Science fiction novelist, journalist, and technology activist, Cory Doctorow, has written an article at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) covering the self-censorship that social control media participants exercise when playing to the algorithms, a behavior sometimes called algospeak. In pursuing algospeak, participants avoid certain words, phrases, and topics while boosting others to play to the automated moderation algorithms. If played correctly the algorithm will actually raise the visibility of the content in question. If played incorrectly the content disappears off the radar. However, since the algorithm itself is unknown to the participants, the result usually falls somewhere in between even after a lot of trial and error.
"Algospeak" is a new English dialect that emerged from the desperate attempts of social media users to "please the algorithm": that is, to avoid words and phrases that cause social media platforms' algorithms to suppress or block their communication.
Algospeak is practiced by all types of social media users, from individuals addressing their friends to science communicators and activists hoping to reach a broader public. But the most ardent practitioners of algospeak are social media creators, who rely—directly or indirectly—on social media to earn a living.
For these creators, accidentally blundering into an invisible linguistic fence erected by social media companies can mean the difference between paying their rent or not. When you work on a video for days or weeks—or even years—and then "the algorithm" decides not to show it to anyone (not even the people who explicitly follow you or subscribe to your feed), that has real consequences.
Cory Doctorow goes into a bit more depth about how these circumstances are abnormal and closes by recommending the Santa Clara Principles on transparency and accountability in content moderation.
While there are a lot of articles here on SN about censorship as it is imposed from the outside, self-censorship gets relatively little coverage at least by name. Social control media has been using the computer as a Skinner box. Skinner himself would have been impressed, though whether positively or negatively is another matter.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:06PM (2 children)
Cory wrote a good story around these concepts years ago:
https://craphound.com/category/down/ [craphound.com]
In that future, your reputation is currency.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @04:41PM
In this world, gossip is gold
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Thursday May 05 2022, @05:16PM
In that future, your reputation is currency.
In Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, as well.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:07PM (3 children)
Youtubers who made money off of youtube strenuously avoided saying the word "COVID" or "pandemic" out loud because the algorithm was treating that as potential misinformation. It didn't matter if what they said was fully qualified as personal opinion, entirely accurate, and non-controversial in nature, because the algorithm couldn't assess any of that. It could tell if someone without any established authority on the subject mentioned the word. And then downsort those videos.
One of the biggest, most impactful events of the past couple decades, and you can't even casually mention it because you can't actually send a computer to do a human's job.
And it does next-to-nothing to deal with misinformation, because that comes from people seeking it out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:12PM
Gotta love the new words that pop up cuz of censorship though. The coof!
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:29PM (1 child)
And if everything fails, just give the whole shit a new codeword to say instead. And as sooin as that gets demonetized, a new codeword is used.
Whack-a-mole
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fliptop on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:43PM
Paul Harrell [youtube.com] did this very thing. Whenever the forbidden word came up he pulled out a can of Corona and said something like, "...because of beer..."
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:17PM (8 children)
Algospeak?
Wasn't it once called Newspeak.
Having people self censor by using only the most correctful language is a double plus good way to prevent bad thoughts from ever occurring. Thoughtcrime.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:28PM (4 children)
But this is new, shiny and exciting! That Newspeak thing that is like boomer old. It's like 1949 reached into the future of 1984.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Thursday May 05 2022, @05:23PM (1 child)
Actually, you're right: 1984 in China. [mcgrew.info]
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @10:44PM
I was in the Carribbean about a decade ago visiting a prospective chinese girlfriend (I say prospective because we'd met online gaming and it never got past 1st base.) Well the island we were on was rather small, a few hundred thousand people. And the beach we were visiting was so popular.... the Prime Minister of the entire country drove out to it to have a conversation with someone in the car with her. Well my friend's brother, who was more westernized was pretty chill, but my 'girlfriend' and her mom shied away in horror while I being an arrogant American tourist was rubbernecking the Prime Minister of the country's limo, while a bodyguard on a CHP style patrol bike was sitting there with his chest hair hanging out, smg close at hand (but not on the firearm, they were suuuper chill, guy even gave me a nod!) Needless to say it was one of the weirdest experiences of my life, the only neurosis coming close to it being my mother and grandmother's 'sense of propriety' about not letting the neighbors hear arguements or discussions.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday May 05 2022, @09:53PM (1 child)
There's a book that claims it's actually 1948 that Orwell projected into 1984.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @12:05AM
More likely it was a reference to the Fabian Society which was founded in 1884.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:44PM (1 child)
I think it was called Search Engine Optimization not too long ago!
