My advisor in college was named Paul Dawson. Dawson was a legend, a master of his craft. He taught an 8am, 200-person intro to politics course that kept the entire room dialed-in for the full two hours. I’ve been thinking about one of the lessons from his class recently, ever since reading Jonathan Katz’s Atlantic piece, “
Best piece I read in a long time about the "free market/profit/capitalism versus ethics" conundrum. Thank you.
Doing nothing effectively is passively accepting/normalising nazi content. Libertarians naively overestimate human intelligence. But quantity does have its own 'quality'. Volume matters. Zero isn't realistic but near-zero is necessary to protect democracy and the rule of law.
My analogy was how much black mold is acceptable to have in your home but I'm landing the same place you are and I think you've added some important context. Thanks Dave.
Dec 15, 2023·edited Dec 15, 2023Liked by Dave Karpf
"Tech libertarianism is, fundamentally, an ideology for people who are both cheap and lazy.": That's the heart of the matter. More broadly, it explains why so much that comes from "Silicon Valley" is so vapid or scammy.
If you take it seriously, content moderation is indeed difficult and hence a revenue sink. It's far easier to design, build, and run the user-facing functionality of a website like Substack than to design, build, and run good moderation for it. (I speak as someone who designs, builds, and runs web applications for a living.) Moreover, the latter requires different skills, in that the core of good moderation is intelligent human judgment. Software can help with applying that judgment systematically, but moderation isn't primarily a software-development problem. (And no, what passes for artificial intelligence these days isn't nearly up to the job.)
Of course, that doesn't excuse Substack - or Facebook or Twitter or anyone else - for not making the effort. For me, as a decent person (and a software developer), the acceptable options for a website that publishes user-generated content are either do it well, including content moderation, or don't do it at all. Doing a half-assed job or blowing moderation off altogether aren't acceptable options for decent people.
A nice summary of ugly reality. The essence of libertarianism really is "yeah, that's a problem. Somebody should do something about it" when doing something doesn't involve making a profit. Though I think everyone is leaning a little too hard on "mmm, Nazis are bad, ok?" as the totality of the argument for banning Nazis, pointing to Indiana Jones and Blues Brothers memes when pressed on it. I get that arguing about a sloppy pastiche of white supremacy, Nordic mysticism, and government enforced misogyny is like nailing Jell-o brand gelatin to the wall, but John Q. Public oft times needs this shit spelled out. I like that the letter simply asks Substack to chirp or get off the twig, as my mom would say. Own this shit or deal with it. I'd be proud to sign that letter.
Love the Paul Dawson flashback! He was a great professor.
But in this case, Substack keeps getting reports about the sources of the mouse poop and they have the tools to eliminate each specific source (knowing that more sources might emerge and poop before they know about it). I do think that a regulation that says "if you see a mouse in your facility that you can eliminate, you are required to try to do so" is a pretty low bar.
"The one thing with writing stories about the rise of fascism is that if you wait long enough, you'll almost certainly be proved right. Fascism is like a hydra - you can cut off its head in the Germany of the '30s and '40s, but it'll still turn up on your back doorstep in a slightly altered guise."
Keep in mind we’re talking about text newsletters here. There is not a simpler use for an LLM than “read all the monetised newsletters and flag any that might be white nationalist content”.
So if the delta between “zero” and “near zero” is the cost of moderation, that delta is now an order of magnitude smaller than it was two years ago. Substack truly has no excuse. By not taking any action they are explicitly saying “Nazis are OK”.
Thank you for writing this Dave, it’s spot on. I put my frustrations down in words last week and moved my newsletter elsewhere. I hope the mass of noise today makes a difference and there’s some genuine movement from those in charge - sadly seems to be an approach that favours economics over ethics so far.
So, in order to suppress nazi content, you advocate and employee the exact tactics used by the nazis to suppress thought, speech and freedom of their people?!?
I see Substack as a magazine rack, full of a variety of different magazines. First, I don’t even have to walk by it; if I do, I don’t have to stop and look. However, if I want to stop by and pick up the latest recipe magazine, I can do that, without having to buy, a single copy of Vogue, Southern Living or any other publication I fail to fancy.
You want to do something useful and meaningful; figure out the real environmental impact of lithium, cobalt battery powered EVs.
This is excellent. Seems like a companion piece to Popehat’s work to help understand how the first amendment and private content moderation interact with each other.
Great piece. I’m wondering about this in the context of higher ed and the free speech debates. Trial number of hate speech activities but not zero might be the only answer there too
"It's the marketplace of ideas!!". Sure, but different storefronts sell different things, and serve different customers. Not every store has to sell dung.
The only reason SubStack wants sell Nazis is they want to be the ONLY store. Tech Monopolies again.
If they give up the monopoly there is no issue - but there's also no "Infinite Growth" story for their VCs
Best piece I read in a long time about the "free market/profit/capitalism versus ethics" conundrum. Thank you.
