalist doing journalism. I mean he tried to give douchebeard a way out again and again, but ultimately did his job. drat.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 11:40
|
|
|
Being asked "you have to make these decisions, right?" and not answering is one of the pillars of modern management. Based on the number of times I've seen or directly experienced it, I have to assume this has been taught in business school as some kind of 101 course in "responsibility avoidment" for at least a decade.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 12:12
|
|
|
I mean with how often a lot of journalists don't follow up when people very obviously avoid the question, just avoiding any question you don't want to answer I get why people just do it all the time. It's so refreshing when you come across a good interviewer.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 12:27
|
|
|
Nah, the journalist in the tik tok link was playing gotcha. "Hey CEO, does Sub stack censor a sentence saying "brown people should not be allowed in the US" ?" Of course the straight answer is "no". There are so many ways to say that statement so if the CEO says "yes", the obvious follow-up is asking about some example of someone avoiding filters or terms of service (P0 So once that question was asked the responses were either "No" - He just agreed that brown people shouldn't be allowed in the US. "I am not going to answer that" - He is avoiding doublespeak arsehole but didn't specifically state he believes that brown people should not be allowed in the US. "Yes!", "What about examples x, y and z where this happened?" Maybe some back and forth on specific example that journalist is fully aware of all the specifics of the examples and the interviewee knows nothing but at the end of the day - He is a demonstrated liar and a racist. So he has chosen the second one and wearing the insinuation of being outed as a racist for the rest of his career (because this tik tok is here to stay), that is why he is paid the big bucks. In a similar vein, how do you think Jeff of SA should answer "Does SA censor a sentence saying "a child should be beaten to death for theft"?" - if you think that journalist was a hard hitting truth-finder, then you are not going to like the answer to this question (it was a misfired joke and the poster probated for it but the original post is still undeleted). This is not to say that the CEO is not a raging racist arsehole that also double-speaks but I'm not making any claims to that, just saying that this journalist is using that one weird trick of "gotcha" as old as the hills and interviewees do indeed hate it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 13:14
|
|
|
Nah the dude needs to be ready for a softball question like that if content moderation is part of his business. The interviewer even said “I’m pretty sure this is against your terms” and he could have leaned on the fact then if that’s true then yeah it shouldn’t be allowed and then deflect on how many people and resources are tied to vetting and maintaining the terms of use.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 13:22
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:In a similar vein, how do you think Jeff of SA should answer "Does SA censor a sentence saying "a child should be beaten to death for theft"? It would be nice if Jeff could be honest when talking about SA instead of engaging in the evasive language politicians and corporations use. SA is a small website, not a major government or billion dollar corporation. But maybe that is an unreasonable expectation.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 13:36
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:Nah, the journalist in the tik tok link was playing gotcha. My dude, he doubled down on allowing racism. There's no "gotcha" in the world that would have been as bad as that response
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 13:36
|
|
|
silence_kit posted:It would be nice if Jeff could be honest when talking about SA instead of engaging in the evasive language politicians and corporations use. SA is a small website, not a major government or billion dollar corporation. But maybe that is an unreasonable expectation. So your saying that Jeff should be honest about his belief that children should be killed for theft? Here is some hard hitting interviewer action on racists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lyex2tSUyA
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 13:48
|
|
|
if you read the entire interview the interviewer is absolutely not some 'hard hitting truth finder' trying to grill the guy, the interview was generally extremely soft and substack was always given the benefit of the doubt. the ceo just totally flubbed the simplest gimme premise by refusing to say they would ban hate speech.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 13:54
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:So your saying that Jeff should be honest about his belief that children should be killed for theft? That wasn’t the question. IMO he should answer the question honestly, which likely is that he doesn’t believe in censoring speech like that. Refusing to censor something isn’t the same thing as endorsing. There are goons who post all kinds of morally abhorrent things on this website. Most of it doesn’t get censored.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 14:00
|
|
|
Stexils posted:if you read the entire interview the interviewer is absolutely not some 'hard hitting truth finder' trying to grill the guy, the interview was generally extremely soft and substack was always given the benefit of the doubt. the ceo just totally flubbed the simplest gimme premise by refusing to say they would ban hate speech. because you can't ban hate speach. That's why he couldn't say it. Someone finding 88 on your site is enough to prove that you have not banned hate speech. How would you ensure that there both no hate speech on a site and that no employees are exposed to hate speech (on the second one, the "cute" answer is to outsource the moderation to the Philippines - contractors, not employees)?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 14:27
|
|
|
youre conflating policy with execution. its impossible to scrub every scrap of hate speech from social media site but that doesnt mean that company policy is hate speech is fine, just that their resources are limited. this is generally understood and typically only comes up when it appears the company is undermoderating or deliberately allowing hate speech to stay up (like facebook undoing algorithm tweaks discouraging extremism because it also dropped engagement or musk unbanning a bunch of right wingers).
