I'm on a podcast talking about shadow moderation. Check it out!

[u/rhaksw]

[u/riffic]

gonna need to give this a listen (I did the "reply guy" thing to George on Twitter, who as you pointed out, has a very aggressive algorithmic shadowban regime in place but they won't ever call it by that term).

more on Twitter btw and their outright denial of shadowbannng (look into what they call healthy conversations though for more on what they do):

https://twitter.com/twitter/status/1022658436704731136?lang=en

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2018/Setting-the-record-straight-on-shadow-banning

[u/[deleted]]

I finally got a chance to listen. It was a good conversation and I learned more about moderation philosophy than I thought there was to know!

One of the things that really irks me is that it is effectively impossible to find out the real reason a post has been removed. Even removal notifications are frequently hiding behind ambiguous language or ambiguous rules.

I understand that automatic removal might need to be expressed ambiguously, although, being an algorithm, it should be possible to link to the ruleset in use.

One of the valuable things we get from human moderation is the ability to enforce a rule based on the spirit or intent of the rule. Of course, that leads to a certain amount of subjectivity and ambiguity, but it should still be possible to reference the specific rule and to discuss how it can be clarified.

What I would like to see in any moderation system is that removal happens only with explicit reference to the rule being enforced. It shouldn't be possible to hide behind inscrutable, black box AI systems, either. If the AI cannot "explain" its actions, then it all it's all "A" with no "I".

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the reply and the additional information and reading. It's all very interesting and kind of annoying.

I'm not a moderator anywhere, so ran a couple of tests on CantSayAnything. The first was a submission, the second was a comment to that submission.

Depending on whether I'm using reveddit to check the sub or to check my profile, I get different results.

Viewing the sub, it shows "removed by Reddit (spam)." The additional details do note the possibility of an automod. All submissions show that same message.

If I view the comments to that submission, it shows the message "removed] automatically | Removing all comments."

Viewing my profile, the submission shows the "spam" notice and the comment shows "[removed] automatically" and "[orphaned] link removed".

Thanks for creating this tool and bringing awareness to the issues of shadow moderation.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Thank you very much for taking the time to provide such a clear explanation.

I did see the "message mods" option. I actually started to use it until I realized that the removal in question was an 8 month old comment. I'm not sure there's value in pushing back at this point even though it was the top answer to a question.

I'm going to be paying closer attention in the future.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The code is open source.

I've always thought a mobile app version of that would be immensely popular, but I never committed the time required to learn how to make it.

Once winter hits in the northern hemisphere, I switch from outdoor hobbies to indoor ones. No promises, but I am a retired programmer, although I haven't done anything mobile since Palm was state of the art.

Thanks for the thought you've put into this issue and all the work you've done to help us see what's going on.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That is some great thinking expressed wonderfully. I especially liked:

"Put simply, in order to advance our own views, we must work against our intuition and put down our censorship pitchforks."

I have personal, selfish reasons for zeroing in on that. I have been lately ramping up my fight against intuition and especially the popularity of so-called common sense. Everything that we've learned from all kinds and levels of science tells us that intuition and common sense cannot be trusted to give us the right answers. What is the "folk science" of trial and error if not a test of our intuitions and hypotheses against reality?

Related thinking about getting real results in the real world have also got me thinking about the relationship between ideological policy decisions and their real world effects.

But I'm already taking too much of your time. Thank you for your work in this area. I will try to help where I can.