Changing the model
In his post Is content moderation a dead end Benedict Evans writes
Hence, I wonder how far the answers to our problems with social media are not more moderators, just as the answer to PC security was not virus scanners, but to change the model - to remove whole layers of mechanics that enable abuse. So, for example, Instagram doesn’t have links, and Clubhouse doesn’t have replies, quotes or screenshots. Email newsletters don’t seem to have virality. Some people argue that the problem is ads, or algorithmic feeds (both of which ideas I disagree with pretty strongly - I wrote about newsfeeds here), but this gets at the same underlying point: instead of looking for bad stuff, perhaps we should change the paths that bad stuff can abuse.
I’ve been thinking about why micro.blog is such a civil place to just write or link to ideas or find new people to interact with. It’s exactly because whole layers of mechanics that enable abuse simply do not exist.
Contrary to what Benedict believes, I do think part of the problem is ads (not all) and algorithmic feeds.
A big thank you to the micro.blog team.
Wednesday April 14, 2021