Content Moderation Case Study: Instagram Takes Down Instagram Account Of Book About Instagram (2020)
from the seems-like-a-problem dept
Summary: Three professors, Tama Leaver, Tim Highfield and Crystal Abidin, wrote a book about culture on Instagram and how it developed. The book, entitled Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures, was released in February of 2020. Along with the book, the authors set up social media accounts to both promote the book and to continue the discussion about how Instagram culture has developed. Not surprisingly, one of the social media accounts they set up was on Instagram itself.
On Instagram, the account would post images about Instagram (including examples of its content moderation issues). The authors were surprised in mid-September when Instagram shut down their account without any clear reason.
The authors submitted an appeal saying that they believed the takedown was in error, noting the nature of their work, and explaining why they did not believe the account’s reposting of others’ work as part of their research should violate copyright (though, the disabled account notice did not specify that it was for copyright infringement):
Our account has been disabled in error. The ‘polityinstabook’ account was used specifically for research purposes, by three visual social media researchers: Associate Professor Tama Leaver (Curtin University), Dr Tim Highfield (University of Sheffield) and Dr Crystal Abidin (Curtin University). We have collectively all done considerable research on Instagram, evident in our co-authored book ‘Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures’ published this year by Polity Press. This account was set up to document our continued research on Instagram. It seems likely that the account was mistakenly disabled as some reposted content may appear at a glance to violate copyright. However these images have been reposted under the allowances of FAIR USE, for the purposes of SCHOLARLY RESEARCH. This account is used to highlight platform and cultural changes and impacts of Instagram, documenting them for research purposes (as is stated in our bio).
We respectfully request you review the disabling of our account and would appreciate the account being reactivated at your earliest convenience.
The authors also took to Twitter to generate some attention for the fact that their Instagram account was removed.
Decisions to be made by Instagram:
- How much information should be provided to the operators of disabled accounts about why their account was disabled?
- How should the company review appeals on disabled accounts, when the users are not told why their account was disabled?
- Should academic researchers be treated differently than other types of users?
- Providing information about why an account was taken down makes it easier for those wrongly taken down to appeal and explain their story, while at the same time potentially making it easier for malicious actors to game the system. How should a company balance those competing goals?
- Instagram is likely more aggressive in taking down accounts that have Instagram in their name, to avoid users believing the account is coming from the company itself. Is there a way to balance those interests with allowing authors to promote their book about the platform?
It looks like your account was disabled by mistake. Your account has been reactivated, and you should now be able to log in. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.
If you have any issues getting back into your account, please let us know.
Thanks, The Instagram Team.
No further explanation was given to the authors.
Originally published to the Trust & Safety Foundation website.
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I don't like this kind of resolution.
You don't know why it happened in the first place. ("A mistake" doesn't explain anything.)
You don't know how it was solved in the end. (You don't have any more reason for the account being restored than you got for the account getting suspended.)
I'm a software developer and there is one thing I hate above even obnoxious customers: a bug that appears in one of my products, then disappears by itself before we can find its source.
And the reason I hate both of these things is the same: they can and probably will happen again, and we would still not know why.
Then again, with bugs, I would at least have another chance at investigating the issue. With opaque moderation choices, you still get no more chance to learn anything on the second, third or subsequent occurrences. The moderators will keep you in the dark every single time. Unless, maybe, enough people get impacted and quit in disgust.
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Re: Wrym
I agree. if you get banned, you should be given chapter and verse of the TOCs that were supposed to have been violated. Surely any automated system would be able to that with 1 additional step: if $BAN then disable_acct ($REASON,$account)
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Re: Re: Wrym
Well, the reason they don't specify exactly why you got banned is because of the assholes. And by assholes I mean the ones that will use that information to find a way around the rules, ie rule-wrangling.
TL;DR: We can't have nice things because of the assholes.
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Re: Re: Re: Wrym
This is exactly right
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Re: Re: Re: Wrym
Sure, having secret laws makes it much harder for people to avoid breaking them.
I guess it comes down to what the purpose of the rules is. Do you want people to obey them, or to break them so you have someone to punish?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrym
Do you need specific rules so as to avoid breaking them because you want to sail as close to the line as possible?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrym
There's a difference of philosophy here that I think I can help explain to you and those who disagree with you.
For them, anything not against the rules is permitted.
And for you, anyone who is slightly offensive, irritating, or who just doesn't fit in needs to shut the fuck up and hide because the only true crime is "not belonging". People who skirt as close to the rules as possible are signalling in a very loud way that they "don't belong", and so even if they haven't broken the rules you want them punished until they start behaving.
Now, you can't come right out and say that. Because it's unfashionable to admit this. You'd feel embarrassed. But you strongly insist upon that principle just the same.
Of course, for those of us who aren't insane control freaks and authoritarian fetishists, your attitude is incompatible with liberty, decency, tolerance, creativity, humor, kindness, convenience, and a hundred other qualities that I just don't have the energy to list.
Hope I've cleared things up.
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Well…yeah. That’s the whole point of curating a community: You generally don’t want assholes around.
No, it isn’t.
Say an asshole comes into a queer-friendly space and starts saying a bunch of anti-queer bullshit. They don’t technically violate the rules when they do it, but when pressed on why they’re being an asshole, they hide behind the excuse of “I’m not breaking any rules”. For what reason should the asshole be allowed to remain in that space even if everyone else wants the asshole gone?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrym
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrym
"And for you, anyone who is slightly offensive, irritating, or who just doesn't fit in needs to shut the fuck up and hide because the only true crime is "not belonging"."
This is how "community" works, yes. You don't invite unpleasant assholes into your circle of friends and aquaintances.
Yet here you are, arguing that such associationj should be compelled by government because, apparently, not enjoying the company of misogynists, racists and conspiracy theory nuts ought to be a crime.
