Multiple game creators describe ineffective moderation on the platform, resulting in unchecked hatred in forums and targeted campaigns of negative ‘anti-woke’ reviews
Your entire comment reeks of “we shouldn’t fight fire because that puts firefighters at risk”.
There are no 100% ethical solutions to every problem, real life is a compromise. You can get better ethical results by allowing those workers to get adequate monetary compensation for their work and seek medical help if they need it. Otherwise what’s the solution, allow everyone to read the same stuff? Why is that more ethical? Is it more ethical for the random user (who may also be a suggestible kid, or a person belonging to a persecuted minority) who reads it? Is it more ethical for the developers who get their game review bombed by fascists and bigots, and see their source of revenue diminish or fizzle out because of it?
As for the legal responsibility, it becomes so when the platform is complicit with the users writing hateful stuff. You are not responsible for the random shithead declaring his love for Mein Kampf. You are responsible for the hundreds of users who do, while you repeatedly ignore the reports of their misconduct, thus implicitly accepting and normalizing their behavior.
Additionally, when hateful behavior is accepted and normalize, human shit stains will come in drove and multiply the problem tenfold. By moderating their spaces, they would prevent a lot of those hateful messages from being written in the first place.
Primarily because firefighters, firefighting, tends to be a fairly exclusive field, that requires a lot of training, that tends to pay pretty darned well.
Whereas the armies of content moderators tend to be incredibly poorly paid. The entire way this kind of work is done is that it nearly always either entirely or largely is done by the lowest bidder, in the poorest places possible.
As compared to firefighters, who… at least in terms of municipal firefighters, well that tends to be fairly local.
(* * * With the massive glaring exception of using prisoner labor to fill in gaps in often extremely dangerous firefighting conditions, which is more comparable to exploiting those who don’t really have better options * * *)
I am pointing out that yes, the problem exactly is that none of the potential solutions here are ethically wonderful, that this is not a kind of ‘oh well obviously they could just do this simple and easy fix and everyone would be happy’ kind of situation.
So… your ethical calculus seems to conclude that stopping the spread of bigotry and fascist rhetoric in richer countries is worth the cost of the sanity of workers in poorer countries.
Your ethical calculus seems to be that if 100s of users of a website/platform don’t get banned rapidly for violating TOS, then the website/platform should be held legally liable for that, which would mean that you believe that basically every website platform with over roughly half a million DAU, that doesn’t use a complex layered system of LLMs with absurd economic and environmental costs, or have a sizeable to massive human moderator team, that they should all be sued or fined into non existence.
… Unless you maybe want to clarify more exactly what you mean here.
You also don’t directly address at all the idea of using an LLM for these tasks… which is what all of the megaplatforms with much more active consistent, rapid, and often overzealous or erroneous moderation do.
I’m just trying to present the actual totality of the moral ramifications of the involved systems and practices relevant to this topic.
If confronting the actual ugliness of them challenges you, makes you defensive and accusatory, good.
That means you likely never thought about the totality of the situation here that deeply.
I already answered your questions, but you seem more intent at discussing abstract ethics like an armchair philosopher rather than the real problem at hand.
Whereas the armies of content moderators tend to be incredibly poorly paid. The entire way this kind of work is done is that it nearly always either entirely or largely is done by the lowest bidder, in the poorest places possible.
[…]
So… your ethical calculus seems to conclude that stopping the spread of bigotry and fascist rhetoric in richer countries is worth the cost of the sanity of workers in poorer countries.
Why is the assumption that those workers must be poorly paid? If Valve, the multi billion dollar company whose owner owns multiple yachts as well as the company producing them, doesn’t pay its workers adequately, then Valve is at fault. The solution shouldn’t be to throw up hands and go home. There is a solution but they aren’t willing to take it because it would require them to spend money, which is what I said in my first comment.
Your ethical calculus seems to be that if 100s of users of a website/platform don’t get banned rapidly for violating TOS, then the website/platform should be held legally liable for that […]
You know damn well what I meant but you keep this enlightened bullshit going on.
