I kind of agree with your 2 last sentences. But you don’t have to simulate the whole universe. You just have to compute an approximation that would be credible to a single subject. And that is a much much much lower bar. You can make gross approximation about the large majority of the universe without the subjetct being able to detect this !

I think we should recognize the importance of time. I have change my whole political position through my life, I was an right-wing liberal, conservative, even Catholic ! I then met people with different positions, that were willing to have good faith discussion about political disagreements.

Did I change my mind during these discussions. No, of course not. But were there useless ? Not at all. Several years were needed for me to destroy and rebuild a new coherent vision of the world.

Also, we have to recognize that this process can be painfull. If we are talking about individuals, caring about the impact our discourse on their mind is not only kind, but also a key part of an efficient strategy if you hope to change someone’s mind.

(That of course does not apply to structures, that by definition don’t have feelings. Or allegories of such structures. I will happily call Elon Musk a de facto murderer asshole if talking about capitalism through his figure. But if I had a sincere discussion one on one with a literal capitalist, with the hope to change them, that would rarely be a fruitful strategy. Unless shocking them seems efficient.)

Anyway, even if I sometimes (often ?) disagree with you, I hope I will be able to hear what you have to say and that you will hear the critics, so that we both slowly move towards more a precise and pertinent comprehension of the world.

Yeah ! If done right, this kind of structure really are a great thing. I know of a few of those but never went there for now. Have to check this out !

What ? You mean that owning the mean of production of something gives you more power and freedom ? No way !

But having a whole worshop for every person would be ineffective… We could own together the things used to make other thing ! What an original idea. I’m so proud. I will name it… Togetherism. Thank me later.

Of course you can never be sure. But you cannot be sure about any local player either. Even if it is libre software, it rely on trust. Or you would have to read every piece of software used. In the same way that some software are trustworthy enough to use, some hosts are too.

Sorry if I sound aggressive, I just try to be short <3 !

I have evidence that some don’t. I am personnaly part of an association running a public instance with no user data sold whatsoever.

I agree. And it shows how important it is to have non-US apps and companies in competition with big US ones. As long as only US app are conceded by legislation, they can pass as libertarian that believe in the free market and want private companies to be as free as possible. But TikTok here forces them to admit this ideology is true only if it is convenient for them.

I guess there is a difference between accepting discussions around a subject with people you disagree with, and accepting someone creating an account specifically designed and named with only one goal : bad faith and low effort posts (yes this is what such a username clearly seems to announce to me).

I spend much time having great discussions with people both online and afk about vaccines, people who are both pro or anti, and it is sincerely interesting. But seeing such a username is as stupid as seeing someone named “vaccineguaranteeyoursurvival”. Those username are themselves clearly false statement that are meant to create unusefull discussions.

Hope this ban isn’t getting canceled.

I’m not sure… I’m pretty sure sometimes and in some languages, separating two words can really change the meaning of a title, don’t you think ?

As often in cool debate, I think in the end we mostly agree. I especially agree with you on the point that reclaiming a word is a valid way of using some slur, and that it should not be to a privileged group to choose when a word is ok or not. On this point I have to point out that this is still the case with manual moderation, if most moderator are privileged. So I agree that diversity should be push in all places of power, and all decision are better made (and more legitimate) with a diversity in the group that make them.

But on the automated part, I really think the psychological aspect is strong and should be questioned. You talk about “human interaction” but this definition is really hard non only to define, but also to defend as an efficient way of reaching you goals. I am quite sure that when the devs made their filter, there was quite a lot of human interaction and debate around it, and the simple fact the put one show that they interacted with other people around them. And is a “manual” moderation a human interaction when you don’t see or know the person, don’t know their culture, the context, their tone, etc. Moderation will never be perfect, will always involve bad decisions, errors. When errors are mades “directly” by humans, compassion and empathy help us to try and understand before judging (but judging nonetheless in the end don’t get me wrong). Why is it so different when an automated system (created by an imperfect human) ? Why is an automated error worse than a human one if the consequences are the same ?

Long story short, I don’t like thinking along great principles like “automated moderation is dangerous”, but rather try analyze the situation and think : would this place be better if there was not this automated moderation ? I agree that this is a wide and difficult debate one what is “better” of course, but the focus should always be this one : how to make things better.

Thank you so much for your answer, i’m not used to debate online because I didn’t feel at ease anywhere else before, but I love it and it is thanks to people like you and all the other interesting answers I get that I can enjoy that and think about it so much ! Thank you thank you <3 !!

(edit : typo)

I quite agree with you that moderation is hardly a machine job, and not saying it is the perfect solution. It sure as it’s drawback. I am just arguing that the benefits outweigh them. I would prefer to be in a world where there are not needed, be as of the world today, I admit I prefer having this filter rather than not having it, mostly because of the systemic effects I explained.

I agree that the relevance of he content of the filter can be discussed too, and that banning some words can make it difficult to discuss certain topics. But I think some words are almost always meant to harm, and can be easily replace by more positive or neutral term.

As a direct example : I can talk in this post about homosexuality, and I can event paraphrase to talk about the way some f word is used as a slur for it and how I think allowing it here isn’t a good idea in my opinion. See, I can talk about it, be respectful about it. I just prevent to call you a [insert here whatever banned slur] pretending to use my free speech.

I’m clearly “left-leaning”, so I might be biased, but I don’t agree with your criticism toward the slur filter : the project is open source, and as such people wanting to use these slur can work they way to another version. The devs explain here a clear intention to make this change difficult enough to prevent at least partially the migration of some communities they don’t want to support and/or give a platform to. I think that’s an honest way to do things ?

It also open up the debate on free speech and how saying some things actively attacks fundamental rights of others. In those cases, defending free speech as a “right” becomes irrelevant since both sides of the debate can use this logic to defend opposing actions. Trying to be short here, hope you understand what I mean !