Every damn time you open your trap you just keep exposing yourself as an entitled snowflake with entitlement issues. No one is obligated to hang out with you. Your insistence to the contrary just makes you even more of an asshole.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrym
What secret laws?
If you actually read the TOS for a service you should get the gist of what's allowed and or not which makes it pretty clear which topics you should avoid. The point is that if the TOS specify exactly what's allowed or not there will always be people who will use that information in an effort to skirt those rules. It also allows the service to use context to allow/disallow content in a more flexible manner.
No moderation is perfect which in some cases lead to questionable results. but in general there are two types of people who get dinged for their content, those who say "ops, my bad!" or those who say "Waah! I'm being censored!".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Then it isn't a legal contract
"The point is that if the TOS specify exactly what's allowed or not there will always be people who will use that information in an effort to skirt those rules. It also allows the service to use context to allow/disallow content in a more flexible manner."
Three things void a contract.
What you just posted is a prime example of why Big Tech TOS are not legal contracts. They are intentionally ambiguous. BigTech wants the flexibility but that isn't how contracts work. Contracts have to be specific. If they are ambiguous and subject to interpretation they are not legal.
I've seen major contract cases decided by the meaning of an oxford comma.
Contract law is that specific.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Then it isn't a legal contract
Another thing you seem to have a problem with, you equate flexibility with ambiguity. You can be very specific and still allow for flexibility in a contract.
In regards to the TOS's social media uses, somehow I don't think they where written on a whim. I fairly certain that they where written by lawyers more well-versed in contract law than you seem to be, otherwise we would see far more lawsuits.
From what you write I can only come to the conclusion that you have decided that "big tech" is always in the wrong, regardless who actually is wrong. It's kind of an interesting view-point to have for someone who allegedly deals in contract-law, especially since every case is different in some way.
Now I invite you to read Instagram's TOS for example, and give us a rundown how much ambiguity it contains. I'll wait...
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Assume for a moment that Twitter has banned users from posting the phrase “conversion ‘therapy’ ”, which refers to the psychological (and often physical) torture of queer people done with the intent of making them heterosexual/cisgender. How would proponents of “conversion ‘therapy’ ” get around that ban? Easy: They’ll refer to “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE) or any of the other phrases they’ve invented to disguise or soften the image of “conversion ‘therapy’ ”.
(Before you ask: Yes, the position of those quotation marks are intentional, and yes, they will be repeated every time I use the phrase.)
Spell out a rule in explicit detail and you’ll have the worst kinds of people looking for a loophole. Then you’ll have to further detail new rules to cover the loopholes, which will themselves have new loopholes to exploit. Semi-detailed rulesets that provide examples of prohibited speech but don’t limit the bans to those examples alone can be adapted on the fly to account for those loophole-abusing assholes.
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Re: Re: Re: Wrym
Yes. How dare they use the ban as a means of discovering how to not break rules... and then to not break them at all, ensuring they can evade bans!
The bizarre thing is that your comment makes perfect sense to you.
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Yes, it does make sense — trolls will test the absolute limits of what a stated rule says, then use whatever punishment gets handed down as a point of information in learning how to game the system. A troll will look for a loophole to abuse so they can keep trolling without technically violating the rules. Think of it as a game of “I’m not touching you”: Trolls love getting as close as possible to “touching you” without actually “touching you” (i.e., breaking the rules).
Your problem is in thinking trolls won’t abuse loopholes to keep trolling. We’re not here to solve that problem for you.
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Re: Re: Re: Wrym
That might be, but it's a poor excuse.
First, we don't need a high-level of detail, even a generic category of rule violation is fine. Something like "sexual content", "incitement to violence", etc.
Preferably quoting or linking to the exact content at fault.
Second, sports have precise rules. Communities have precise laws. Why wouldn't social platforms be able to do the same? Bad people will try to get around them. Of course they will. But that shouldn't and - in other cases - doesn't stop the rules from being as precise as possible.
If you give up on this, you might as well not pretend to have rules at all. Secret rules and secret reasons amount to the same as pure arbitrary ones.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrym
Actually encouraging secret rules leads to a secret state society.
Where I now differ from most Republicans, and fully agree with you here, is that I fully believe rules need to be more defined.
Not undone.
Saying I don’t like it don’t do it again poof gone… and you can sit there and scratch your head. What did you do?
As a moderator, my first effort is to flag, lock, even edit down (clearly marked) material before I delete.
I create careful records of what was removed or changed and why, and always am willing to supply that to the moderated (or on rare occasion censored) person.
I retain a backup, both for legal protection and in case of errors).
I am open with the site community regarded by in place editing->
[medit] links to off site sales company removed due to questionable legality and irrelevance to our site[/medit]
Or more often
…links to alternate lifestyle porn removed to comply with site rules…
And while I still occasionally troll the trolls with detailed questioning on the “products” they make available, the communities tend to have a few users with a photo of a can of spam waiting. Lol.
See, the chances of me naming a user who unintentionally breaks the rules is quite unlikely.
First I use back end tools to issue warnings.
If they continue to break the rules I flag the account to reverify by signing in, proving human status, resetting passwords, and clicking through the site rules.
If they continue I’ll use a lock flag. I post a polite message of the rules they have violated, how they violated them, why it was disruptive, and require them to acknowledge the message by agreeing that continued violation of the listed rules will result in increasing punishment. Temporary lock out, temporary bans, long term bans, and eventual a last resort I’ll hand the user and logs over to the site owner for a permaban.
Could be I’m not patient than most.
Maybe sites like Twitter would be well off to hire more people who are more patient.
But I can’t accept that just tossing a person aside without ever clarifying the actual WHAT of the reasoning is correct. It may be legal, but that doesn’t make it correct.
A healthy track star can legally get down on their hands and knees and baby crawl across an intersection in the crosswalk. That doesn’t make it right.
