Jerks 'Reporting' Women Who Swipe Left On Them In Tinder, Once Again Highlighting How Content Moderation Gets Abused
from the always-another-thing dept
We keep trying to highlight (over and over and over again) how content moderation at scale is impossible to do well for a variety of reasons -- and one big one is the fact that assholes and trolls will game whatever system you put in place -- often in truly absurd ways. The latest example of this is that guys who are pissed off about women who reject them after meeting through Tinder are "reporting" the women in the app, trying to get their accounts shut down.
I had been banned from Tinder. It turns out, though, I’m far from the only woman to have been kicked off the app for no other reason than I rejected the wrong guy. Indeed, without the need for any apparent proof of wrongdoing, a new breed of scorned men have stumbled upon a particularly passive-aggressive way to say, “If I can’t have her, no one can” — tapping the report button.
Case in point: Last year, 33-year-old Amy declined to go out with a man she’d been messaging with when he started insulting her. The insults, of course, only intensified from there — with him telling her she was shaped like Slimer from Ghostbusters and that her fertility was declining. Stunned, she put her phone away. After taking a moment, she went to block him, but when she opened Tinder, her account had been banned.
Of course, as some of the article highlights, Tinder itself seems woefully (ridiculously) unprepared to deal with even the most basic instances of this kind of abuse. Tinder apparently bans accounts based on a single report and the company states that it does "not offer an appeals process at this time." The article highlights a bunch of tweets from women who all seem to have gone through a similar experience. They met a dude on Twitter, date doesn't go well, she says she'd rather not go on another date... the guy flips out, acts like an asshole, and minutes later, she's banned from the app.
The author of the article, who herself was banned from Tinder right after such an experience, found a guy who admitted to doing this.
I did, though, find one man — 26-year-old Brian — who admitted to reporting women who were unresponsive to his messages. “I’ve done this,” he confides. “It’s a huge waste of time for girls to match with you and then not reply. Like what’s the point?”
He then goes on to spout a bunch of misogynistic nonsense, apparently believing that women do this on purpose to be mean to men like him, which apparently is what he needs to convince himself that getting their accounts shut down okay.
Of course, what's left out of this discussion is a bit of the flipside. You can kind of understand why Tinder is so aggressive in banning people, because if people actually are violating its rules, the consequences could be a lot more serious, especially given that the entire point of the app is to get people to meet up in real life. If they mess that up, there will be all sorts of bad press about how Tinder failed to take down an account or something. Hell, as we've detailed, Grindr effectively got sued over this exact scenario and the plaintiff in that case recently asked the Supreme Court to hear his appeal.
That's not to say the companies can't do a better job -- they can. Having an appeals process seems like a no-brainer. But an appeals process can be gamed as well. And this is the point that we keep trying to make: it's literally impossible to do content moderation well at this kind of scale. There will always be problems and judgment calls people disagree with -- and outright abuse. In both directions. People abusing the system to take down content they don't like, and others abusing the system to keep up content or profiles that probably should be taken down. It's easy for someone to say "oh, they shouldn't do that," but no one has yet come up with a system that always gets it right and stops any such abuse. Because it's literally impossible.
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Filed Under: appeals, assholes, content moderation, content moderation at scale, dating, reporting, trolls
Companies: tinder
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Oh dear, r/NiceGuys and r/NiceGirls found their way onto TechDirt.
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I’d bet on a not-zero number of those trollish guys self-identifying as incels.
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Re:
So anywhere between 1 and infinity?
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Well, not so much infinity, but I’m fairly certain there are dozens of them out there.
Dozens!
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Re:
True, true. Reddit’s a goldmine of these idiotic Tinder instances. Just like I mentioned on my first comment on this post:
I don’t mean to brag, no offense, but I watch a lot of MiniLadd videos on YouTube so I can tell how many different types of idiots are out there.
Take the Area 51 Raid for example. A single person posts an event for Area 51 as a joke yet millions joined in thinking they were gonna clap some alien cheeks. However only a small fraction of them showed up and one of them Naruto-Run’d behind a news reporter.
