I Worked On A Right Friendly Social Media Network. It Unsurprisingly Crashed And Burned Immediately.

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Social networks are a solved problem for the most part. There is no new interesting tech needed to be developed.

Then don't take the job.
I don't think anybody forced you.

 

[Not Really Here]

As to porn, the 3rd Reich, right vs libertarian in the comments above. I'm not trying to be precise with my labels. The only point I am making is just how FUCKING STUPID AND IMPOTENT the Right is when it comes to any sort of social networking.

The label issue is that you are running into is that you are using "right" like a commie does, 'not left enough'.

That question really is the heart of the problem.

1. Something needs to be policed
2. Exactly the wrong type of people are the ones who most eagerly volunteer or find a way to get hired
3. Now we need to police the police
4. See 2.

There simply is no culture on the Right for this type of relentless untiring will to seize any type of authority. No amount of legislation is going to solve this problem for the Right.

That's not really news in the US "the right" for the most part just want to mind their own business and be left alone.
Because that kind of authoritarianism is antithetical to both the Constitution and American tradition.

 

[Jarolleon]

Bulletpoints:

• Was brought on to help setup a new social media network
• Technically straightforward, not really rewarding from that angle
• People putting up the money were not alt-right crazies. They were very serious about creating a very large social media platform that was for all Americans
• Very strong promises that there would be no banning or censorship based on political beliefs. And none of the silly 'it is only ok when we do it' type censorship on current social media platforms.
• The people putting up the money spent long and hard hours devising ways to structure moderation and rule enforcement that was free from political bias.
• A relatively small set of invites went out to people from all parts of the political spectrum
• The network crashed and burned in a very short amount of time

All those plans crashed and burned immediately.

• No political moderation for many Right posters meant the green light to immediately go full 3rd Reich and inappropriate porn where it had no reason to be.
• Any attempts at to rein in the Right's shit posting memelords was met with howls of 'wHaT AbOuT My fReE SpEeCh???'
• An endless stream of Right posters were banned screeching about how life wasn't fair
• Meanwhile the Left posters immediately started to worm their way into any and every position of authority - no matter how small.
• And those on the Left who didn't work their way into every bureaucratic nook and cranny did their part by 'feeling unsafe' and 'reporting threats - that they took very seriously'
• The Left was like watching some self assembling machine magically come to life, while the Right looked like what happens after a bus full of retarded kids hit a telephone pole

I was astonished by just what a bunch of complete and utter fuckups the Right in general was. I was left with zero sympathy. It has been years that social media has been important enough a force in society for the Right to take seriously and understand how the game is played.

It was shocking to see the difference in the front line troops for each side:

• The Left had an endless number of people who eagerly would jump at the chance to fill and hold on to some tiny bit of bureaucratic/moderating power even if it meant sitting home eating 99cent cups of noodles 24/7 and constantly hitting refresh ready to pounce on the slightest bit of wrongthink
• The Right had an endless number of people who were eager to be Free Speech Martyrs going down in pointless and retarded blazes of self felt glory.

Sounds like it's a personality problem, the industrialised world gets run on the day-to-day level by administratively inclined people because nobody else wants to bother with that shit unless there's wealth and glory to be had in it, and therefore whatever ideology manages to attract that personality type becomes the dominant one. What else could explain the vast gulf in organisational ability between the two sides?

This kind of shit makes me wonder if the class system was made to counter-act it, because in the modern age of social mobility people self-select into professions, form unions (because they all have similar outlooks & personalities), and conspire against the public.

Does the right need the kind of Karens portrayed in The Music Man back to counterbalance their granola-chomping counterparts?

 

[Plank]

The label issue is that you are running into is that you are using "right" like a commie does, 'not left enough'.

That's not really news in the US "the right" for the most part just want to mind their own business and be left alone.
Because that kind of authoritarianism is antithetical to both the Constitution and American tradition.

Many on the right consider themselves Christians but believe in Regans efforts in confronting the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons despite 'Thou shall not kill".

The parallel for social networks is the same. Just because you don't personally believe in authoritarian crushing of all people who don't share your personal beliefs doesn't mean that you can't still believe in a similar sort of mutually assured destruction for those who would attack you online for your beliefs.

They ban/censor you.
You ban/censor them.
The cycle repeats until the adults on both sides step forward and agree to a ceasefire and normal people can get on with their lives free from fear of attack by their ideological enemies.

Hoping for a legislative solution is folly.
Removing yourself from the marketplace of ideas is cowardice.
The only option for the Right is to learn to fight back and hit back as hard as they hit you.

Sounds like it's a personality problem, the industrialised world gets run on the day-to-day level by administratively inclined people because nobody else wants to bother with that shit unless there's wealth and glory to be had in it, and therefore whatever ideology manages to attract that personality type becomes the dominant one. What else could explain the vast gulf in organisational ability between the two sides?