Doing nothing effectively is passively accepting/normalising nazi content. Libertarians naively overestimate human intelligence. But quantity does have its own 'quality'. Volume matters. Zero isn't realistic but near-zero is necessary to protect democracy and the rule of law.
My analogy was how much black mold is acceptable to have in your home but I'm landing the same place you are and I think you've added some important context. Thanks Dave.
"Tech libertarianism is, fundamentally, an ideology for people who are both cheap and lazy.": That's the heart of the matter. More broadly, it explains why so much that comes from "Silicon Valley" is so vapid or scammy.
If you take it seriously, content moderation is indeed difficult and hence a revenue sink. It's far easier to design, build, and run the user-facing functionality of a website like Substack than to design, build, and run good moderation for it. (I speak as someone who designs, builds, and runs web applications for a living.) Moreover, the latter requires different skills, in that the core of good moderation is intelligent human judgment. Software can help with applying that judgment systematically, but moderation isn't primarily a software-development problem. (And no, what passes for artificial intelligence these days isn't nearly up to the job.)
Of course, that doesn't excuse Substack - or Facebook or Twitter or anyone else - for not making the effort. For me, as a decent person (and a software developer), the acceptable options for a website that publishes user-generated content are either do it well, including content moderation, or don't do it at all. Doing a half-assed job or blowing moderation off altogether aren't acceptable options for decent people.
“(which, of course we will. What did they think we were going to do? Nothing?)”
Yes. I think since that’s they did (nothing) they expect you to be similarly (un)motivated.
A nice summary of ugly reality. The essence of libertarianism really is "yeah, that's a problem. Somebody should do something about it" when doing something doesn't involve making a profit. Though I think everyone is leaning a little too hard on "mmm, Nazis are bad, ok?" as the totality of the argument for banning Nazis, pointing to Indiana Jones and Blues Brothers memes when pressed on it. I get that arguing about a sloppy pastiche of white supremacy, Nordic mysticism, and government enforced misogyny is like nailing Jell-o brand gelatin to the wall, but John Q. Public oft times needs this shit spelled out. I like that the letter simply asks Substack to chirp or get off the twig, as my mom would say. Own this shit or deal with it. I'd be proud to sign that letter.
Thank you for this (I had been wanting to make a similar, "more than 0 but few" argument, and this is well done).
Love the Paul Dawson flashback! He was a great professor.
But in this case, Substack keeps getting reports about the sources of the mouse poop and they have the tools to eliminate each specific source (knowing that more sources might emerge and poop before they know about it). I do think that a regulation that says "if you see a mouse in your facility that you can eliminate, you are required to try to do so" is a pretty low bar.
"The one thing with writing stories about the rise of fascism is that if you wait long enough, you'll almost certainly be proved right. Fascism is like a hydra - you can cut off its head in the Germany of the '30s and '40s, but it'll still turn up on your back doorstep in a slightly altered guise."
― Alan Moore
Keep in mind we’re talking about text newsletters here. There is not a simpler use for an LLM than “read all the monetised newsletters and flag any that might be white nationalist content”.
So if the delta between “zero” and “near zero” is the cost of moderation, that delta is now an order of magnitude smaller than it was two years ago. Substack truly has no excuse. By not taking any action they are explicitly saying “Nazis are OK”.
Thank you for writing this Dave, it’s spot on. I put my frustrations down in words last week and moved my newsletter elsewhere. I hope the mass of noise today makes a difference and there’s some genuine movement from those in charge - sadly seems to be an approach that favours economics over ethics so far.
https://open.substack.com/pub/tumshie/p/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-bile?r=2ceix&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
So, in order to suppress nazi content, you advocate and employee the exact tactics used by the nazis to suppress thought, speech and freedom of their people?!?
I see Substack as a magazine rack, full of a variety of different magazines. First, I don’t even have to walk by it; if I do, I don’t have to stop and look. However, if I want to stop by and pick up the latest recipe magazine, I can do that, without having to buy, a single copy of Vogue, Southern Living or any other publication I fail to fancy.
You want to do something useful and meaningful; figure out the real environmental impact of lithium, cobalt battery powered EVs.
I wrote my own, if you’re interested.
https://open.substack.com/pub/zerograv/p/the-atlantic-has-a-fallacy-problem?r=lqhl5&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
This is excellent. Seems like a companion piece to Popehat’s work to help understand how the first amendment and private content moderation interact with each other.
Great piece. I’m wondering about this in the context of higher ed and the free speech debates. Trial number of hate speech activities but not zero might be the only answer there too
Another fucking censor who wants to ban us from seeing dangerous ideas.
You know what to do when you see Nazi related content?
JUST DONT LOOK JUST DONT LOOK JUST DONT LOOK!!!
And your tiny little overly sensitive brains won’t get their feelings hurt.
"It's the marketplace of ideas!!". Sure, but different storefronts sell different things, and serve different customers. Not every store has to sell dung.
The only reason SubStack wants sell Nazis is they want to be the ONLY store. Tech Monopolies again.
If they give up the monopoly there is no issue - but there's also no "Infinite Growth" story for their VCs