People just have their quirks and junks, and nowadays anything will stimulate their senses. (Not Sponsored)
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Re:
Yes,my thoughts also after reading this:
"guys who are pissed off about women who reject them"
Some simply can not accept and move on, they get tangled up in their own ego and seek revenge. The logic behind it is incomprehensible to most but is known to head shrinks.
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Re: Re:
Well, put a classified out as a female describing your particular hobbies and interests.
Get 100 replies of the generic "I am of height, weight, age, have hair. I like music and friends. I can go out or stay at home." kind, partly with pictures of genitals attached and to a good degree not matching interests or other specifications.
You don't need the Internet to stop believing in humanity while trying to find a date.
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Re: Re: Some simply can not accept and move on, they get tangled
Erm, no. They're looking for a living sex doll who won't talk back or expect anything of them; unconditional acceptance.
Even women with low standards (why the hell would ANYONE with half a brain and any shred of self-respect go on Tinder?) won't oblige demands for sex or put u with bad manners.
It's not a matter of refusing to accept and move on; their sense of entitlement has been offended and the dudes will not abide. Losing that sense of entitlement would go a long way to resolving their problems. Decent, kind people tend to have better luck in love than jerks.
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Re: Re: Re: Some simply can not accept and move on, they get tan
*put up
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Re: Re: Re: Some simply can not accept and move on, they get tan
"It's not a matter of refusing to accept and move on; their sense of entitlement has been offended and the dudes will not abide."
Of course. In the minds of all too many a relationship is best started by inserting kindness and favors until sex comes out. And when it fails to do so the incels raise the hue and cry.
No one is entitled to someone else's body and that is something still too hard to grasp for a lot of people.
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False Reports
This kinds of false reports are a serious problem for content moderation. Especially when it involves groups that can mobilize troops to hit the report button.
Imagine if Blue Balls actually had any friends and could get 50 followers to come to TD and hit the report button on a moment's notice?
As platforms worry more about "bad" content, it will become easier to shout down the voices.
This has already been a problem on Twitch - and it seems the misogynists are front and center:
https://kotaku.com/twitch-suspends-streamer-after-she-wears-chun-li-cospla-1838142321
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"at this kind of scale" -- So get rid of THAT "kind of scale"!
That problem solved, let's move on to the fact that YOU don't "do moderation well" at your TINY scale.
There are not so many comments here that you cannot read and decide on whether ALL are within common law and common decency.
But you don't. Instead you're a PARTISAN pretending to be objective.
You even expect praise that you allow my comments here, though you're not liable for them, right? You risk nothing legally. And if you worked it right to make a free-wheeling forum, you'd be rich. -- But you don't. You let your fanboys HARASS and "hide" all dissent, guaranteeing decline in readers. Just stupid!
Now, show ANY of my comments EVER that approach this for vile, stupid, and above all, not part of any ongoing discussion, sheerly an attack:
"There are white people, and then there are ignorant motherfuckers like you...."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110621/16071614792/misconceptions-free-abound-why-d o-brains-stop-zero.shtml#c1869
YOU called that a "joke". That nasty little creep is now a hired minion re-writer here. You may even have PAID that creep to make that remark, as you stated [of Geigner] "He was not making that statement on his own behalf." -- And during that time, you referred to Geigner as Techdirt's "comment enforcer". What does that mean? My conclusion is that you wished Geigner to be so vile as to run dissenters off.
So YOU are NOT AT ALL FIT to decide on moderation, not even to write about it!
You are an extreme example of white-privilege, Born Rich privilege, never-had-to-work privilege, kick-down-kiss-up toady, besides a LIAR that you're for "free speech" when can't handle ANY dissent here.
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Unless a comment advocates or facilitates illegal activity, it’s “within common law” (i.e., it’s legal). “Common decency” is a subjective standard, and yours does not apply here. And the fact that you’re still pissed off about an eight-year-old insult to the point of trolling this site on a daily basis makes me think you’re a collected grievance or three away from hunting Mike down like an animal.