It most definitely is a personality difference.

I was shocked to see the disparity between the different sides of the political spectrum. The Left literally never sleep. Pick the most obscure forum or hashtag at 3am and there is someone from the Left sitting there alone at home endlessly hitting refresh for someone possibly posting remotely positive about Trump or for an opportunity to call out some -ism.

The Right just does not have those types of people in their ranks.

 

[Not Really Here]

Many on the right consider themselves Christians but believe in Regans efforts in confronting the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons despite 'Thou shall not kill".

The parallel for social networks is the same. Just because you don't personally believe in authoritarian crushing of all people who don't share your personal beliefs doesn't mean that you can't still believe in a similar sort of mutually assured destruction for those who would attack you online for your beliefs.

They ban/censor you.
You ban/censor them.
The cycle repeats until the adults on both sides step forward and agree to a ceasefire and normal people can get on with their lives free from fear of attack by their ideological enemies.

Yeah, nuclear arms and geopolitics are practically the same thing as social media.

 

[Plank]

Yeah, nuclear arms and geopolitics are practically the same thing as social media.

From a game theory perspective they are.

 

[Not Really Here]

From a game theory perspective they are.

One is defense against a real danger of hundreds of millions of dead, and the other is authoritarian powergrab of a private club with low standards of membership.
Because my point was about authoritarianism not general game theory.

 

[Strange Wilderness]

It most definitely is a personality difference.

I was shocked to see the disparity between the different sides of the political spectrum. The Left literally never sleep. Pick the most obscure forum or hashtag at 3am and there is someone from the Left sitting there alone at home endlessly hitting refresh for someone possibly posting remotely positive about Trump or for an opportunity to call out some -ism.

The Right just does not have those types of people in their ranks.

So its because the left has so many people with useless degrees and no lives that they are able to control entire sites? Would a solution to the problem be give these people actual job opportunities and not let people get useless degrees so they actually become productive members of society? Or is it just the same crop of losers who were unemployable from the start getting their kicks by being a bunch of killjoy scolds?

With the coming economic downturn do you think we will see more right-winged people taking up these administrative positions in websites because they don't have jobs or will it just be the same crop of neo nazi assholes and SJW loonies showing up to ruin everything?

 

[Dangerously Gay Llama]

You fucked up by making your network appeal to political nutjobs instead of normies. How much money was spent on this project anyway?

 

[TFT-A9]

So its because the left has so many people with useless degrees and no lives that they are able to control entire sites? Would a solution to the problem be give these people actual job opportunities and not let people get useless degrees so they actually become productive members of society? Or is it just the same crop of losers who were unemployable from the start getting their kicks by being a bunch of killjoy scolds?

With the coming economic downturn do you think we will see more right-winged people taking up these administrative positions in websites because they don't have jobs or will it just be the same crop of neo nazi assholes and SJW loonies showing up to ruin everything?

They don't fucking WANT actual job opportunities.

 

[Flip: Draw 2]

Bulletpoints:

• Was brought on to help setup a new social media network
• Technically straightforward, not really rewarding from that angle
• People putting up the money were not alt-right crazies. They were very serious about creating a very large social media platform that was for all Americans
• Very strong promises that there would be no banning or censorship based on political beliefs. And none of the silly 'it is only ok when we do it' type censorship on current social media platforms.
• The people putting up the money spent long and hard hours devising ways to structure moderation and rule enforcement that was free from political bias.
• A relatively small set of invites went out to people from all parts of the political spectrum
• The network crashed and burned in a very short amount of time

All those plans crashed and burned immediately.

• No political moderation for many Right posters meant the green light to immediately go full 3rd Reich and inappropriate porn where it had no reason to be.
• Any attempts at to rein in the Right's shit posting memelords was met with howls of 'wHaT AbOuT My fReE SpEeCh???'
• An endless stream of Right posters were banned screeching about how life wasn't fair
• Meanwhile the Left posters immediately started to worm their way into any and every position of authority - no matter how small.
• And those on the Left who didn't work their way into every bureaucratic nook and cranny did their part by 'feeling unsafe' and 'reporting threats - that they took very seriously'
• The Left was like watching some self assembling machine magically come to life, while the Right looked like what happens after a bus full of retarded kids hit a telephone pole

I was astonished by just what a bunch of complete and utter fuckups the Right in general was. I was left with zero sympathy. It has been years that social media has been important enough a force in society for the Right to take seriously and understand how the game is played.

It was shocking to see the difference in the front line troops for each side:

• The Left had an endless number of people who eagerly would jump at the chance to fill and hold on to some tiny bit of bureaucratic/moderating power even if it meant sitting home eating 99cent cups of noodles 24/7 and constantly hitting refresh ready to pounce on the slightest bit of wrongthink
• The Right had an endless number of people who were eager to be Free Speech Martyrs going down in pointless and retarded blazes of self felt glory.