It’s one thing to stand by private property rights, which is what changed my stance in 230.
It’s another to be an arse because you legally can be.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wrym
The rules that are in place today is just a reaction to the behavior of assholes. The simple fact is that if not for the assholes we would hardly need to have moderation or rules.
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Everyone who's actually done any moderation of user-contributed content knows this from extended, bitter, constant experience. It is a thankless job because the people who aren't bothered by obnoxious jerks don't know what had to be done to make that happen, and the obnoxious jerks are furious that they can't take a crapper in someone else's clubhouse.
Seriously. If you haven't actually spent a year or three part-time moderation, then listen to someone--ANYONE who has.
And who defines what obnoxiousness and jerkery are? The moderators, based on what they think will offend the people they want to attract. Moderators guess wrong--site dies, because you might think you can legally force a clubhouse to let you in, but you can't force anyone else to visit while you are there.
There's also been a lot of extremely-ignorant chatter that moderators ought to be able to remove false or illegal posts, as if they were ever in a position to judge truth/falsity, or equipped with the requisite legal background. Again, nobody who's ever been a moderator would want to touch anything but the most glaring examples--bleach and malaria drugs to treat COVID, perhaps, but it's hard to imagine many other cases where a federal judge or a scientific researcher wouldn't be needed. If that example were not so glaringly obvious, it would probably be easier to say that a COVID-bleacher is being "offensive in the context of this community" than to say either he is liar-liar or he is illegally giving medical advice. So again, moderators will generally do their best to deal with "offensiveness" (which they might be able to estimate, if they are part of their desired community) rather than "falsehood" or "legality".
You do what you can to frustrate the jerks (who go elsewhere to complain obnoxiously about their frustration, as if they didn't deserve worse) and serve a polite and admittedly-non-universal desired audience. And no ignoramus who hasn't walked far enough in your moccasins to wear holes--has a right to an opinion on how well your job has been done.
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Re:
Even PolitiFact, a leftist organization, states that Trump said nothing about bleach, nor ingesting disinfectants. Even in your explanation of what happens in moderation, you can’t help but tell a lie. Astounding.
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Re: Re:
Much like the lefts belief that Sarah Palin said 'I can see Russia from my house' it was Tina Fey, this is an example of leftist Mandela effect.
And its a good example as both were valid points. Peroxide drips have been used for years, your body makes it as part of your own immune system. And border state governors like the Governor of Alaska have far more foreign policy experience than say a freshman senator for Illinois.
This of course gets perverted in leftwing media and they come to believe something that was never said.
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Re: Re:
It's funny you should mention Trump, since no one else did - not even the poster you replied to.
But let us put that specific question to rest with some facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zicGxU5MfwE
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Re: Re:
Trump's exact words:
So no, he did not exactly say ingesting bleach or disinfectants. But he did exactly say injecting disinfectant.
Ultimately, not much difference in what he said, and what you claimed that he didn't say.
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Re: Re: Re: There is a Differnece
Yes there is a difference. Because injecting a disinfectant is a legitimate treatment. It just depends on the disinfectant. Peroxide drips are legitimate medicine.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: There is a Differnece
Except for the fact he wasn't talking about peroxide drips.
He was, in fact, talking about household disinfectants. You know the kind that you use to clean your kitchen and bathrooms. Can't say I have ever cleaned my toilet with a peroxide drip.
It always amazes the lengths to which people will go in order to defend somebody as dumb as Trump. He said what he said in the context of household disinfectants, and Trump supporters twist it into him actually talking about something completely different in order to try and show that he isn't really as stupid as everybody knows he is.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: There is a Differnece
A peroxide drip is 3%. The lysol free and many other cleaners are a 1% peroxide solution. You are ignorant. When any cleaner calls itself 'no cholerine bleach' or 'no cholerine whitening' they mean its peroxide. Jesus people here are ignorant. You start at you conclusion and work your way back. Why not see if peroxide is a common cleaner before you spout off.
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Also worth noting: His comments came directly after a presentation that talked about how household disinfectants — including bleach — could kill the COVID-19 vaccine on non-porous surfaces. Since Old 45 isn’t the brightest of even the dim bulbs, that his remarks could’ve referred to bleach is incredibly likely.
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I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
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Re:
Well, in all likelihood chlorine will actually "kill" the vaccine.
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It will also kill the host, but that’s not important right now.
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Re: Re:
Operation successful but the patient died?
Yeah, and the dimbulbs voting for Trump are either sufficiently gormless to fail to understand that or refuse to realize their Chosen One is, indeed, that dumb.
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Re:
That was one of favorite 'slapstick' comedies that I remember seeing as a kid! Also remember needing my parents to buy model glue at the time.
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Re: Re:
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Re: Perfect Example
"f they were ever in a position to judge truth/falsity, or equipped with the requisite legal background"
"touch anything but the most glaring examples--bleach and malaria drugs to treat"
See you give the perfect example.
First, trump never specified bleach. The use of peroxide to treat infections has been legal practice for over a century. Your body makes peroxide as part of its immune system to fight off infection. When you are sick you serum peroxide levels rise. A peroxide drip furthers this natural immune response. I worked in a medical clinic that did peroxide drips. So again you don't know what you are talking about. You should have stuck to your first point.
Second, that same Malaria drug is used to treat Lupus and autoimmune disorders
"Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is by far the most frequently used antimalarial for the management of Systemic Autoimmune Diseases. It has immunomodulatory, hypolipidemic, hypoglycemic and antithrombotic properties and it diminishes the risk of malignancies."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27092678/
The clinic I worked in used HCQ to treat lupus and other autoimmune disorders. Again you are not a doctor so why did you think that its just a malaria drug? Oh that's right you are not a doctor and you hate Trump. You would rather people die than Trump be right about anything.