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Re: "at this kind of scale" -- So get rid of THAT &quo
What was this story about?
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Community driven moderation drives troll batty
Behave like an asshat, be treated like one. Have a flag for free.
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Re: Community driven moderation drives troll batty
Love the smell of flagged comments in the morning.
A big thank you to the community for keeping trolls where they belong.
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Re: Scales
ALL are within common law
And what does that mean again? Please cite!
Since you have it all figured out - Show us how YOU moderate, or stop complaining. eh?
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Re: You’re tops on the ignorant motherfucker scale
“So YOU are NOT AT ALL FIT to decide on moderation, not even to write about it!”
And yet here you are.
Every day.
All day long.
Bro.
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Re: "at this kind of scale" -- So get rid of THAT "kind of scale
^
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As your piratey-fanboy-trolls show, few people have decency.
Now, you, Masnick, have also called me an asshole and troll for simply stating my opinions here in the plain HTML box you provide for the purpose.
No decent site allows those words. No one but an idiot little kid would accuse anyone, lest it offend and they dig in to return it, say.
You also provide the code and whatever system for hiding comments.
No decent site would have such an opaque system. We just have to rely on your good faith, and we know from your comments that you have none, so it's likely that you cheat where we can't see.
And yet you expect to be taken seriously! Sheesh!
You ARE about 13 mentally.
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Re: As your piratey-fanboy-trolls show, few people have decency.
You obviously don't like this site, and equally obviously, nobody here likes you. So seriously, why are you here?
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Re: Re: As your piratey-fanboy-trolls show, few people have dece
He is convinced that free speech means that he can choose his audience, and force his words onto that audience, and that anybody who refuse to listen is infringing on his free speech rights.
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They say 'jump' and you're all two feet in the air
One look at the comment section shows why they're still here: Because people just can't stop themselves from responding to them, and whether they want attention, the sense of power from being able to make people pay attention to them, or both, they very clearly can not only get it but get it trivially from the TD comment section.
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Re: They say 'jump' and I’m all you’re an Ignorant Motherfuc
We all know blue would post even if no one replied to him. This way we get to extract entertainment from his bitching and moaning.
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Re: Re: They say 'jump' and I’m all you’re an Ignorant Mothe
They might, they might not, with people falling all over themselves to take their bait it's impossible to say, but even if they did still post it would be one(or a handful if they're being particularly spammy) comment quickly flagged and hidden rather than one comment flagged and hidden and a dozen-plus people responding to them, all too often sinking to their level in the process.
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So what if they “cheat”? They’re allowed to moderate their site any way they see fit. You cannot cite, and have never cited, any law, statute, or “common law” court ruling that says Techdirt must be compelled by law to display your comments — or to host them in the first place, for that matter.
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Re:
I can't see the comment you're replying to, but something not being illegal is not necessarily a reason to say "so what" to it. If Tinder or Techdirt are "cheating", that may not warrant FBI involvement, but it doesn't mean it's OK or that people should have no right to complain about it.
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Blue Balls loves to think that any kind of moderation of “dissenting” (read: his) speech is the same thing as his right to speak freely being denied by the government. And besides, it’s possible to dissent with Techdirt writers and not be an asshole about it.
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Re:
If it's trolling unrelated to the article, flag it as trolling and don't respond.
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Re: As your piratey-fanboy-trolls show, few people have decency.
"You ARE about 13 mentally"
Said the person who is about 5 mentally.
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Troll insults people, proves he has not one shred of decency
How about you list which sites you consider decent so we can verify your assertions (but also find out what your definition of decent is).
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Re: As your piratey-fanboy-trolls show, few people have decency.
Based on your comments to this article and nly this article if I was Masnick I would have filters in so that I could permanently ban people like you.
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Re: As you Troll
have also called me an asshole and troll
I have never called you an asshole or a troll!
I called that commentator called "Blue Balls" a "Nazi-loving corn-fed racist who lives in his parents basement." But that was obviously a different commentator not you.
