from the consequences-will-never-be-the-same dept.
Instagram will filter out bullying comments
At the F8 conference today, it was announced that Instagram will filter out bullying comments from posts, starting today. This includes anything "intended to harass or upset people in our community," the platform's CEO said in a post. Doing this will ensure Instagram remains "an inclusive, supportive place for all voices," he wrote.
From our CEO kevin "Starting today, Instagram will filter bullying comments intended to harass or upset people in our community. To be clear: we don't tolerate bullying on Instagram. Our Community Guidelines have always prohibited bullying on our platform, and I'm proud to announce this next step in our ongoing commitment to keeping Instagram an inclusive, supportive place for all voices. We also believe in promoting kindness — encouraging our community to support one another both on and off Instagram. On Saturday we will host a Kindness Prom to celebrate people on our platform who are spreading positivity. These young leaders are inspiring their peers by helping kindness, acceptance and support grow on Instagram and in the world. Since Mike and I founded Instagram, it's been our goal to make it a safe place for self-expression and to foster kindness within the community. This update is just the next step in our mission to deliver on that promise."
The filter will be enabled automatically, but can be disabled. Regardless of a user's settings, the filter will be able to automatically flag comments for official review. Facebook's DeepText machine learning algorithm is used to review words for context and meaning.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @11:55PM (8 children)
Instagram is attempting to automate their censorship.
No biggie, lots of alternatives. The only true evil in this whole internet business is the service provider. They are the only insurmountable obstacle to open communications.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @12:05AM (3 children)
One of the problems with automated censorship is that it always catches countless innocent people in the crossfire. Youtube is another great example of this. So even if one supports silencing the people ostensibly targeted by this, it's hard to support these automated systems.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @12:45AM (2 children)
The futility! What are they going to do when variations of "Great picture" or "You look stunning" become common as sarcastic slurs?
Why is it that would-be language censors never understand how language develops? Is it because they are all a bit "special"?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @03:14AM
So let's do that and find out. Grab a few instagram accounts and spend a few minutes each day flagging random posts that contain close variations of "great picture" and "you look stunning." Not all compliments though. Just those two.
We'll call it the Meta Turing test. It tests whether people using machine learning understand the test that Turing actually proposed.
If we need to be politically correct, I'm fine with a Meta Lovelace test. It tests whether they understand what Lovelace actually wrote and have given some thought to what constitutes the origination of ideas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:18AM
Look up "operation google".
(Score: 2) by terrab0t on Wednesday May 02 2018, @12:14PM (1 child)
Exactly. The web needs protocols, not monopolies. No single entity can censor email, RSS, IRC, Mastodon, or news groups because no single entity controls them.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @04:22PM
But the service provider can block protocols at the drop of a hat, so it doesn't matter how many you have. For now our best option is to just blend in with the noise. Anything that stands out is like a flashing beacon that only only gets unwanted attention. If we want to stop the tyrants dead in their tracks we must depreciate the ISP, then we won't to think about monopolies.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @05:46PM (1 child)
Maybe you should have read to the end of TFS:
Just because you have the right to speak does not mean that others have the obligation to listen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:42PM
but can be disabled.
Uh huh... Got a nice bridge for ya... I bet you believe all those 'privacy policies' too!
(Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Wednesday May 02 2018, @12:44AM (33 children)
I would advise them to consult our own TMB .
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 02 2018, @01:31AM (32 children)
The automatic filters? They're doable enough if you don't give a damn about consequences. We currently have seven of them:
They're fun to sharpen your regex skills on once in a while versus spammers but keeping them around after the spammer has given up just leads to legitimate speech being silenced.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday May 02 2018, @01:57AM (2 children)
I was remembering the contest we had here between you and DN.
Both of you displayed amazing cunning.
DN showed that automated censorship is NOT a trivial effort.... Damn near impossible seemed far more descriptive of the effort required.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 02 2018, @02:02AM
Oh it's not trivial. It is fun though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 02 2018, @02:04AM
And you can say "Dick Niggers" now if you really feel the need. When the problem goes away, so does the filter.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 02 2018, @02:01AM (3 children)
Eight now. I got tired of the searchnut guy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:24AM
Because Spam Modding doesn't work. Because IP Karma doesn't work. They work, they work very badly -- they block (ban) the WRONG PEOPLE. End Spam Modding!!!!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:11PM (1 child)
And yet if Reddit did that you'd be screaming your head off.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:41AM
You think? When have I ever criticized anyone for dealing with spam however they saw fit? If you can't tell the difference between spam and points of view you dislike, you really, really need to do some introspection.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by http on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:45AM (24 children)
Hey, just a heads up, re: your current sig:
The only way your bosses get my credit card info is by informing the world, front page, that you're fired because they're sick and tired of having an openly racist, homophobic, misogynistic fuckhead officially representing their website. While SN is good in theory, the implied endoresement of uncivil discourse is as much a fucking drag as the uncivil discourse itself. Giving them money before that only encourages them.