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 14:34
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:Nah, the journalist in the tik tok link was playing gotcha. It's really weird how you changed the question asked so you could defend the CEO.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 14:41
|
|
|
I think the thing that surprised me wasn't SubStack's lack of policies, but the CEO's complete unwillingness/inability to discuss them. The Verge is a publication that extensively covers content moderation, from Facebook's Moderation Contractor Issues to Spotify's podcast distribution policies to Twitter's content moderation under Elon, and every tech CEO that goes on the podcast gets asked pretty much the same set of questions about content moderation. To not have answers and/or be unable/unwilling to discuss them after signing up to go and promote your new platform is kinda wild.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 14:43
|
|
|
Stexils posted:youre conflating policy with execution. its impossible to scrub every scrap of hate speech from social media site but that doesnt mean that company policy is hate speech is fine, just that their resources are limited. this is generally understood and typically only comes up when it appears the company is undermoderating or deliberately allowing hate speech to stay up (like facebook undoing algorithm tweaks discouraging extremism because it also dropped engagement or musk unbanning a bunch of right wingers). And of course, just because a policy isn't 100% effective (no policy is!) doesn't mean it doesn't make a noticeable difference (cue people opposing gun control saying that some criminals will still get guns).
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 14:44
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:because you can't ban hate speach. That's why he couldn't say it. Someone finding 88 on your site is enough to prove that you have not banned hate speech. It's a private website, they can do whatever the gently caress they want. So yes, they can. Which is why they could have said anything and not just completely refuse to acknowledge any suggestions that they don't want hate speech. notwithoutmyanus fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Apr 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 14:49
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:because you can't ban hate speach. That's why he couldn't say it. Someone finding 88 on your site is enough to prove that you have not banned hate speech. How is this different from going "Wow there is still theft and murders going on in this country even though we have laws prohibiting them, guess we better not have any laws about them then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:13
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:
He'd just say, "No. It'll be decided by the moderators whether it was meant asa joke or seriously, depending on the context of the discussion in the thread, and they will take appropriate actions to either probate, or high five the poster. Either way, it will be left as evidence if the poster doesn't edit it." Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:17
|
|
|
Pachylad posted:How is this different from going "Wow there is still theft and murders going on in this country even though we have laws prohibiting them, guess we better not have any laws about them then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"? 