Clearly, you are here to show us how a Real site can moderate by linking to your blog. (A blog with no moderation, no censorship, and yet no bad words!)
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Re: As your ignorant motherfucker show, few people have decency.
“And yet you expect to be taken seriously! Sheesh!
You ARE about 13 mentally.”
That’s imax levels of projection bro.
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Re:
Look, I get that the (likely temporary) departure of Jhon Smith compels you to post incel diatribes in his stead, screaming about how anyone who disagrees with you is a sad sack who can't get laid, but don't you think you should be working on writing up that Malibu Media appeal?
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Ridiculously strict
ONE strike and you're out with no appeal? I'm surprised they're still in business. There's no way any real-world app can be that strict in the long run given that a significant number of real people are assholes. All they've done is made it super-easy to be an asshole, so eventually, that's all that'll be left on the app, at which point it will go under. So I guess in the long-term, it's a self-correcting problem. :D
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As the article notes, Tinder may have a good reason for that approach. It’s called “we don’t want to be held legally liable for someone getting raped or killed”.
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Re:
In which case they are banning the wrong people, as it is potential rapists doing the reporting.
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Re: Re:
Victim blaming has morphed into victim reporting, what's next .. victim swatting?
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Re: Re: Re:
You joke, but one of the Channel Awesome folks participating in the fake attack on Vic Mignogna actually got caught faking a swat event to garner sympathy for nutball kickvic losers.
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Hasn’t he been smacked down on, like, every one of his defamation claims?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Who's joking?
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Re: A Wild Incel Has Appeared!
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Re: Re: Re:
I can see that. Those men need to lose their sense of entitlement. And everyone else needs to stop tying sexual activity to notions of manliness or rites of passage into adulthood.
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Re:
Were these people falsely reporting that there were threats of violence?
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Re: Ridiculously strict
What is the strike anyway? The article keeps saying people are being reported, even "falsely" reported, without saying what the reports claim. What exactly are people reporting to Tinder?
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Re: Re: Ridiculously strict
It sounds like it's just a button, with no other context. They just click the Report button, and then the account is banned. If there's no human reviewing reports, and no appeal process, there's no point in attaching text to the report anyway.
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It's almost as if cancel culture is bad
I feel terrible for these women experiencing cancel culture.
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Liar.
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Re:
Forum antagonist, and slandermonkey.
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Yes, you are.
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Re:
Yeah, ever notice I never reply to your original posts? It's always you following me around like a crazy ex girlfriend?
Yeah. Everybody else notices. And for the record, I'm not interested sweety.
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Re: Liars gonna lie
Why are you still here bro?
Also don’t try to insult your betters. You’re not any good at it, sweet cheeks.
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Re: It's almost as if cancel culture is bad
Yeah, and they dare to complain about the ghosting, trolling and general bullshit encountered - the nerve I say!
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Re: Re: It's almost as if cancel culture is bad
Well, that's how we found out about it. I'd hardly fault them for complaining about the Cancel Culture they experienced.
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Re: Re: Re: It's almost as if cancel culture is bad
Is that another dog whistle?
My hearing is not so good when it comes to political bullshit.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: It's almost as if cancel culture is bad
I'm not agreeing with Zof, merely trying to explain what I THINK he's trying to say. So, first, cancel culture:
So, I THINK what Zof is saying is that when famous men get accused of rape, women on social media dogpile on that man and believe the accusation without listening to his side of the story, thus unfairly ruining his reputation and career. Thus, women getting their accounts banned merely on the say-so of a man, without the possibility of appeal, it's just those women getting a taste of their own medicine.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's almost as if cancel culture is bad
"I THINK what Zof is saying":
"it's just those women getting a taste of their own medicine"
Wow Zof ... how shallow of you. Everyone is the same eh?
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Two things:
The statistics for false rape accusations are astonishingly low. The same can be said for the number of actual convictions for rape/sexual assault, and similarly for the sentences handed down for that crime (e.g., convicted rapist Brock Turner).