Code of conduct or die broke, motherfucker.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:56AM
What he said. Bravo.
If you're going to be no better than /., there's no reason for you to exist. Sort yourself out.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:18AM (21 children)
Okay, I'll address this seriously even though I find it extremely difficult to believe you're being earnest about that load of horse shit you spewed.
You seem to be laboring under a false assumption or three.
For starters I don't hate anyone because of their race, sexuality, or what's between their legs. It's little beta male shits like you and the fat, ugly, blue-haired, pasty-white, pissed off because no real men want to fuck them, college girls you worship that I can't stand. You're who it's specifically crafted to piss off. Fuckhead I'm okay with though.
Also, if you think my discourse is uncivil but your own is not, you are severely deluded. You should rejoice in that part of our reason for being is to allow all points of view, because people are getting tired of your bullshit.
Finally, if you think anyone on staff is going to say your approval is more important than having an uncensored marketplace of ideas, you are gravely mistaken.
We do have a proposed code of conduct [github.com], though I don't believe you'll enjoy reading it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @03:04PM (1 child)
I was fine with the text, until I encountered this:
Sorry, but no. I mean, I can stand a lot. But I'd rather read the most terrible flame war than see a single tab used in code, unless absolutely necessary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:00PM
I used tabs for a long time, switched to spaces a few years ago. Honestly, both methods blow monkey balls.
Can 2019 be the year of the elastic tabstop [nickgravgaard.com]?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @03:25PM (8 children)
Mmmmm, the sweet smell of hypocrisy in the morning. So you'll censor some stiff you and or the community find to be too much, but you'll leave that garbage in your SIG and pretend you'r taking a brave stand. You're such a pussy uzzy, typical internet troll behavior except trying to delude yourself that you're a free speech champion.
Internet tough guy over here! You don't care SO much that you'll keep your racist mysoginistic homophobic SIG just to piss people off. You are a blight upon this site who encourages that shit while hiding behind libertarian ideology. Like a Buddhist running a slave camp because it must be the slave's karma to be there. Pussy bigot, I don't care how much you protest it seems clear what you are.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:02PM (3 children)
That kinda shit might work on the chans or Twitter but around here we have a higher standard of trolling. Practice your craft before you take a swing at the big boys.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:10PM (2 children)
Oh you're a big boy now? Maybe its time to stop shitting your pants and learn to use the potty like civilized adults.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:17PM (1 child)
You seem to be the one shitting your pants here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:33PM
----/-'
O --- swarmbgleglglreeee
--|--
| |
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:10PM (3 children)
wawu wawooooo its the speech police! people like you cry about "bigots" then call the cops on black guys in starbucks.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:15PM
Too bad we haven't found you a cure for stupid. Don't worry we have TOP MEN on it. Until then we'll need to confiscate your guns until you're cured or you can pass the minimum IQ test. Due to budget cuts we're forced to use the test from North Korea so you might need to bone up on your Korean language and cultural skills.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)
wawu wawooooo its the speech police! people like you cry about "bigots" then call the cops on black guys in starbucks.
I think the complaint is that Buzzard IS the speech police he's always complaining about.
"All censorship is bad except for all the stuff I want to censor."
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:25PM
Plus the grandstanding method of posting hateful shit repeatedly to try and prove some sort of point about free speech? But then cries like an outraged baby when someone says "oh you must be a bigoted shithead then!" Such people only play into the hands of the real authoritarians but sadly they are too dumb to realize it.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @04:02PM
There are many sides to this debate, many sides! Admins like my dear friend The Might Buzzard here are good people, solid performers. Just because he can't use a dictionary and lacks some basic reading skills we shouldn't rush to any conclusions!
His brain was built to handle paradoxes, it is amazing it is able to handle a single conversation thread. We regret the emotional instability that has resulted from this method, but please have some compassion for those who are different from yourself.
(Score: 2) by http on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:00AM (4 children)
I wasn't talking about my approval. I was talking about my money. The only relationship you'll have with it is when it goes to your former bosses.