Honestly, doesn't surprise me.
A site with the sole purpose of being a free-speech haven typically only appeals to people who have been banned from normal social media and they main category of people like this are just Right-wing Twitter (and now Parler) refugees. Naturally, this kills any chance for the site to appeal to anyone else besides right-wingers and trolls since no one else can tolerate a free-speech website that is really just an echo-chamber. Also, with this audience you can't really go "alright, N-Word World citizens, who wants to be a janny?" They don't believe more moderation or being a moderator will improve the website.
Leftists do benefit from it because they're the ones with things they'd actually like to change like moderating the fuck out of the discussion. They weren't part of the real community or care for the community the site fostered, they just want to make their own one or at least own the Right-wing trolls because they don't understand being banned for free speech is a medal of honor for them.
A fantastic recipe for another community vs moderators situation.

The only real solution is just to make forums that don't have the sole gimmick of being FREE SPEECH tm. Kiwi Farms has relatively free speech but also a better community because it's centered around lolcows not just being able to say the n-word. This gives the website something to actually give a shit about regardless of political ideology. A lolcow thread is valuable because they're typically the best resource on internet personalities around and anyone who wants to know about an internet personality in-depth has to go through the Kiwi Farms at some point. Moderators actually have something to do besides ban illegal stuff but also make sure the threads don't derail too hard and shit up the otherwise focused thread. The community and the moderators are typically on the same page about this sort of thing because they all have a common goal: make a good thread on something funny/interesting.
tl;dr free-speech focused websites are awful because the community lacks a common goal they value

 

[Andy Bandy Man]

So, if you where to do it again... some things to consider. Good design platform design helps reduce operations cost with stupid things like illegal content.

1. Use a recommendation engine... curate the content.
a. So SJW's can't complain about what they can't see.
b. Have the platform curate content that reflects each users views, with some "Softball opposing views".
i. People don't actually want free speech, they want the experience of having opinions that matter.
ii. Use the recommendation engine to funnel post of like content. ... and then your cool drinking buddy claps when you own that guy.
iii.But that perp has to dig though his feed to even know he got dunked on.

^So that tip one, Sun Tzu style, control the battleground.

2. Use .
a. Computer vision is great.
b. Auto detecting offensive content, and having a system vet the images is easy.
i. use shadow banning on less offensive content so your users do not feel censored.
c. NLP (e.g. sentiment analysis algos) will help classify your users into categories so you can control their FOV.

...As a last point,
have multiple hosting providers. FANG does kinda gang up on anything that's a threat; but in very subtle backhanded ways.
IBM is claiming they're a-political, just don't get vendor locked into any stack.

TLR :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jOk8dk-qaU

 

[Plank]

I will add one more thing I skipped to keep from making my post too long.

Despite the fact that we were invite only and were not public, we were inundated with Leftist organizations.

I was not part of these meetings but am familiar with what went on in them. They were essentially mafia style warnings. That is, you better be not just be moderating the standard set of -isms, but your platform needs to be ACTIVELY ANTI -isms. And your platform had better be paying shakedown style consulting fees or the like to these organizations. I can only assume the financial side of the company was getting similar type of visits with not-so indirect threats about banking and other types of financial institutions if the platform didn't toe the Left's ideological line.

Not a single Right leaning organization was in contact with us.

I assume this typical for most online platforms.

All these Leftist organizations(or formerly apolitical now hijacked by activists) all operated under a unifying identity politics/social justice narrative. They all wanted the same thing: ban every one they disagree with, but was masked by whatever social justice ideological front they operated under.

I don't think the Right has anything that can fight against these organizations. 'Free Speech' and 'Marketplace of Ideas' sound like hokey and quaintly outdated 1940s style TV commercials compared to the more modern Leftist messaging.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

So its because the left has so many people with useless degrees and no lives that they are able to control entire sites? Would a solution to the problem be give these people actual job opportunities and not let people get useless degrees so they actually become productive members of society? Or is it just the same crop of losers who were unemployable from the start getting their kicks by being a bunch of killjoy scolds?

Look at MovieBob or Channel Awesome people. These people are unemployable because of their terrible personalities. It has nothing to do with job prospects.

 

[Andy Bandy Man]

It is a marketplace of ideas, and as much as we like to punch on the thin-skinned underwater females studies type, their education does prepare them to have extremely sharp rhetoric... And that's all being online is, rhetoric.


Cause the fact of the matter is, the people you want on this platform, like your real audience.... They just kinda suck at social media right now. Holes punched in their fragile egos by those darn witty kids.

... This is the marketplace of ideas working, your intended audiance simply has nothing to hawk on it.

 

[FEETLOAF]

what if the jannies are actually right and we're just insufferable cunts

 

[Flip: Draw 2]

I will add one more thing I skipped to keep from making my post too long.