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Re:
Same regarding tinder, especially #2. Is their career based on tinder dates? If it is, are there no other sites to use?
Are the accusations made on social media taken into account for those stats and are they then cross referenced to erase duplicates, or does that include multiples of same accusation?
If you were to be falsely convicted of rape, would that count as a false accusation? How sure are you that prisons aren't holding innocent people, especially minorities, on these types of charges?
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You’ll need to rephrase those first two questions because I have no clue what you mean by them. As for the third question: Hell if I know. And in regards to the last two questions: Yes it would, and I wouldn’t bet against a not-zero number of people being in prison for crimes they didn’t commit (including rape) because I’m not a complete dumbass.
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Re:
(1st Q)These woman being banned from tinder, does that hinder their career? Is their career dependent on tinder dates? Is their career "permanently and irrevocably destroyed?"
Some of those are your words, if it is still incomprehensible to you, don't type them.
(2nd Q)Are there no other dating apps/sites the women can use to further their career?
Got a link for your stats claim? Maybe someone has time to do some digging.
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Re: Re:
(1st Q)These woman being banned from tinder, does that hinder their career? Is their career dependent on tinder dates? Is their career "permanently and irrevocably destroyed?"
No, jerks being jerks caused some minor annoyance and inconvenience by causing these women to look on other dating sites for partners (I'd recommend the less dodgy ones, but given that it's unlikely that much is done in the way of background checks on all applicants, I'd say that, to err on the side of safety, they're all dodgy. Some may attract less dodgy applicants because they're aimed at a certain demographic, but honestly, I wouldn't trust myself to any of them if I were looking for a partner). It's petty and pathetic, but not life-changing or anything.
(2nd Q)Are there no other dating apps/sites the women can use to further their career?
The only women looking to dating apps/sites to further their careers would be on the admin/IT side of things. Merely putting up some bait to hook a man does nothing for one's career unless one is also seeking networking opportunities.
Your points make no sense, AC. The story is, jerks being jerks commit acts of petty vengeance, making themselves look even jerkier than before and explaining why they can't find partners.
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Re: Re: Re:
"...explaining why they can't find partners."
You explained the men now what is up with the women?
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Re: Re: Re:
Why can't the women find partners? You told us the problem with men, what is the problem with the women?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
They're looking for partners in the wrong places. They have every right to refuse a man, and vice versa.
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Re:
"Of the numerous famous men accused of rape/sexual assault since the beginning of the #MeToo movement, how many of them have had their reputations and career permanently and irrevocably destroyed as a result of those allegations?"
Lamentably it's more likely that the proportion of #MeToo accusers have had their reputations and careers permanently destroyed. Japan stands out as the top shit-show there but most of the west has a similar history of going after the victim for "being shameless enough to tell everyone".
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Re: Re:
Confirmed correct. The Right is particularly bad at this. They've ceded all decency to the Left, for reasons I will never understand. They need to be more eager to clean house and kick out bad actors before the only thing they stand for is oppression of anyone who's not white and male.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Confirmed correct. The Right is particularly bad at this. They've ceded all decency to the Left, for reasons I will never understand."
All you need do is redefine "decency" as "conforming to 18th century tribal standards" and then the right can keep upholding it's "virtues" in public view.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the current US, but the religious parties in europe are also going for this same angle.
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Re: Re: Re: It's almost as if someone dropped a zof in the pool
How are you enjoying flag culture bro?
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Re: It's almost as if cancel culture is bad
Yeah, about cancel culture...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szybEhqUmVI
Not that you would be willing to accept anything counter to your beliefs.
