During the municipal elections in spring 2017, a group of researchers and practitioners specialising in computer science, media and communication implemented a hate speech identification campaign with the help of an algorithm based on machine learning.
At the beginning of the campaign, the algorithm was taught to identify hate speech as diversely as possible, for example, based on the big data obtained from open chat groups. The algorithm learned to compare computationally what distinguishes a text that includes hate speech from a text that is not hate speech and to develop a categorisation system for hate speech. The algorithm was then used daily to screen all openly available content the candidates standing in the municipal elections had produced on Facebook and Twitter. The candidates' account information were gathered using the material in the election machine of the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle.
All parties committed themselves to not accepting hate speech in their election campaigns. On the other hand, if the candidate used a personal Facebook profile instead of the page created and reported for the campaign, it was not included in the monitoring. Finnish word forms and the limited capability of the algorithm to interpret the context the same way humans do also proved to be challenging. The Perspective classifier developed by Google for the identification of hate speech has also suffered from the same problems in recognising the context and, for example, spelling mistakes.
Who wants to play, "Trigger the Algorithm" with false positives? "This mosaic is too dark. Let's use more white tiles here, and here."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @02:31PM
Yes yes, all the Skypes and Googles and Lepos and Bings, gotta find and categorize all the hate.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 15 2017, @02:46PM (31 children)
All the folks wanting "hate speech" nuked really need to remember that it's a phrase that means whatever those in power say it does. Then consider whether they really believe people who think exactly like them are always going to be the ones in power.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:32PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:00PM (6 children)
I think you're preaching to the choir here, haven't seen many people round SN that care for censorship.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:05PM
It's about 50/50, you haven't been paying attention.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 15 2017, @05:08PM (3 children)
There're groups, even here, that somehow get it in their brain that labeling something they don't want to hear "hate speech" makes it okay to let the government or utterly unaccountable corporations get away with censoring people. We've even had to have a staff discussion or two on it because everyone has something they think should never be said. Which is precisely why intellectual diversity is the only meaningful diversity in an organization; so you always have someone ready to call bullshit for you when you're dead wrong and should know better. Yes, it's been called on me. Yes, I'm glad it was.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @05:42PM
A lot can also be learned from rabinical argument, argue your point and at half time exchange points of view and argue from the other side.
One sided echo chambers are nothing short or dangerous.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday October 15 2017, @06:26PM (1 child)
I vote that the speech we disallow be anything along the lines of "reproductive-organ-oriented people who have a characteristic skin tone". I hate seeing that junk.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday October 15 2017, @07:27PM
I see what you did there.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @02:31AM
https://soylentnews.org/~aristarchus/journal/2644 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday October 15 2017, @07:02PM (18 children)
Don't ya just hate it when power is so blatantly arbitrarily exercised?
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=21743&page=1&cid=572931#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Sounds like somebody thinks my submissions to SoylentNews are hate speech, hate speech towards the poor and lonely alt-right. And so:
Story still "no display" after about a couple weeks. "Argument" still pending, or somebody's idea of "hate speech" has resulted in censorship right here in river city? I would have no complaint if the submission were just rejected. Happens all the time! (Although to certain submissions more than others? See sig. ) But to see SoylentNews complain about the suppression of hateful speech. . . the irony meter has either been removed, or covered in black tape.
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 15 2017, @07:30PM (17 children)
Say whatever you like in comments or your journal. Hitting the front page means we thought it had at least a slight resemblance to good and interesting journalism though and most of your stuff just doesn't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @07:47PM (8 children)
Just wanted to say, back in university it was a known fact in english classes if you find out what your english teacher was "into" and you wrote a glowing paper on that subject it was a guaranteed easy A. Good to see SN going down that road. If I wanted to watch a circlejerk I would turn on some "comedy-news".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 15 2017, @08:40PM (7 children)
You not being able to tell the difference between propaganda absolutely gushing one-sided bias and newsworthy material is a problem with yourself not with us.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @02:36AM (4 children)
"For further examples of the religion of peace in the news, see what Iran is up to [yiannopoulos.net]."--The Mighty Buzzard [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday October 16 2017, @11:58AM
2) TMB is not a editor.