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday May 05 2022, @05:26PM
No, SEO is tricking a search engine. Social media isn't a bunch of search engines. It's similar to SEO, but dogs are similar to cats.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday May 05 2022, @05:19PM
No, Orwell's Newspeak was far worse. It was even worse than today's Russia, where saying or writing the words "war" or "invasion" are prison offenses.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:26PM (24 children)
We arrive at the same end point. This self-censorship is the same as in China but by different motivation. Now Excuse me, I have to feed my grass-mud-horse
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday May 05 2022, @02:31PM (23 children)
I won't self-censor. Don't like what I have to say, well, kick me out. Some social media platforms did it, I can't really say I think I'm the one who is losing in the deal.
(Score: 3, Informative) by inertnet on Thursday May 05 2022, @03:03PM (22 children)
Same here, in fact Soylentnews is one of only two places where I comment nowadays. The rest censored or altered my posts so they're not worth my time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @03:56PM (16 children)
Soylent News is also one of the few left that allows anonymous posting, the only kind I do.
(Yes, I know, Soylent News logs your IP address and doesn't mention that fact in the footer at the bottom of the page. Why not?)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Opportunist on Thursday May 05 2022, @04:18PM (12 children)
Because anyone who has half a brain knows that there isn't really a way around this if you're using TCP to communicate...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @04:48PM (11 children)
You do realize that storing the IP is entirely optional right? SN keeps the easily reversed Ip hash for eternity if you're using a registered account. They pinky promise they remove AC comment IP hashes after 2 weeks or so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @05:25PM (5 children)
I repeat: why is this not disclosed at the bottom of the page?
OK, I reread the Privacy Policy at the bottom, and these weasel words (in my asterisks) stood out:
... We don't collect any *personally identifiable information* from you except your email address, which: you can change at any time, never has to be real in the first place, is only used to contact you if necessary or requested, and we share with nobody. ...
So they don't consider an IP address as "personally identifiable."
It does still identify you over a fairly large span of time, enough to take action against you. That's some lawyer writing there.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday May 05 2022, @06:43PM (3 children)
The courts in most countries have already stated that an IP address does not equate to a person i.e it is not PII (but we don't keep any of them anyway). This has been tested in court in both the US and Europe several times. Only having an IP address does not prove an identity. Now if the police seize your laptop then all bets are off, but an IP alone is insufficient evidence. Yes, its true, we have a huge collection of VPN addresses and TOR exit nodes all in hashed format! We have promised to protect your data - has the VPN provider you are using given you the same assurance? If somebody wants your data off our servers they will have to have a court order and warrant to get it.
We don't state any of this at the bottom of the page either. Any other random topics that you would like us to put down there while we are at it? If you are that paranoid, why aren't you avoiding this site? Go to one that doesn't use TCP/IP for its connections like, er, whatsitsname, there must be one....?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @08:18PM (2 children)
You should add a link in the Privacy Policy at the page bottom to a page with details of what you DO log and the retention policy for logged data.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday May 06 2022, @03:31AM (1 child)
We maintain a database of every story printed since we began in 2014, and every comment made, and every moderation, and every journal entry. Everybody is free to look at every story and they can see exactly what data we keep. How much clearer could we make it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @07:31PM
For starters, you could add the logging of IP addresses stored as hashes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by number11 on Thursday May 05 2022, @07:09PM
Are there still people who care that don't use a VPN? (By "people" I mean knowledgeable types such as visit SN, not Grandma Jones.) If I post as AC, the IP address isn't going to be much help, today it goes with a data center in Sweden, tomorrow it'll be in Argentina.
(Score: 4, Touché) by janrinok on Thursday May 05 2022, @06:59PM (4 children)
There you go then:
Answers by tomorrow?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @08:20PM (1 child)
Strange, then, how janrinok has unerring aristarchus radar! He can detect that an AC post is coming from a hashed IP that was soley used by aristarchus in the past, and so must be aristarchus now! Brilliant! But, it is really all about the censorship. We simply cannot have criticism of right-wing insanity, especially that underlying STEM, for it is a bad as leaking a Supreme Court draft opinion, or the plan for storming the Capitol building. Some things have to remain secret, so keep that stiff upper lip, and carry on.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @06:59AM
Wot? Spam mod, Governor? Looks to be that janrinok has an errant Ari radar, then. Causes one to wonder how many other innocent ACs have been insulted with Spam Mods.
The answer to criticism of censorship is, more censorship. Old British Royal Navy tradition, from the HMS Bounty: "Beatings will continue until morale improves!" Any day, now, Capt. janrinok! Any day!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @06:20PM (1 child)
Give us the entire database with associated hashed IPs and the hash salt and algo used. Once we have the same information you do then you can make snarky boomer replies.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday May 06 2022, @07:26PM
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday May 05 2022, @06:48PM (2 children)
No we don't. We use hashes - I have never seen an IP address on the site or in the database. That is probably why we don't mention that 'fact' at the bottom of the page.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @06:18PM (1 child)
Let no one forget how the old admin admitted it would take a few hours to generate a table of all IPs and their corresponding hash since the hash hasn't changed since the site launched.