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Maybe it's time to go back to how BBS networks handled the equivalent of reporting someone. These days it's all done in secret. Back when, all complaints about behavior had to be made publicly and all handling of complaints was public. Not in-channel, of course, there was a separate channel whose sole purpose was making and handling complaints. If you wanted to see how the admins handled complaints, you could look at that channel and see how they handled them. The complaint itself, the supporting claims and quotes (the equivalent of screenshots), the response from the accused, questions and responses from the admins, it was all open for inspection. If the admins were biased or unreasonable, it was clearly obvious. If the complainant was being unreasonable or trying to abuse the process, it was clearly obvious. And if the admins banned a complainant for repeated abuse, they could refer directly to his own complaints to back up their decision. If the complainant complained that the admins were being unfair, anybody listening to him could check out the justification and decide for themselves whether the admins were justified or not.
The nice thing was that knowing that everything would be publicly visible made the would-be abusers unlikely to try filing bogus complaints. All they'd do is make themselves look dumb and they knew it, and while they'd still whinge they'd do it off-line where it didn't bother anyboty.
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Re:
Yes, clearly the solution is that people who want to report bad behavior by their dates should be required to do so in public where everyone can see it and both parties are personally identifiable. I certainly don't see how anything could possibly go wrong under that system.
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Re: Re:
Oh, I can think of a lot of ways it can go wrong, usually for the person behaving badly or someone trying to make a bogus complaint. Personally I don't have a lot of sympathy for them in that situation.
Retaliation against someone complaining of actual bad behavior? That's what prompted my suggestion in the first place.
Keeping quiet about bad behavior hasn't made bad behavior go away, and it's made things worse for women. I tend to side with #MeToo and favor women making bad behavior public to warn others away from the problematic guy and of having a clear record you can point to when the problematic guy complains that you aren't letting him get away with it.
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Re: Re: Re:
You...can't think of any circumstance where a woman might face retaliation for accurately reporting abusive behavior by a man?
Dude. I know this isn't your first day on the Internet; I can see your post history.
I, too, support women in reporting abusive behavior by men. If they make the choice to do so in public and under their real names, then more power to them.
But that shouldn't be their only option. It shouldn't be "report abusive behavior publicly and under your real name or not at all." There are many situations in which a victim of abuse (and it doesn't have to be a woman, but in many cases it is) will prefer to report the abuse privately, not publicly. Especially if the abuse was recent and she fears retaliation for reporting it.
If victims of abuse are only given the option to report abuse publicly or not at all, that's going to encourage some of them to choose "not at all". That's not a good thing.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Let me quote the bit of my message you didn't:
We've tried it where people can report bad behavior privately. We get guys abusing that to retaliate against the women who don't put up with their crap. The women would still do what they're doing now: ignore the guy and don't go on another date with him. They wouldn't have to do any more publicly than they're already doing. The guy, OTOH, couldn't get her account banned without giving her a clue who'd done it. He'd have to accuse her in public where she and everyone could see the accusation and she could respond to it. Few of these guys have the balls to do that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I suppose so, but there's the risk of the outed guy retaliating anyway. Jerks will be jerks, and one of the more jerky things they do is fail to consider the consequences of their actions.
If publicly identifiable information can be kept anonymous, your idea would work, TKnarr.
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Not having an appeal process and thereby a potential punishment for abusing the system all but ensures that it will be abused. While it would still leave the possibility to game the system if they had an appeal process if there at least was a chance that wrongly reporting someone would result in their accounts being shut down those pathetic individuals who are abusing the process might hesitate just a tad from reporting anyone who isn't amazed by their walking-punchline selves.
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Re:
You and the article talk about the reporting being false/wrong. The examples given include stuff like posing with a dead deer. If that picture exists, why's it wrong to report that? Of course Tinder should ignore the report if it's not against the ToS, but the report itself wouldn't be false. How specific is Tinder about what the report process is and isn't meant to be used for?
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The examples given include stuff like posing with a dead deer.
Which is gross, but not really relevant to the article where you have losers reporting people simply for not liking/talking to them. Hell, one of them flat out admitted to abusing the report function that way.
If that picture exists, why's it wrong to report that?
Because unless Tinder has rules against content like that 'I don't like it' is not the proper use of the report function.