Yep, you're free to say pretty much anything on SN. You just forgot that mixing your personal stuff with your professional credibility would have consequences. "Don't get high on your own supply," IIRC.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:42AM (3 children)
You've never contributed any money for anyone to miss. Kind of makes your threat a non-issue.
Yes, I'm aware that your type would love for me to censor myself for any reason you can come up with. It's harder for you to convince people to ignore the smell when someone points out that your bullshit is in fact bullshit. Unfortunately, there is fuck all you can do about me. I don't fear your butthurt screeches. And there's fuck all you can do to get SN to censor "problematic" speech in general, because we don't have a single staff member that's down with the SJW censorship agenda. Enjoy your impotence.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:19AM
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you deal with an SJW trying to strong-arm you. You don't apologize, you don't capitulate, you don't promise an internal review, you don't go to rehab, you don't contribute to some charity, and you don't find a scapegoat to blame. You tell them publicly, in no uncertain terms, to go fuck themselves. If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile but if you tell them to get bent right at the outset, there's not a damned thing they can do about it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by http on Friday May 04 2018, @06:36AM (1 child)
TMB, I'm surprised. Your reading comprehension and reasoning is usually much beter than this.
There was no threat, merely a courtesy statement of my policy. A marketing droid would cut off their own dick to find out for sure why people are spending their money elsewhere, and here you're getting it for free. Framing it as a "threat" is totally bizarre until one considers the possibility that you've got some paranoid narratives going on in the background. You're not paranoid, are you?
The free marketplace rule of thumb for dealing with for-profit businesses is that when they're dicks about something, you can take your custom elsewhere. But doing only that won't change things. If enough people take their custom elsewhere and tell them why, they have a chance to look at how they run. Maybe they'll change, maybe not. As much as they like ROI, for-profits also value stable procedures, plausible deniability and so on. It's meant as removal of support, not a killing blow; it's not my problem if a business is built on sand.
Mutatis mutandis for other types of organizations, money isn't the only pressure point.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 04 2018, @09:27AM
If that's what it takes to get you through the day, you go ahead thinking that. I'll just raise this point in response and leave you to stew in your denial: Has it occurred to you that you're doing precisely what the blue-haired church ladies used to do when they saw something overly sexual on television, and for the same reasons? Well, you would be if you had actually ever contributed what you've now decided you'll be withholding.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:32AM (3 children)
Oh, I bet all of these idiots are Vim users.
Ah, yes.
The only arguments I have heard about using tabs is that users can adjust how big each indentation level is and that it takes less space. The fact of the matter is, any competent text editor is capable of adjusting the indentation level of a file indented with spaces. Only people using incompetent text editors like Notepad or Vim require adjusting the tab character size, because being able to automatically redisplay or reindent files using spaces is far beyond their abilities, despite claiming to be "text editors". As for the space argument, after compression (which any reasonable VCS would do), a code base indented with tabs might save a few kilobytes off of a few gigabytes over being indented with spaces, so anyone seriously pursuing this argument clearly is so deficient in their abilities to weigh tradeoffs that they have no business pretending to be an engineer, software or otherwise.
It’s especially ironic because you laud "Writing good code", and yet you prefer a less programmable editor with VimL over a more programmable editor with Emacs Lisp. You would rather use an editor that is harder to write code for than an editor that is easier to write code for. No, you cannot script Vim with Python, Ruby or Lua. Try it sometime, whenever you actually want to do interact with the editor itself, you have to build strings of VimL and eval them.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:15AM (2 children)
Heh, didn't think I'd actually get a bite with that bit of bait.
Yes, we are exactly that kind of idiot around here. When I hit the tab key, I expect the result to be a tab character. Exactly the same as getting a g character when I hit the g key. I also am not interested in dictating to everyone who ever reads my source how many pixels of indentation they must have. Hit tab once for each level of indentation and let the user decide how much indentation they want it to be. Liberty over tyranny.
As for vim... When I want a text editor, I want a text editor. And when I want an operating system, I want an operating system. The two should not be mixed together into some systemd-like bastard love child.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:35PM (1 child)
> I also am not interested in dictating to everyone who ever reads my source how many pixels of indentation they must have.
Good job bringing up the argument that I have specifically addressed in my post.
> Liberty over tyranny
But not the liberty to indent using spaces, apparently. I'm not surprised by the doublethink.