As an immunomodulator HCQ can lessen the bodies immune response which is what actually kills most people with COVID.
Hydroxychloroquine is also a zinc ionophore.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/
Zinc inhibits coronavirus replication as polymerase inhibitor and the use of zinc with a zinc ionophore like hydroxychloroquine makes it more effective as the ionophore lets the zinc enter the cell
"Zn2+ Inhibits Coronavirus and Arterivirus RNA Polymerase Activity In Vitro and Zinc Ionophores Block the Replication of These Viruses in Cell Culture"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2973827/
Again you are not a doctor and often times even doctors will spout off about subjects they know nothing about. Not every doctor is an expert in the use of hydroxychloroquine actually few are.
So just because someone with an MD is spouting off about a malaria drug being used to treat COVID-19 as ridiculous doesn't mean that said doctor knows at all what he is talking about. He could be just as much of a TDS sufferer as you are and is just ranting because Trump said it.
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Trump said what he said after a presentation that pointed out how household disinfectants — including bleach — could kill the virus on non-porous surfaces. If you think he was referring to peroxide drips when he said “disinfectants”, you’re deluding yourself into thinking Trump is a genius when he’s really a fucking moron.
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Re:
Portent has deluded himself into believing he's a genius, when all the evidence he's provided shows he's a moron.
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Re:
When you say household disinfectants you are talking about 4 major chemicals, benzalkonium (lysol), bleach, ammonia, peroxide(lysol free). Of these ammonia and peroxide are used intravenously in medicine. So 50% are used as benzalkonium medicine.
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Re: Re: Perfect Example
Good on you to do the research!
It won’t change their perception though.
Anything Trump or his administration said is bad.
That constant anti-Trump mentality would explain why, if it actually happened, a few less than competent fools in bumfuck saw something on CNN about the bull ‘Trump said bleach’ and went and drank a bottle of bleach!
You spend 4 years blasting every single thing the President says as false and people are bound to start doing the opposite.
Some just don’t use critical thinking and personal research!
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If this were true, more of his supporters would’ve started wearing masks when Trump started shittalking masks. But they didn’t. So it’s not.
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Re:
Not congruent.
He constantly bitched about mask mandates in every public address. He said bleach 5 times in his presidency regarding covid: once in the fake news drastically misquoted discussion on covid research and 4 times later refuting the false narrative. 2 of those at debates.
Everyone knows trump was against mask mandates because he said so over, and over, and over, and …!
That’s not being against masks, mind you, that being against mask mandates.
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Re: Re:
Which is also in favour of letting infected people spread the disease.
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Re: Re: Re:
Freedom isn’t free.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
That is an anti social attitude, as wearing a mask for the protection of other is a very minor inconvenience.
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Neither is American healthcare, but I don’t see you putting together the replacement plan for Obamacare that Trump couldn’t.
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Re:
And it should be. That’s not Trump’s fault. That’s Congress. That’s to polar opposites refusing to compromise.
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Trump promised to show off a replacement plan for Obamacare multiple times during his presidency. Don’t blame others for his failure to back up the shit he talked.
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That distinction is largely without a difference in regards to people who think mask mandates, even ones that aren’t enforced by law, are a step towards a new Holocaust. (Hi there, Marjorie Three-Names!) And Trump himself set the example for mask-wearing amongst the members of his cult of personality by adamantly refusing to wear masks, and mocking people who wore masks, for months.
I get that you think Trump is a demigod and all, but Jesus H. Christ, Lodos, get off his dick already.
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Re:
“ Marjorie”
Who?
Trump is no god. And you can’t convince a libertarian, a person who believes in personal liberty, to sheeple with giving up freedom.
If you want to be safe us a K, N, or KN, 95% mask. Not a paper 10 cent one. Which every competent medical professional said is of minimal self protective use, a 95% or better filtration mask. I don’t expect you to protect me. Why do you demand that I must protect you.
Yes,
I’m against a national mandate, now, and then, that everyone wear a pice of paper over their face. A piece of paper that doesn’t protect them.
You like socialism? Why didn’t the government, Trump or no Trump, kick into gear and produce enough 95% filtration masks to send 5 to every legal citizen and resident. Every week.
I’m not against masks, even as some Republicans are. I’m against forcing people to do something that is of no benefit to them. I chose to wear a proper mask. Choice is key. We have high risk family members.
But I’m not going to run down any person I see without one.
What benefit, to me, or anyone else, was there in forcing vaccinated people to wear one?
What is it that makes you think you have a right to force others to protect you.
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Re: Re:
But is significant protection of others in the event that you catch covid, possible from someone else who thinks mask wearing is an excessive infringement of their liberties.
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Re: Re: Re:
I used a proper mask for protection against covid.
I also got the vaccinations. Now a mask is not needed to protect myself and my family.
If I didn’t use a proper mask for the virus, or used no mask at all, and was infected, i have no one to blame but myself.
I didn’t demand anyone else use a mask. That’s their decision. Using a mask that does not filter the virus, such as drug store disposables, does nearly nothing for the user or others.
Sure, any protection is better than no protection.
But it’s still an intrusion on the self to force it.
Not to mention how many Democrats violated the very rules and restrictions they implemented with total disregard for the very same people they claim to be protecting.
So sure, explain to me why I must wear a mask for a haircut but nanny Nancy doesn’t need to.
Explain why I can’t host a party but democrats did so multiple times.
Explain why I’m locked in my house except for basic needs, but a politician can go visit their construction site.
I may even have some respect for the emergency powers beliefs if the rules were followed by the people who made them!
You bitch about Trump and his stance against mandates, his lack of use of a mask.
You ignore the hundreds of Dem infractions of the very rules the created and mandated.