3) Don't you have something better to do than be an idiot on the internet? There isn't exactly a dearth of them.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 16 2017, @02:15PM (2 children)
Yep, you kind of made my point for me since that's a fine example of one of my own subs getting rejected for not meeting standards.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @03:34PM (1 child)
It wasn't rejected. It was accepted.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 16 2017, @04:17PM
So it was. I stand corrected. Must have been a follow-up I subbed that was rejected.
In that case, let me ask you this: Which bits of it do you consider propaganda? After a reread to refresh my recollection of it, I see some amounts of bias in the story but no more than you'd see in any MSM reporting and the article itself is quite well written and sourced (though the page layout is annoying as hell). Non-excessive amounts of bias the eds tend to allow through if the journalism is otherwise acceptable; see gewg_(OriginalOwner)'s subs from proudly socialist websites for examples of bias quite different than my own making it through to the front page.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @11:38PM (1 child)
There are oh-so-many articles that should have been rejected by your criteria, but oddly enough all the crazy Right Wing Nut Job shite gets through all the time.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:12AM
Incorrect. Plenty of subs from all kinds of ideologies get rejected. Feel free to inquire of your favorite right-wing type about the accuracy of this.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday October 15 2017, @08:40PM (7 children)
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=22052&page=1&cid=582358#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
So in this case, your judgment on aristarchus submissions should have read, "I have hung out with alt-right types, and I do not like the mean things aristarchus and the New York Times are saying about them, so I, who am not an editor, will bury this story, claiming it is 'bad journalism' and 'broad brush' hate speech." You are not fooling anyone, Tiny Magenta Bullvulture! And you are killing SoylentNews.
(Score: 2, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 15 2017, @08:41PM (6 children)
Your logic isn't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @03:41PM (5 children)
TMB called out again. I'll say it again, you're a fascist little snowflake pig. You pull all sorts of bullshit, claim it isn't bullshit, then use a straw man about your own submissions which turns out to be mostly bullshit. I'm shocked!! At least there haven't been too many RWNJ stories recently.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 16 2017, @04:25PM (4 children)
You criticize my actions yet offer no evidence to support your claims. Do please tell me, specifically, what actions your complaints originate with. SN isn't the MSM, you have to back your attacks.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @06:25PM (3 children)
Just following a strat from your own playbook, throw around accusations and never offer supporting evidence.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 16 2017, @06:35PM (2 children)
Pointing out logical inconsistencies, contradictions, and fallacies in what someone just said rarely requires a citation. Do you have such an argument to make or are you just going to continue spewing unsupported accusations?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday October 16 2017, @08:16PM (1 child)
No Comment, Buzz, no comment.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 16 2017, @09:40PM
I see what you did there. It did give me a chuckle.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday October 16 2017, @12:03AM
They should also remember that these algorithms tend to be abysmal and catch all sorts of people in the crossfire. So you're not safe even if your guys are in power.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @02:28AM
There are certain patterns of rhetoric that can cause humans to self-organize into tribes, usually for the purpose of getting rid of another tribe, with violence if necessary.
It challenges one's philosophical desire for free speech. I think free speech still wins. Free speech wins every time. It's the humans who need to do the evolving, not the concept of free speech. Perhaps in 100,000 years humans will have better logical faculties so it will not be possible for those patterns of rhetoric to cause them to become violent.
Perhaps it may be possible for the authoritarian follower instinct to become vestigial with sufficient evolution. However, that kind of specific kind of evolution can only happen in an environment of free speech.
An environment without free speech only causes more authoritarian followers, and it causes selection in their favor. (The Catholic Church is an especially interesting case of this by specifically encouraging excessive breeding.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:08AM (1 child)
I recall a certain regex filter that seemed to nuke every other reply on this site not too long ago.
Paging Mr. Bullshit, Mr. Bullshit please respond, there is a mess in aisle 4, looks like a toddler threw up.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:14AM
Everybody does a bit of pooch-screwing in their coding once in a while. I reckon we have a pretty good record at not doing so very often though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:55PM (3 children)
"Yeah, that'd be the bomb. I hate it when people get it wrong."
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Sunday October 15 2017, @06:21PM (2 children)
"Yesterday I had a problem with Apache. I had to kill it."
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @07:06PM (1 child)
> "Yesterday I had a problem with Apache. I had to kill it."