Also, you seem to be under the impression that I have strong feelings about indenting with tabs. I don't. I have strong feelings about people who have strong feelings about indenting with either tabs or spaces, because these people are using inferior tools incapable of coping with certain situations and overall end up making my life more difficult indirectly through their use of inferior tools.
Emacs users (experienced ones, anyway) don't care about tabs or spaces because the editor automatically takes care of it, both how the file is displayed and how the file is saved. Therefore, the people who are religious about it are invariably Vim users.
Liberty over tyranny.
War is Peace.
Tabs are better than spaces.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 04 2018, @01:24AM
Dictating specific formatting is the only possible reason to use spaces instead of tabs. I'm not into that.
I really don't have strong feelings about it either way though. I mostly just stomach a little annoyance if someone uses spaces and stick with whatever the project in question is using for the sake of consistency. Anything I start is going to have tabs though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @03:15PM
You're such a dumbass. I'm going to email all your credit card info to the boss for you. Home address, business address, next of kin, medical history - everything. Right after I get back from vacation on your dime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @01:39AM (5 children)
How is that for bullying?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @01:41AM
not a problem, I'm a hamster.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 02 2018, @01:43AM
『ＦＩＬＴＥＲ ᵀᴿᴵ🅱🅱ᴱᴿᴱᴰ』
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 02 2018, @02:48AM
ow
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday May 02 2018, @03:01PM
and your father smelt of elderberries!
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @03:10PM
What's wrong with being a hamster?
Try something like this:
Your mother is not like Pluto. Pluto was found not to have enough mass to count as a planet.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday May 02 2018, @03:02AM (2 children)
No such sensor exists, or is likely to exist anytime soon.
That a room full of presumably well-educated adults listened to this spiel without bursting out laughing in his lying face may be proof that our civilization no longer deserves to exist.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 02 2018, @05:00AM (1 child)
They don't call it sensorship. They call it an "algorithm."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @12:32PM
> sensorship
1. Keeping your sensors locked and loaded, ready for action.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:15AM (2 children)
see if in a decade you can still talk about Jesus the only Christ on social media.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:30AM
Dr. Jackson says I can live to age 200. I'll be around in 10 years, believe me. And I love Jesus, tremendous guy, he's my second favorite guy. And if there's any problem with him on the Social Media, I'll start my own Social Media site. With @VP [twitter.com] Pence if he's not too busy. God bless America!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @12:37PM
> see if in a decade
If we had some kind of "tickler notification", SN could automatically remind you of this posting in 10 years, so you could check if your prediction was correct or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickler_file [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:53AM
... at least we'll have seen the lovely new wallpaper
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @05:34PM
"an inclusive, supportive place for all voices,"
not the ones you're censoring though, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:43PM (2 children)
I've always heard the word used to mean one specific person persistantly harming another specific person frequently over a long period of time without good reason, with malicious intent, and almost always in such a way as violates the second persons rights, though not necessarily.
USAians seem to use it to mean 'be mean at least once'.
The dictionary entry from google is entirely disconnected from both my experience of the words use and the impression I have received of how USAians use the word.
What the fuck does the word bully mean in the USA?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:46AM (1 child)
As far as I could ever tell growing up here it means what you think it means.
Per Merriam Webster
a : a blustering, browbeating person; especially : one who is habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller, or in some way vulnerable. As in - tormented by the neighborhood bully
b : pimp
I never heard the pimp version, but not surprising. Now I'm curious what definition you found.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:42AM
Google gave me:
This doesn't require repeated actions against one or more people, and the repeated nature of bullying is a very large part of the word as I've heard it used.
As a minor point, it's also so general that it counts almost all judges as bullies, which seems too absurd to be intentional so I'll ignore it.
<the general concept conveyed + repetition wrt the target + immorality + volition> is fairly close to my understanding, but far from what's written.
So beating some kid up daily in school for pleasure doesn't count, but subpoenaing CCTV footage does? Surely not the intended definition, though it is the one they wrote and which editors (presumably) accepted.
I know I'm being too literal, and that dictionaries don't actually try to define words but instead try to give a decent but lacking-by-practical-necessity understanding to be refined through further experience with how the word is used, but damn I feel they could have done a better job than what almost amounts to ``bully v. to intentionally intimidate while in a better position''.
I'm pretty suprised repetition doesn't actually seem to be part of the definition, I wonder if that's regional or if I just got it wrong while young and the mistake stuck with me. I'm fairly sure the lack of the requirement for the action to be unjust was just forgotten and was intended, even though it seems odd to forget one of the most important defining characteristics.