Honestly, I get the original call, but I’m glad Bluesky backtracked. Content moderation is hard.

This was one of the dumbest parts of all Meta’s announcements and now it’s… basically nothing, too?

Some more good writing on a bad situation.

I especially appreciate this article in the wake of Meta’s recent announcements. There are cases in which content moderation is inconsistent or overreaching, and there are cases in which less moderation fixes the problem. However, it’s the arbitrary distinctions and self-serving nature of the changes that make the “free expression” argument so flimsy.

Moderating employees but not users seems telling to me.

Personally, I’ve come around to the idea that fewer restrictions, “Community Notes”-style responses, and lots of personal control over what one sees could work better as content moderation. It’s interesting to see Bluesky take some of these approaches, for example! Here, though, this seems like it’s bending the knee to the Trump administration, and I can’t imagine any of this being done in good faith. What a disappointment Meta continues to be.

See, this is the kind of content moderation we ought to worry about (and why “keep the kids safe” narratives can go horribly wrong).

Interesting stuff here. I think most complaints about OpenAI “censorship” are hogwash, but it’s still fascinating—and worrying—to see how much control the company exercises over its product.

Lots of interesting stuff in here, including the difficulty of content moderation, and yet another way that generative AI is screwing everything up.

Worth reading (and bookmarking). I’ve been hesitant to make the “no, actually, Big Tech is biased against liberals” argument, but this seems a compelling datum for that conclusion…

I. With Siblings in a Sibling-Only Chat Separate from the One with Parents and Partners We process the news together (I’m not the one to start the conversation but glad for the sibling who did). It’s not a deep processing, but I’m not sure we would have done this much even a few years ago. We plan to send flowers to the widow, decide who’s going to write the note, and settle up over Venmo.

This is one of these stories where I’ve been waiting to get Masnick’s take on it, and he does not disappoint.

This is a helpful EFF overview that I’m posting to bookmark for later.

Bookmarking so I have enraging examples to show my students.

I’ve only skimmed this so far, but while I firmly believe that the fetishizing of freedom of expression is causing real issues in our world, I appreciate Masnick’s critique. I expect I’ll always be more keen on regulation than he is, but that doesn’t make him wrong in the points he’s making here.

“Mentioning names both is and isn’t allowed. It’s a quantum superposition of content moderation that only collapses when observed by Musk himself.” 😂😂😂

Bookmarking for future research. What a fascinating (if frustrating) interplay of social media platforms and religious authority.

I don’t get what’s missing from a world without generative AI—and examples like this don’t make me any more convinced.

Musk ne s’intéresse à la liberté d’expression que quand il peut en profiter.

Good for Platformer.

As usual, I find Masnick’s recap of this recent nonsense helpful in terms of summary and interpretation.

Don’t love it when platforms shut down tools because they don’t like outside research. Gift Link

There are legitimately difficult content moderation decisions, but this is not one of them. Shame on Substack for this approach.

Is this the same feature Elon says will be sufficient for keeping Alex Jones in check?

How a platform is managed has real consequences.

Content moderation is a good thing.

Roth’s perspective is valuable here. Scary stuff.

I’ve instinctively never liked t.co links, and this demonstrates what the problem with them are.

Look, if an automated process could save human moderators from the awful work they have to do, I’d be all for it. I’m unconvinced that GPT-4 could do it, though.

So many important points in this piece.

Everyone excited about generative AI needs to account for this kind of thing. We don’t pay enough attention to digital labor and the dehumanizing aspects of content moderation.

I think this is a much bigger deal than any purported security risk.

I get that it’s straightforward language that everyone will get, but I think “uncensored” is the wrong word here. Content moderation is not (necessarily) censorship, and content moderation is good and helpful for tools like generative AI.

Helpful summary by Masnick; bookmarking for later.

A good glimpse at content moderation, and why it’s important to do it correctly.

This is a neat game that shows how difficult content moderation is. Excited to have my content management students play it in the Fall.