Local and state government officials:
California, New York, Georgia, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Minnesota, DC… …
You going to point the finger at any of them? They CREATED the laws and don’t follow them. They pushed for the laws and don’t follow them.
And yes, I’m aware these are ordinances, proclamations, etc and not law.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Again you are wrong about why you wear a mask. It is not to protect you, but rather to protect others, as even an N95 mask will not stop you catching the virus, as it can infect you via you eyes. Also note that vaccination is not perfect, and you could still become a carrier of covid, and spread it to others by not wearing a mask. If nothing else, wearing a mask is a courtesy to people like shop assistants, who do not know your vaccination status.
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Seriously, wearing a mask is the “putting pants on in the morning” of public health — literally the bare minimum anyone needs to do to protect others — and people are still mad that they were asked to think about other people for once? Jesus, we’ve fucked up this whole society thing.
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Re:
“ and people are still mad that they were asked to think about other people”
Nobody asked! Nobody legislated, it was just chest thumping mandates
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Local and state governments mandated masks because they knew a bunch of Americans would sooner accept Scarlett Johansson as the next Black Panther than they would a request to act in the best interests of public health. Turns out, they were right.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
“Again you are wrong about why you wear a mask. “
I wore a mask to protect my family be stopping my contraction.
“as it can infect you via you eyes.”
Along with a few other routes, study results are questionable
Also note that vaccination is not perfect, and you could still become a carrier of covid,
Also still being studied
“ who do not know your vaccination status.”
Vax ststus cards, with a photo, would be nice.
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That’s why a lot of people are still wearing masks: They don’t want to become plague vectors like the ratlickers who think their “freedom” to infect others with a deadly disease is more important than other people’s lives.
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“That’s why a lot of people are still wearing masks”
At the point we are now, I am at the point where I literally don’t give a fuck. The vaccination is Available across the country. Anyone who wants one can get one. (2)
I have zero intention to do anything on behalf of the idiot anti-vax blowhards.
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You’re shittalking mask mandates like they do. For someone who says they’re not on the side of plague enthusiasts, you’re certainly spreading their bullshit like you are.
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Re: Re: Re: Perfect Example
"Anything Trump or his administration said is bad. "
During the worst parts of the pandemic if Trump had been sitting on his hands the US would have been better off. Out of 500k dead, 400k or so should have lived. Trump kept spouting dangerous nonsense because it inflamed and motivated his base. And following the bad advice given by authority, people died én másse.
Those 400k which shouldn't have died if the US had simply been leaderless, actually outnumber US dead during the world wars.
Trump's disastrous mismanagement of the middle east meant the loss of about fifty years worth of painstaking US labor - including the loss of the kurds to Russia which now means the US will have to go begging Saudi Arabia and Israel for favors anytime intelligence is needed.
Trump's "trade war" with China resulted in a new treaty far worse than the previous one being signed once he realized China won that war hands down.
And lastly, thanks to Trump catering to his "friends" in coal mining, the US is left behind on taking care of global warming. A chicken which will come home to roost once Miami gets flooded.
Yeah, more or less everything Trump said or did is indeed, bad. What little of it isn't usually lacks relevance to any particular topic, and the very rare few positives to be found wouldn't stand out as smart even if a kindergartner was in charge.
Trump has managed to solidly beat out every contender for worst president ever and that record is likely to remain unchallenged for a long time - even if the GOP manages to come up with another strongman populist it's unlikely to be as much of a man-child as 45.
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Pretty sure we’ve seen a sneak preview of that particular outcome from that building collapse last week. That wasn’t an earthquake or a bomb — that was the inevitable march of the rising sea upon the land we take for granted.
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"That wasn’t an earthquake or a bomb — that was the inevitable march of the rising sea upon the land we take for granted."
Well, to be fair it could also be classic US construction corner-cutting, same as the Twin Towers. A ton of sand with just a pinch of cement and a third of the rebar the building would need appears to be the standard in the land of Big And Cheap.
But yeah, the rising sea levels already flooding basements in Miami no doubt contribute to eroding building foundations who've been built to minimum requirements or less.
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That was ineptitude a damaged build set for repair continued housing people past the point of safety.
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Yeah, and if you think rising sea levels had nothing at all to do with that, you’re deluding yourself. Oceanfront property in Florida is fucked and there’s little anyone can do about it except sell their shit to Aquaman or Namor or Mister Nimbus.
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“ Yeah, and if you think rising sea levels had nothing at all to do with that, you’re deluding yourself.”
I didn’t say anything about it.
When you build below grade and on sand, with poor quality and nowhere mere the requisite quantity, you’ve built in a disaster.
Hopefully this sets off a wave of structural review so more people don’t needlessly die.
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And doing something about climate change, I guess that’s a “no” on your part?
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I’m not against reviewing climate change concerns. Nor am I stuck on it being natural vs man-made. I’ll wait for evidence: right now it’s ALL a blend of hypothesis and theory on the why part.
Only the ignorant say it’s not real. It obviously is.
What I’m against is knee-jerk reactions and excessive panic. Immediately shutting down or cutting off oil and coal is a knee jerk reaction. California has proven year after year that the most green of green isn’t yet capable of supporting use rates on its own.
Destroying progress on a major pipeline and putting many thousands out of work isn’t the solution to energy.
Most “green” plans are a/b and don’t have enough, if any, redundancy. When it’s 105• and every indoor dwelling is running AC, you have a major problem if the wind isn’t blowing. If it’s cloudy.
My issue is the “NOW to hell with the consequences” approach. Don’t make the country suffer to solve a multi-century problem by having no logical replacement!
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We’re not having a “knee-jerk” reaction to climate change because we’ve been responding to climate change for decades. For fuck’s sake, when do you think Captain Planet was made, 2015? Shit, there were hybrid vehicles available in the 1990s, a fact about which a recent episode of Jeopardy reminded me.