Indeed, and don't forget Apache's Children. Make sure you kill them all as well, otherwise if you orphan them they can cause problems, not least of which is further spawning.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday October 16 2017, @12:41AM
"The thing with shooting pages from Apache is that it can be susceptible to an I.E.Device where the view doesn't render well."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday October 15 2017, @05:27PM (2 children)
Rejoice! There will soon be no need for any of us to engage in the expensive and risky practice of developing our own opinions in a free market of ideas! Instead the computers will select the good speech and make sure that we see nothing else! This will not only save you time and effort, but also minimize your risk of developing bad-think. Bad-think leads to thought-crime and that leads to miniluv, and we know you don't want to go there.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday October 15 2017, @07:39PM (1 child)
The whole concept of hate speech is really a verb-noun phrase, rather than an adjective-noun phrase.
Hate speech is speech someone else hates. Just as those decrying hate in the current political climate are the only real haters.
Hate speech should have never found its way into law. Without it being illegal, its just blowing off steam, bad manners, and fist attracting.
Has society become more tolerant and polite by banning hate speech, or simply more divided and restrictive?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @03:43PM
Playing the extremists off each other and letting everyone in between just get pissed off about it. S.O.P
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @07:37PM
I'll write my own, here we go!
if (white && says_anything_negative_about_other_races * (misconstrue_factor * 0.75)) return true
if ((white_person || minority) && says_anything_against_white_people) return false
if (woman && self-styled_feminist && talking_about_any_man && not_talking_about_trans) return false
if (regex(LGBT[A-Z]{1,1000}) && says_fucking_anything) return false
if ((jewish || university_professor) && publicly_calls_for_white_genocide_on_social_media || applauds_white_genocide_in_south_africa) return false
I could easily write 50 more of these.
(Score: 3, Informative) by iWantToKeepAnon on Sunday October 15 2017, @07:48PM (2 children)
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday October 15 2017, @09:00PM
I'd suggest it was more like what use to be called an "expert system" which, like Bayes, had to be carefully trained, but once trained could diagnose all sorts of stuff. Expert systems usually required some knowledgeable person(s) to feed it questions and answers with some kind of rightness or wrongness applied. They found a lot of applicability in medicine allowing diagnoses of odd or rare diseases etc.
I would suspect the subject algorithm is precisely that: A Bayesian filter, and nothing more.
Computer science types tend to apply whatever fad they've just learned to every task that comes down the pike - until failure or new fad occurs. And if journalism majors were involved, well the algorithm could also be just as effective to classify emails into Empress vs A-Line camps.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @09:05AM
I'd say if a Bayes filter is not machine learning, then nothing is.
Note that learning does not imply intelligence.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @09:23PM (3 children)
Will this also classify as hate speech all observations along the lines that people who regulate hate speech, hate speech?
Actually a serious question. I've heard it seriously proposed that criticising hate speech regulations is inherently hate speech. (On a college campus, mostly, but also elsewhere.)
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 15 2017, @10:28PM
Almost certainly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @09:10AM (1 child)
Is it also hate speech to say that you hate hate speech?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @03:27PM
No, that's SJW virtue signalling.
Now you're thinking meta!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @10:37PM (1 child)
Hillary's "deplorables" was hate speech.
Obama's comment that small-town voters cling to guns and god was hate speech.
Every "Cheeto in Chief" and "Drumpf" is hate speech.
Kneeling for the anthem is an expression of hate speech.
Denying the humanity of the unborn is hate speech. (or is it OK to consider woman and blacks as property?)
Burning the flag is hate speech, as it stepping on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @02:42AM
Observe. Any attempt to stifle free speech, no matter how well-intentioned, before humans can evolve on a geological time scale, will cause that self-organization into tribes. The group stifling free speech becomes the enemy tribe.
Also observe SJWs. The presence of the tribe created by free speech suppression encourages another tribal self-organization.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday October 16 2017, @02:47AM (1 child)
This is perhaps the ur-example of why you can't solve a social problem with a technical solution. This is entirely the wrong tool for the job and will be massively abused. I don't think the people pushing for this are stupid and can't see this. To the contrary, I think they see it perfectly well and are evil, not stupid.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 16 2017, @10:55AM
I totally agree. The only thing they might have added to cement that is tack on "Won't anyone think of the children?!" to it somehow.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @04:00PM
It's speech get over it