if you have a capable team that firmly believes in “fairness”, in auditable, open, participatory processes that don’t put a top-down thumb on the scale on controversial issues, and they get to actually use the neutral algorithm instead of being pressured to make exceptions, you get solid results and community trust!
Then it is quite sad that the neutral algorithm was introduced as the same time as Xitter started losing popularity. (At least, it seems that it loses popularity? Maybe that’s just some bubble. I don’t know what to trust anymore.)
Could these things be related? It seems like the opposition against Xitter is mostly because Musk is hanging out with Trump recently. But hypothetically, it could be a combination of that and the fact that the Community Notes may be inconvenient for people who instead could have the content policed by members of their tribe.
Sorry for getting political, but at least until recently it seemed like one political tribe practically owned all the “mainstream” parts of the internet; not necessarily most of the users, but most of the mods and admins. They didn’t need to try finding a neutral ground, because instead, they could simply have it all.
I have seen a few attempts to make a neutral place where both sides could discuss, and those usually didn’t work well. The dominant tribe had no incentive to participate, if they could win the debate by avoiding the place and from outside declaring it to be full of horrible people who should be banned. You could only attract them by basically conceding to many of their demands (declaring their norms and taboos to be the rules of the group), which already made an equal debate impossible (stating your disagreement already meant breaking some of the rules), which made the debate kinda pointless (you could only make your point by diluting it to homeopathic levels, and then the other side yelled at you for a while, and then everyone congratulated themselves for being so tolerant and open-minded). I don’t want to give specific examples, but instead I will point to how Scott Alexander’s blog was handled e.g. by Wikipedia—despite the fact that most of its readers (and Scott himself) actually belonged to the dominant tribe, the fact that dissent was allowed was enough for some admins to call him names.
It is usually the weaker side that calls for fairness. Yes, it is amazing that you can implement it algorithmically, but the people who have the power to make this decisions, are usually not the ones who want it made.
So I wonder what will happen in future. Will more web platforms adopt the neutral algorithm? Or will it be instead something like “a neutral algorithm, but our trusted moderators can override its results if they don’t like them”?
Then it is quite sad that the neutral algorithm was introduced as the same time as Xitter started losing popularity. (At least, it seems that it loses popularity? Maybe that’s just some bubble. I don’t know what to trust anymore.)
Could these things be related? It seems like the opposition against Xitter is mostly because Musk is hanging out with Trump recently. But hypothetically, it could be a combination of that and the fact that the Community Notes may be inconvenient for people who instead could have the content policed by members of their tribe.
Sorry for getting political, but at least until recently it seemed like one political tribe practically owned all the “mainstream” parts of the internet; not necessarily most of the users, but most of the mods and admins. They didn’t need to try finding a neutral ground, because instead, they could simply have it all.
I have seen a few attempts to make a neutral place where both sides could discuss, and those usually didn’t work well. The dominant tribe had no incentive to participate, if they could win the debate by avoiding the place and from outside declaring it to be full of horrible people who should be banned. You could only attract them by basically conceding to many of their demands (declaring their norms and taboos to be the rules of the group), which already made an equal debate impossible (stating your disagreement already meant breaking some of the rules), which made the debate kinda pointless (you could only make your point by diluting it to homeopathic levels, and then the other side yelled at you for a while, and then everyone congratulated themselves for being so tolerant and open-minded). I don’t want to give specific examples, but instead I will point to how Scott Alexander’s blog was handled e.g. by Wikipedia—despite the fact that most of its readers (and Scott himself) actually belonged to the dominant tribe, the fact that dissent was allowed was enough for some admins to call him names.
It is usually the weaker side that calls for fairness. Yes, it is amazing that you can implement it algorithmically, but the people who have the power to make this decisions, are usually not the ones who want it made.
So I wonder what will happen in future. Will more web platforms adopt the neutral algorithm? Or will it be instead something like “a neutral algorithm, but our trusted moderators can override its results if they don’t like them”?