Man-made pollution is the primary driver of global climate change and has been for far longer than you and I have been alive. That you can’t accept that fact is your problem, and I’m not solving it for you. I’m over here wondering why the hell we’re not doing more about the biggest polluters in the world. We know where they live, we know where they work, and we know what they’re doing, but we’re still stuck on the idea that one person recycling a couple of plastic bottles a day will cancel out all the damage done by a single flight on a private jet owned by some workforce-exploiting billionare shithead CEO who couldn’t be fucked to fly first-class on a commercial airline like the rest of us regular jackoffs.
Until we get wider acceptance of and better efficiency from clean energy sources, yes, we need a reliable source of power as a “backup”. But acting like we’ll always need to burn coal or oil because “all clouds” or “no wind” is the clarion call of a coward who’s so afraid of progress in the energy sector that they runs to Big Oil for a hug that’ll need dishwashing liquid to clean up. Oh, and Keystone? How many actual permanent full-time jobs do you think that pipeline was going to have after it had been built? Because I can assure you that it wouldn’t have been as many as the number of temporary jobs created for the purpose of building the pipeline.
That building collapse in Florida isn’t some precursor to climate change fucking us over. Places having “once in a lifetime” storms more than once in our lifetimes is a warning sign that we’re fucked unless we act quicker than we are. And even if we do act quicker, we may be too late to prevent the worst effects of climate change.
But at least we’ll still be burning coal — a fact that I’m sure will be a great comfort to the victims of the next “once in a lifetime” storm to hit the American coastline in the next year or two~.
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“We’re not having a “knee-jerk” reaction to climate change because we’ve been responding to climate change for decades”
Setting a “we’re turning it all off” date regardless of infrastructure readiness is knee jerking.
Captain Planet? Sure, some old over dramatic kids show. We had electric cars since the 80s. So what.
“Man-made pollution is the primary driver of global climate change and has been for far longer than you and I have been alive”
That is the hypothesis. It competes with the progression of natural cycles hypothesis.
“can’t accept that fact”
It is currently less fact than evolution. It’s still a hypothesis. Not even theory level data until the last 3 years.
The only fact on climate change is we are starting to see carbon ice captures of the last 20-30 years that don’t coincide with volcanic activity. Lending, for the first time, with coring over the last 3 years, some creditably to a man made increase in warming speed.
“by a single flight on a private jet”
All the jet sitting by the go green or else people? Like Gore, DiCaprio, Madonna, Clinton?
Those wealthy people? Go green Jeff and go green Charlie and their empires?
Nice of them to fly commercial: right?
“But acting like we’ll always need to burn coal or oil because”
Because I didn’t say that.
I said we can’t just stop today and we won’t be able to in 15 years let alone 5, not without the government moving funding from other nonsense crap like new wings on presidential libraries and remodelling pet projects and voting for pay raises.
Oh, that’s right, rather than cut bullshite they just want to raise taxes. Did you read the crap that was in the second! Stimulus bill? Let alone the first? Did you watch/listen to the mandated live reading?
How about that infrastructure package?
You do realise the ID4 joke wasn’t much of a joke.. how about less $10,000 toilet seat replacements and more $10,000 eco flush toilet installs?
(No, that’s not literal).
“Places having “once in a lifetime” storms more than once in our lifetimes is a warning sign that we’re fucked unless we act quicker than we are. “
Now that is ignorance or plain lying. If humans never invented internal combustion, never invented cars, never burned a single piece of coal or a single gallon of oil: guess what… the ice age would still come to an end eventually.
That’s the way our environment works!
Did we speed it up. Well we’re starting to get actual evidence that moves the hypothesis from may be a contributing factor to are a factor.
We’re not more fucked. We’re fucked sooner.
“And even if we do act quicker, we may be too late to prevent the worst effects of climate change”
Again with lack of understanding. The climate WILL change. If every human dropped dead in 1950, 1850, 12,000 BCE, the climate would still change. Gradually getting warmer till we reach the end of the ice age we are currently in. Millions of years from now another cooling period will begin, eventually reaching massive glaciation following by a long warming cycle.
Wow, 2nd grade science.
The most extreme of the logical extrapolations is that those “once in a lifetime” storm[s]” would have become annual by the 2100s or 2200s.
And while there are a few end of the world studies with faulty data saying we’ve prevented the next glacial period; most recent studies come to two conclusions: we are speeding the rate of which we reach an interglacial and are prolonging the duration of that period.
The current consensus belief is such a delay would create a rubber band effect at the end of the next interglacial that would see rapid deepening of temperature and a far greater glaciation.
The earth is an interesting organ.
You may want to do some research of your own reading source studies, and not the end of the world sky is falling of Mother Jones.
Want to learn about green energy? Take a look at We Have The Power.
We have the technology, just not the funding and infrastructure.
And as for plastic bottles, watch Plastic Planet. May change your mind on the need for more recycling asap.
That’s an immediate this generation issue.
How about drinking water? Another this generation issue. Filtration is missing so much stupidity of medicinal flushing it’s registrable in most of this country’s tap. Not dangerous yet, but getting there. Watch Bottle Nation and Toxic Tonic to see about how this country is trashing our OWN water! Chemical dumping, open outlet, sewage…!
Don’t even get me started on soil. Landfilling is proven to be damaging to the sounding land.
Yes, we need to look at global warming. Something that will be a major problem if we really are speeding the process. A major problem in the next few centuries.
The immediate impact of that is on 1/10th of the population of the world, at most. Costal shoreline.
We have environmental issues far more immediate, for 100% of the population, the next 50 years, the next 25 years; far more immediate than co2 and farting cows and truck exhaust and yes, far more immediate than coal base energy or oil fuel.
Let’s tackle the problems of now while we work on fixes for the far off future.
Let’s make sure WE survive long enough to secure the future for our offspring.