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:21
|
|
|
Mister Facetious posted:He'd just say, "No. It'll be decided by the moderators whether it was meant asa joke or seriously, depending on the context of the discussion in the thread, and they will take appropriate actions to either probate, or high five the poster. Either way, it will be left as evidence if the poster doesn't edit it." Yeah I don't know why the guy didn't at least punt to that. "We have policies about hate speech and our moderation team would review it and act accordingly." There are softball answers that should be part of your playbook for interviews like this. To instinctively avoid answering it really looks like you're avoiding an answer that will piss off racists, or worse, that you just don't want to moderate hate speech.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:23
|
|
|
shoeberto posted:Yeah I don't know why the guy didn't at least punt to that. "We have policies about hate speech and our moderation team would review it and act accordingly." There are softball answers that should be part of your playbook for interviews like this. To instinctively avoid answering it really looks like you're avoiding an answer that will piss off racists, or worse, that you just don't want to moderate hate speech. He doesn't want to be on record saying hate speech is bad, even when it's in Substack's own TOS. Like, dude- just say you have rules and moderators in place to deal with these things, and that fine details are their job, you're here to manage and expand business profitability. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Apr 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:28
|
|
|
what the gently caress is a substack e: I'm pretty online and I have no idea what the gently caress a Substack is. Unless it's some kind of new Zoomer social network that I'm too old to know about I'm pretty sure this means whatever Substack is or isn't doing is a non-issue because nobody has ever even heard of it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:40
|
|
|
It was a paid newsletter platform provider, but they've been hemorrhaging money (VCs won't fund them anymore - they're now trying to raise a new round directly from retail investors), so they're trying to pivot to being less-bad-twitter
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:44
|
|
|
blunt posted:It was a paid newsletter platform provider, but they've been hemorrhaging money (VCs won't fund them anymore - they're now trying to raise a new round directly from retail investors), so they're trying to pivot to being less-bad-twitter OK so from this sentence alone it sounds like Substack's audience was techbros because who else is going to "pay" to read "newsletters"? In that case is it really so outrageous that the CEO of a techbro-focused product is shilling the "free speech/no censorship" angle? He knows his audience and what they want. Random persons Jane Doe and Bob Smith aren't going to be signing up for his twitter-but-not-twitter product so why care about them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:47
|
|
|
Boris Galerkin posted:what the gently caress is a substack It's a double meat, double cheese at Subway 
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:48
|
|
|
Boris Galerkin posted:OK so from this sentence alone it sounds like Substack's audience was techbros because who else is going to "pay" to read "newsletters"? In that case is it really so outrageous that the CEO of a techbro-focused product is shilling the "free speech/no censorship" angle? He knows his audience and what they want. Random persons Jane Doe and Bob Smith aren't going to be signing up for his twitter-but-not-twitter product so why care about them. I think it's less newsletters and more... pretentious blog articles?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:50
|
|
|
I think of it as Patreon for long-form articles. I've never actually subscribed to anyone, but I nearly followed a lawyer that does write-ups of high-profile cases. Now I'm glad I never gave the platform any money.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:54
|
|
|
Boris Galerkin posted:what the gently caress is a substack
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:56
|
|
|
Yeah its Patreon for journalists/"journalists" qnd was heavily flooded with shitheads from early on because they're attracted to a platform where they can get paid for their bigotry. There's some good people there but it's a lot of assholes
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 15:57
|
|
|
Stexils posted:youre conflating policy with execution. its impossible to scrub every scrap of hate speech from social media site but that doesnt mean that company policy is hate speech is fine, just that their resources are limited. this is generally understood and typically only comes up when it appears the company is undermoderating or deliberately allowing hate speech to stay up (like facebook undoing algorithm tweaks discouraging extremism because it also dropped engagement or musk unbanning a bunch of right wingers). The question was not "do you condone hate speech on your website", it was "do you censor hate speech on your website?", which is to say that any single example of implied hate speech found is proof that hate speech is indeed not censored. That is why the question was asked that way. Everyone knows the answer to "do you condone abhorrent behavior" is "no, we don't always agree with the users of our product and their views do not reflect the views of us as a vendor". That is why the question was asked in absolute terms of whether it exists (ie, do they censor/remove all examples of), not whether they have a policy on it. Jose Valasquez posted:It's really weird how you changed the question asked so you could defend the CEO.  