Not sure why Janrinok continues to insist SN does not have your actual IP. One of those technically true statements.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday May 06 2022, @07:37PM
Not quite sure why you keep insisting that we have your actual IP. I have published CmdrTacos comments from the code several times explaining why we have hashes. We have explained that we do not store IP addresses. You have access to all of the code, including the database schema. Yet you still think that we have a nefarious purpose besides running a discussion site. If you are that concerned, why do you stay? I'll tell you why - it is because you want to stir things up and try to disrupt the site.
You can complain without my participation - I have much more interesting things to do.
(Score: 0, Spam) by foreman on Thursday May 05 2022, @08:05PM (3 children)
Lucky bastid! I no longer can post here, for I are banned.
aristarchus
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @07:17PM (2 children)
Not sure if that really was Ari, but a Spam mod seems a little excessive. Is janrinok trying to control the discussion, again?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday May 08 2022, @08:00AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 08 2022, @07:31PM
VPN exit node? You mean, the IP address? I thought janrinok just said you do not see those, and they are not logged! Who can we trust, these days?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @07:20PM
Same goes for me!
aristarchus
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Thursday May 05 2022, @03:07PM (2 children)
I learned from a person with criminal ties, that they regularly deliberately misspells words so communication among them doesn't get flagged by automated systems. Also common is to use replacement words for 'sensitive' ones.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @03:22PM
Thanks for the tip!
I will now insert some incorrect characters in my goatse ASCII porn before uploading it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @04:45PM
I'm not bad at spelling, I'm just obfuscating my words to avoid the social media censorship.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday May 05 2022, @03:24PM (5 children)
Any Censorship is destructive operation. It works as damage to information in transfer. So, redundancy and error correction are adequate evasive remedies to it.
On Discord, simple words are filtered trivially by regular expressions, not by AI, so the damage is often partially done even to unrelated words which only match the filter by their parts. Just plain stupid.
Though evasion on Discord is quite easy solved by mixing different scripts.
For example:
Note in this example, the third and fourth letter of passing writ are taken from Azbuka. Third letter is 's' in Azbuka, not 'c' in Latin. Optical+mental reading of glyphs by human (which actually is a functional composition) transfers the original intent, while machines are blind to that meaning.
Most AI reinterpret graphemes as acoustic equivalent phonemes, so in this case the reinterpreted word would be 'fusk'. For human, the first letter 'f' works enough as a brain switch for mental composer. Some Greek letters with identical glyphs are usable as well, so mixing Latin, Greek and Azbuka provides best results for western languages to evade AI-based filters.
General strategy is: when encountered a censorship, add more complexity to open text to increase costs of mechanical detection. Better exponentially than polynomially.
See also:
https://github.com/d4em0n/nostr [github.com]
https://github.com/eldstal/strinvader [github.com]
Generally, when the censorship becomes too harsh and politically unbearable, it is trivial to write a browser plugin for full grade encryption/decryption of single string or phrase in any web page, by manual text selection.
Then, dear social oppressors, your grip on socnets population will have no more effect and you will drop out of game completely.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake [wikipedia.org]
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @04:01PM
This same trick against the user can be found in URLs for impostor websites due to the addition in the early 2000s of Unicode domain names.
https://www.thesslstore.com/blog/unicode-domain-phishing/ [thesslstore.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday May 05 2022, @06:39PM (3 children)
That reminds me of when some students could not access the website aplusexam.com because a three-letter substring was in the filter …
And I'm sure that at some point expertsexchange.com moved to experts-exchange.com had similar reasons (in particular given that the former could also be parsed as ExpertSexChange.com).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday May 05 2022, @10:01PM (1 child)
Or the word 'wristwatch'.
I was advising some grade-school children who couldn't access an authoritative work on dolphins. Never figured out why. Maybe it discussed dolphin sex life? I downloaded it for them using my own internet connexion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @12:09AM
AKA the Scunthorpe problem. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2022, @04:56AM
A housemate worked for a company that considered the domain "sportsacumen.com" ...fortunately they had lots of young male programmers on staff to tell them it was a bad idea...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2022, @04:23PM
Ohyay, osethay oorpay eoplepay owhay antway ayay areercay inyay oducingpray ointlesspay ideovay ontentcay atthay isn'tyay eallyray eedednay andyay ustjay eingbay amelessnay ogscay inyay ethay advertisingyay industryyay insteadyay ofyay ivinglay oductivepray iveslay . . .
(Score: 3, Informative) by jelizondo on Thursday May 05 2022, @05:32PM
If you dind't read TFA, consider visiting Tracking Exposed [tracking.exposed] and downloading its YouChoose [youchoose.ai] extension to help them analyze and document YouTube's algorithm.