If you still think turning off the majority of the energy supply as it is today by 2025 should be a mandate do or die… I can’t do anything about that.
If you recognise there a serious issue with a don’t-pass-go mandate, maybe get involved, make some calls and write some letters.
Get these people on the far left to temper their rhetoric before enough people are convinced we should, we plunge 100% of the population into the largest energy crisis in history.
Because that’s exactly what the mandates of the Green New Deal will do.
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"I’ll wait for evidence: right now it’s ALL a blend of hypothesis and theory on the why part. "
...it really isn't. Climate change is and always has been incredibly easy to quantify and prove; the only issue being that measurements of atmospheric CO2 and Methane have been difficult to find enough of before, oh, some dozen years ago.
Climate change and the causes of it are, today, as accepted and verified in the scientific community as the theory of god damn gravity. Meaning that even if the formula turns out to be not completely correct it still won't be wrong enough to mean jack shit on anything related to functional reality.
The only places where climate scepticism is still pursued are the ones which deny science as a whole. Breitbart, Fox, similar entertainment venues catering to a crowd which wants their desired narrative confirmed rather than factual reality revealed.
"What I’m against is knee-jerk reactions and excessive panic. Immediately shutting down or cutting off oil and coal is a knee jerk reaction. "
Yeah, no one likes hitting the panic button. It's just that since we've been delaying acting for so long now, we're metaphorically in the truck still running at 60 mph with the gaping abyss opening up right ahead. Trying to do a 180 jackknife stunt just to brake before we slide over the edge is needless to say not a good idea...but it's the only option left which we can't guarantee ends with us free-falling over the edge.
Because the permafrost is already melting in the siberian tundra and the glaciers on the north pole are irretrievably going away. Once the methane deposits locked in the tundra hits the atmosphere and greenland loses it's albedo that's it. It'll just be a matter of determining whether every coastal city vanishes beneath the waves within a century or within two centuries.
Meanwhile every breadbasket region - food producer - becomes desert within decades. We are looking at roughly half the global population very suddenly becoming food-deprived. The 21st century will be marked by neverending resource wars as half of the global population forcibly moves in with the other half in a hurry. Some areas, such as southern europe, northern africa, parts of asia, latin america and a few southern US states, will end up with an average temperature over the lethal limit.
We don't have any good options left. We have "instant recession" and "mad max" to choose from.
"When it’s 105• and every indoor dwelling is running AC, you have a major problem if the wind isn’t blowing. If it’s cloudy. "
Yeah. Fossil has one major advantage. It's portable and you can store it for a long time in a set of tanks. We don't have the time to build the required infrastructure for methane and no time to build up sufficient biomass reserves to make it viable. Wind power isn't 24/7 so you need a grid capable of shunting power from wherever the wind is blowing, solar cells might do it....if you had enough of them, in enough different places you could pipe power from the southern hemisphere to the northern over winter.
Personally I think what we need to do is refurbish every nuclear power plant and speedbuild enough of them to go to zero carbon emissions as fast as possible, no matter the cost. Even at the risk of half a dozen three mile islands, because that would be quantifiable disasters with a solution. The lesser evil.
Then phase those plants out in favor of a gradually built infrastructure net depending on sustainables when we actually have the time to do so.
We already missed the 2 degree plan. Mad Max is already the likely outcome. Today I advice relatives not to have children because the world they'll be born into will be by far grimmer than what we have today.
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Like I said, we’re starting to get data that in just measurable, but qualifiable. Most from Alaska and Russia
Data that clearly shows carbon saturation higher than expected with no natural cause.
A combination of better technology and smarter study is giving us data that’s hard to ignore, now.
I’m convinced enough to say maybe. And enough to figure on change.
But you, generically, need to remember how many decades of being wrong your now fighting to change as well. How long the glaciers will be gone in 10 years.
The job now is to get this information out of paywall journals and into public hands.
When people see the more recent data it becomes harder and harder to ignore… now.
The problem with nuclear fuel is, for some reason, dems don’t like it.
Despite it being the easiest right-now option.
Despite the pesky problem of leftovers.
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“ people died én másse.
Those 400k which shouldn't have died if the US had simply been leaderless,”
Trump made mistakes just like Fauci.
But how many of those died in nursing homes?
People finger Trump for what hi didn’t do.
They forgot to finger the Dems who through infected in with the old and infirm.
“disastrous mismanagement of the middle east “
Like what? He ended the Iran Ransom deal that they weren’t living up to.
Then wen on to secure multiple peace agreements between Arab nations and Israel.
Where’s the disaster in that?
“ will have to go begging Saudi Arabia and Israel for favors anytime intelligence is needed.”
Maybe we wouldn’t need such intelligence if we just stayed the hell out of everyone else’s business in the first place.
“ Trump's "trade war" with China ”
That didn’t go so well.
“ And lastly, thanks to Trump catering to his "friends" in coal mining, the US is left behind on taking care of global warming. A chicken which will come home to roost once Miami gets flooded.”
Sure, once the global ice caps all melt, in the next decade, two decades, whatever since the 60s.
Funny, Glacial parks finally gave up on replacing the gone by XXXX signs and just removed them. Quietly during Trump’s term.
I look at the big positives in retrospect, like every President.
Building a border wall, attempting a o balance China’s advantage in trade, major Middle East peace agreements, a multinational pipe line, energy Independence, space funding…!
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Do the trans military ban, the Muslim travel bans, the concentration camps on the southern border, the wrecked relationships with foreign allies, the cozying up to fascists, the further sinking Congress into partisan bullshit, the inspiring a cult of personality to protest a free and fair election based on an objective lie backed by no evidence, the refusal to unequivocally condemn racists and racial violence, the refusal to condemn police brutality, the mocking and shittalking of peaceful protests against police brutality, the insulting of lawmakers like a petty playground bully, the attempts to repeal Obamacare, the refusal to condemn anti-queer bigotry, the refusal to stand up for the rights of queer people domestically and internationally, and the hundreds of thousands of avoidable COVID deaths count as positives for you, too?