Of course Tinder should ignore the report if it's not against the ToS, but the report itself wouldn't be false
If it wasn't an actual violation of the TOS then yes, it would be false, as it would be telling Tinder 'someone broke the rules' when that was not in fact the case.
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The article didn't say people reported that Tinder's rules were broken, nor did it say Tinder has a rule that the "report" function only be used for this purpose. What's the workflow like? Does one have to provide a reason or explanation? Does Tinder make it clear the feature is only to be used for certain purposes?
I see Techdirt's "flag" button says "Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam". That's reasonably specific, although "abusive" can be read in an open-ended way, especially these days. For example, some people claim that ceasing all communication without any explanation can be a form of emotional abuse—see "silent treatment" on Wikipedia.
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... are you seriously trying to argue that losers reporting women because said women didn't like/talk to them isn't an abuse of the report system?
Quick check found the community guidelines for Tinder, and nowhere in there are 'didn't talk to me/weren't interested in a second date' listed as violations. The community guidelines page notes reporting is for 'behavior that violates our policies', and the 'how do you report someone?' pages notes 'We encourage you to report and block any suspicious users or behavior.'
For example, some people claim that ceasing all communication without any explanation can be a form of emotional abuse—see "silent treatment" on Wikipedia.
Which is irrelevant, because while someone may post here that doesn't mean they are owed attention, and if they've made clear they're just posting to rile people up then people have no obligation to explain yet again why they're flagging them.
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BTW, there's general disagreement online about whether "downvoting" &c should be used to express mere disagreement. On some sites that's considered perfectly acceptable; others treat it as abuse.
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BTW, there's general disagreement online about whether "downvoting" &c should be used to express mere disagreement. On some sites that's considered perfectly acceptable; others treat it as abuse.
And that is what it comes down to. On some sites it's abuse. On others it isn't.
Sites need to be clear what that button means.
On TD it can cause a comment to be hidden. Or maybe even deleted if it is actual spam.
On Reddit downvotes have a different effect. If you are a karma whore, it is arguably worse.
Apparently Tinder is so afraid of lawsuits, the effect of even a single strike is pretty catastrophic.
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"BTW, there's general disagreement online about whether "downvoting" &c should be used to express mere disagreement. On some sites that's considered perfectly acceptable; others treat it as abuse."
The downvote button exists for a reason - so the only abuse possible is if someone starts using sock puppets to bolster the downvotes with.
And mind you, given the way most sites count votes only for some form of registered account, it's a job and a half to get enough votes up or down to make much of a difference.
Any "general" disagreement found online would be between the opinion of a bunch of entitled special snowflakes who feel their interests and rights have been infringed everytime someone refuses to agree with them, in opposition to more rational beings who realize that the ability to disagree with what is being said is part and parcel of free speech.
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What, involving people, doesn't get abused?
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compassion?
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You don't think people take advantage of others' compassion? Ever?
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Swipe left for tinder
Just another reason to reject Tinder as a dating app....
That and my wife probably wouldn't approve.
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In a way, this will sort itself out
Isn't it a problem for sites like Tinder and the like that they have more (hetero males, for this case) people looking for dates, than people that want to go with them (with a lot of people looking for something better?) - if these guys keep doing it, will weed out all the sensible people to date, tinder will react, or become irrelevant. But, that does take time, and the abuse in the mean time seems like a good reason for tinder to change.
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Re: In a way, this will sort itself out
Of course, Tinder might "react" in the same way that Ashley Madison did: by putting up fake profiles and hiring people to pretend to be a sensible person who is willing to date.
If the AM scandal proved anything, it was that there are a whole bunch of men out there who are ready and willing to be scammed.
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Maybe your profile looked like a bot or a girl who is advertising her instagram. Was that a possibility?
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Wah!
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Spread the word!
Anybody who discriminates against men they consider "ugly" deserves the "BANHAMMER". MWAHAHAHAHA!
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What did you expect
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Told a guy a guy on tinder that i am not interested in having sex with him. AFter he sent me harassing messages. he reported me and now i am banned.
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techdirt, you got sadfished.
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