Valve literally got reports about those reviews and ignored them. They are at fault. Full stop.
If confronting the actual ugliness of them challenges you, makes you defensive and accusatory, good. That means you likely never thought about the totality of the situation here that deeply.
Please stop this enlightened philosopher bullshit. It’s painful to read and makes you look dumb.
Your entire comment reeks of “we shouldn’t fight fire because that puts firefighters at risk”.
There are no 100% ethical solutions to every problem, real life is a compromise. You can get better ethical results by allowing those workers to get adequate monetary compensation for their work and seek medical help if they need it. Otherwise what’s the solution, allow everyone to read the same stuff? Why is that more ethical? Is it more ethical for the random user (who may also be a suggestible kid, or a person belonging to a persecuted minority) who reads it? Is it more ethical for the developers who get their game review bombed by fascists and bigots, and see their source of revenue diminish or fizzle out because of it?
As for the legal responsibility, it becomes so when the platform is complicit with the users writing hateful stuff. You are not responsible for the random shithead declaring his love for Mein Kampf. You are responsible for the hundreds of users who do, while you repeatedly ignore the reports of their misconduct, thus implicitly accepting and normalizing their behavior.
Additionally, when hateful behavior is accepted and normalize, human shit stains will come in drove and multiply the problem tenfold. By moderating their spaces, they would prevent a lot of those hateful messages from being written in the first place.
I think thats quite an unfair characterization.
Primarily because firefighters, firefighting, tends to be a fairly exclusive field, that requires a lot of training, that tends to pay pretty darned well.
Whereas the armies of content moderators tend to be incredibly poorly paid. The entire way this kind of work is done is that it nearly always either entirely or largely is done by the lowest bidder, in the poorest places possible.
As compared to firefighters, who… at least in terms of municipal firefighters, well that tends to be fairly local.
(* * * With the massive glaring exception of using prisoner labor to fill in gaps in often extremely dangerous firefighting conditions, which is more comparable to exploiting those who don’t really have better options * * *)
I am pointing out that yes, the problem exactly is that none of the potential solutions here are ethically wonderful, that this is not a kind of ‘oh well obviously they could just do this simple and easy fix and everyone would be happy’ kind of situation.
So… your ethical calculus seems to conclude that stopping the spread of bigotry and fascist rhetoric in richer countries is worth the cost of the sanity of workers in poorer countries.
Your ethical calculus seems to be that if 100s of users of a website/platform don’t get banned rapidly for violating TOS, then the website/platform should be held legally liable for that, which would mean that you believe that basically every website platform with over roughly half a million DAU, that doesn’t use a complex layered system of LLMs with absurd economic and environmental costs, or have a sizeable to massive human moderator team, that they should all be sued or fined into non existence.
… Unless you maybe want to clarify more exactly what you mean here.
You also don’t directly address at all the idea of using an LLM for these tasks… which is what all of the megaplatforms with much more active consistent, rapid, and often overzealous or erroneous moderation do.
I’m just trying to present the actual totality of the moral ramifications of the involved systems and practices relevant to this topic.
If confronting the actual ugliness of them challenges you, makes you defensive and accusatory, good.
That means you likely never thought about the totality of the situation here that deeply.
I already answered your questions, but you seem more intent at discussing abstract ethics like an armchair philosopher rather than the real problem at hand.
Why is the assumption that those workers must be poorly paid? If Valve, the multi billion dollar company whose owner owns multiple yachts as well as the company producing them, doesn’t pay its workers adequately, then Valve is at fault. The solution shouldn’t be to throw up hands and go home. There is a solution but they aren’t willing to take it because it would require them to spend money, which is what I said in my first comment.
You know damn well what I meant but you keep this enlightened bullshit going on.
Valve literally got reports about those reviews and ignored them. They are at fault. Full stop.
Please stop this enlightened philosopher bullshit. It’s painful to read and makes you look dumb.