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Re: Re: Perfect Example
“The clinic I worked in used HCQ...”
The clinic I worked in used bleach...
to clean with
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I think this demonstrably false. I am such an ignoramus, having done essentially no content moderation at all. Yet truly I can say that Twitter, in suspending people who mention the county seat of Shelby, did a really crummy job of moderating. And, I suspect, others would agree with me.
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Does the following need moderator action?
Q) Where are you?
A) Between the Slaughters.
A Bit of context:
(Upper and lower Slaughter are nearby villages in the Cotswolds).
That is if you have the necessary knowledge to .put context on a post, a mistake is easy to spot, but remember that the moderator did not have that knowledge, and programmers do not know all place names that be problematic when it comes to moderation.
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It's just another facet of the Scunthorpe problem.
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Amazing Amazon AI
That's my guess. Amazon is big on it. Loves them some AI. Which doesn't exist. Their Machine Learning does. Which is mostly tables of numbers and training data. Which is us. Our data.
They set the numbers and run the data through the grinder that is ML. If they don't like the results, they tweak a couple of numbers in the tables and train again.
This is not programming.
This is not knowing how to do programming. But, as long as the boss writes the check what's the problem?
Well, accounts getting zeroed because the ML traffic cop got a bit stuck. And nobody reacts until they get more bad press. Surprise!
Well, no. I am not surprised.
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You're probably right.
But ... if you're right, even Amazon can't know exactly why the action was taken, it's just a number from the table-du-jour.
Besides, how is this different from ordering search order results in Bing, or even Google? This is the only way to do things "at very very large scale". Part of the ToS sometimes NEEDS to be "we can't promise to leave your content up forever, or to take down anyone else's content perfectly consistently. You're not paying enough money (or the advertisers are not paying enough money) for us to do either one reliably."
Content providers: in order to have full control over your own content, in the end you've got to manage your own website, an inconvenience. Content viewers: In order to have full control over what you see on the internet, you're going to have to disconnect from the internet, inconvenience squared.
(Did i hear someone muttering something about content moderation being impossible at scale? Or is it just the voices in my head again?)
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According to Techdirt, this is why we need to protect section 230: Instagram is a private corporation. It’s their platform, so they make the rules. Also, they can curate content to make their platform a “better” place which is known as “moderation,” not censorship, as freedom from censorship only applies to government entities. They’re not publishers, even though they’re acting as one by removing content they disagree with because, well, section 230 says they’re not.
It’d be nice if Techdirt would be consistent on this matter, but lo-and-behold, here they are wondering why a private corporation, not governed by the laws of censorship or the rules regarding publishers, would take down a post without explanation. The cognitive dissonance echoing in the brains of the Techdirt editors must be deafening.
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You can without problem say that company A has these rights while still being able to criticize company A for their actions within those rights.
Anyone who thinks it's a binary choice is a simplistic fool, just like you judging by your post.
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They have been. You're just illiterate and dishonest.
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Having the right to do a thing doesn’t make it the right thing to do. We’re allowed to say “they have the right to do that, but what they’re doing is bullshit” because of that principle. I’d love to see you explain why you think we’re not, though.
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It’d be nice if Techdirt would be consistent on this matter, but lo-and-behold, here they are wondering why a private corporation, not governed by the laws of censorship or the rules regarding publishers, would take down a post without explanation. The cognitive dissonance echoing in the brains of the Techdirt editors must be deafening.
There's no cognitive dissonance at all. We have been entirely consistent: companies have the right to moderate as they see fit AND they will often make mistakes. In fact, that's why we need 230 because otherwise they'll get sued over every damn mistake they make -- and because no one ever agrees what is "correct" moderation, you'll just get non stop lawsuits.
The position is entirely consistent.
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“The cognitive dissonance echoing in the brains of the Techdirt editors must be deafening.”
The level of projection on display here is just astounding.
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These accidents happen a lot when it could just as easily be spite. Big Tech censorship of content that negatively affects them followed by the 'oopsie accident' sounds an awful lot like a Big Tech version of Schrodinger's Douchebag.
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Prove it is and maybe we’ll care.
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No you won't.
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You got tired of tripping over your dick about quack cures promoted by Trump real quick. Perhaps there is hope for you after all.
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TOS Violations
They should lay out, by the LETTER, what the violation was. I've been up the ass of the TOS for the last few years just so that my page would not get disabled. I took a considerable amount of time out of my life to make CERTAIN I had not violated ANY stated policy, yet I'm currently disabled, been 2 weeks. Appealed it all with lengthy explanations of how I am sure there was a mistake because I keep on top of the guidelines. In my case, it's the nudity and sexual solicitation policies, as I post a lot of boudoir content. However, I have never shown nor do I ever plan to show nipple, genitalia, up close bare bottoms, OR any bit of 'sexual chats or sexual asks/offers/solicitation.' Just because I am a model and photographer who takes part in boudoir and physique content doesnt mean I have sexual intentions!!!!!!!! I have NEVER done any of that, yet my page got disabled for.. wait for it.. sexual soliciation! Facepalm.
7 years of work gone. All the time put into learning the guidelines and checking them once a month to make sure no changed had been made, down the drain.
What more is there to say?
And no, like some other commenters tried to insinuate, I was not and would never try to 'see how much I could get away with.' Sure, some peeps are douchebags and absolutely try to do this, but IMO that's even more a reason for a company to flesh out their policies as much as possible. If I were in charge, I would absolutely inform users of the EXACT VIOLATION, the EXACT EXACT EXACT violation, to the fcking LETTER.
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