I don't care about substack or this wanker but all the hootin' and holorin about the gotcha masquerading as a slam dunk reminds me very much of this bit of hard-hittin questioning on a similar topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMjIz_vE6qc There are legitimate concerns (for both substack and tik tok) but bullshit lines of questioning pretending to be insightful; while apparently popular with brigadiers as META, it comes across as so much  and gets on my goat.Mister Facetious posted:He'd just say, "No. Of course, he would be cut off at that point and then there is a Tik Tok of Jeff saying SA does not ban support of child murder. Well done. Pachylad posted:How is this different from going "Wow there is still theft and murders going on in this country even though we have laws prohibiting them, guess we better not have any laws about them then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"? He was not asked if there was controls or policies (ie about whether there is anything in the TOS), he was asked if "brown people should not be allowed in the US" was censored. Is "brown people should not be allowed in the US" censored from US airwaves? I'm sure I have seen placards on the international news suggesting as much so the answer is "no". Are there policies, laws and resources put towards improving the situation? Yes, even if not very effective a lot of the time.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 16:12
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:The question was not "do you condone hate speech on your website", it was "do you censor hate speech on your website?", which is to say that any single example of implied hate speech found is proof that hate speech is indeed not censored. no it isnt? this is deranged.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 16:19
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:because you can't ban hate speach. You absolutely can ban hate speech. That doesn't mean it won't show up and need to be reported but hey, that's what moderators are for. The CEO hosed up and just didn't want to be on record giving a reply that he knows would anger the right wing assholes who use his site regardless of whether or not he agrees with those views. He sucks and there's no excuse to defend his idiocy. Electric Wrigglies posted:Of course, he would be cut off at that point and then there is a Tik Tok of Jeff saying SA does not ban support of child murder. Well done. If there's a video out there of Jeff saying "no" (or even just some clips of his voice, because AI is getting good) then someone can already make that Tiktok. Not everyone is a Project Veritas dipshit who looks to edit videos to make out of context gotchas.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 16:22
|
|
|
Everyone else has a wildly different takeaway that you here. The implication of those responses were very clear.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 16:23
|
|
|
I will agree with you in that the interviewer was being an obnoxious smart-rear end.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 16:36
|
|
|
The CEO's answer was that the TOS does not allow for hate speech. He was not asked about the TOS, he was asked about banning a specific concept. Any example found of this concept on the site is proof it is not banned. So instead of saying it is banned (with the obvious setup for being asked about an example of it existing on the site because the concept could be interpreted literally or liberally), use mealy mouth nothing statements to ineffectively avoid saying "no, there is not an effective technical or moderation solution in place to clean this website of every way of saying "brown people should not be allowed in the US". Evil Fluffy posted:You absolutely can ban hate speech. That doesn't mean it won't show up and need to be reported but hey, that's what moderators are for. I mean ban as in ensuring there is no examples on the site or that employees are exposed to. I'm not talking about synthesizing Jeff's voice, if it was generated he could go on the record later saying he didn't say that. But if it is quoted out of context as I suggest, and gets challenged later (hey jeff, the other day you said SA doesn't ban support of murdering children for theft), he gets the awesome mealy mouth answer of "That is out of context".
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 16:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 23:47 |
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:The question was not "do you condone hate speech on your website", it was "do you censor hate speech on your website?", which is to say that any single example of implied hate speech found is proof that hate speech is indeed not censored. That is why the question was asked that way. Everyone knows the answer to "do you condone abhorrent behavior" is "no, we don't always agree with the users of our product and their views do not reflect the views of us as a vendor". That is why the question was asked in absolute terms of whether it exists (ie, do they censor/remove all examples of), not whether they have a policy on it. Why can't he just say "gently caress no, we don't condone racism" like how is this so hard. He didn't give a half-hearted mealy-mouthed answer about 'we'll do better' that is the expected tech-bro platitude at this point, he just gave a more half-hearted mealy-mouthed psuedo-philosophical 'enlightened centrist' take that thinks that doing action on racist statements is bad??
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 17:01
|
|