Despite the fact that we were invite only and were not public, we were inundated with Leftist organizations.

I was not part of these meetings but am familiar with what went on in them. They were essentially mafia style warnings. That is, you better be not just be moderating the standard set of -isms, but your platform needs to be ACTIVELY ANTI -isms. And your platform had better be paying shakedown style consulting fees or the like to these organizations. I can only assume the financial side of the company was getting similar type of visits with not-so indirect threats about banking and other types of financial institutions if the platform didn't toe the Left's ideological line.

Not a single Right leaning organization was in contact with us.

I assume this typical for most online platforms.

All these Leftist organizations(or formerly apolitical now hijacked by activists) all operated under a unifying identity politics/social justice narrative. They all wanted the same thing: ban every one they disagree with, but was masked by whatever social justice ideological front they operated under.

I don't think the Right has anything that can fight against these organizations. 'Free Speech' and 'Marketplace of Ideas' sound like hokey and quaintly outdated 1940s style TV commercials compared to the more modern Leftist messaging.

It's not surprising. Organizations that also believe in making a true free-speech platform don't typically have many demands besides "don't moderate it that much." And yeah, I've heard a lot of smaller websites get picked on by ADL-esque organizations. I remember Patreon seemed mostly cool with free-speech or (more likely) just didn't really care what anyone was doing so long as they weren't bothering anyone. Then the banks starting threatening them and they got roped into a bunch of political bullshit they weren't intending on being a part of. If VISA and MasterCard start threatening you, then yeah, no right-wing organization is coming to save you.

So, if you where to do it again... some things to consider. Good design platform design helps reduce operations cost with stupid things like illegal content.

1. Use a recommendation engine... curate the content.
a. So SJW's can't complain about what they can't see.
b. Have the platform curate content that reflects each users views, with some "Softball opposing views".
i. People don't actually want free speech, they want the experience of having opinions that matter.
ii. Use the recommendation engine to funnel post of like content. ... and then your cool drinking buddy claps when you own that guy.
iii.But that perp has to dig though his feed to even know he got dunked on.

^So that tip one, Sun Tzu style, control the battleground.

2. Use .
a. Computer vision is great.
b. Auto detecting offensive content, and having a system vet the images is easy.
i. use shadow banning on less offensive content so your users do not feel censored.
c. NLP (e.g. sentiment analysis algos) will help classify your users into categories so you can control their FOV.

...As a last point,
have multiple hosting providers. FANG does kinda gang up on anything that's a threat; but in very subtle backhanded ways.
IBM is claiming they're a-political, just don't get vendor locked into any stack.

TLR :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jOk8dk-qaU

This saddens me so much to see that the only way to make people live happily under one roof is to stick them all in separate echo-chambers so they don't notice people they disagree with exist. The customer is more the problem than the product if this is necessary.

 

[Dysnomia]

Just think of it as a social experiment. Sounds about right to me. When crazies from the left and right get together it's like a cosmic disaster that never should have happened.

 

[TFT-A9]

I'm not sure exactly when we went from things like "agreeing to disagree" or even just "I don't like you or your politics, just leave me alone" to this level of aggression tbh.

The left has gotten incredibly aggressive in a way that absolutely does not look organic, and they've been doing a ton of purity testing to make sure that dissent is minimal or not brooked at all. This feels very engineered and very coordinated in a way that frankly I don't believe either side was capable of 25 years ago.

 

[Overly Serious]

Modern Western Society has greatly separated one's contributions from one's influence. Formerly if you were someone who achieved a lot - ran a business, provided a valuable service, had great knowledge to share - anything that meaningfully contributed to your community, this would bring influence because you were making decisions that affected that community. Whether that be who to hire and who to fire, whether to open a new shop or close an old one, whether you would be willing to work for someone or not... In a hundred ways in older and smaller communities your influence was tied to your willingness and ability to apply yourself.

Now everything has been flattened by greater and greater power being consolidated in the State and the Bureaucracy. They control it all. This has produced a situation more like school where there is no individual power, only that residing in the teacher. And therefore those who want to exert power do so by petitioning teacher and demanding they punish their enemies. A society of telltales and "Miss - stop him"s.

There's been argument in this thread about terms - Right vs. Left. I personally think these terms are useful and we mostly do know who is meant by them. But a different angle is to think of it in terms of contributors and consumers. These don't fully align with the terms Right and Left - especially that section of the Right that just wants to shitpost and LARP as fascists. Or with that section of the Left that is stuck stacking shelves in an Amazon warehouse and just equates Capitalism with Corporate Power. But there's a correlation. And I think this angle is useful because it ties directly into what the OP saw - those who meaningfully contribute are frankly busy working their jobs and when they're not they just want to grill and rest. Meanwhile an increasing number consumers with debt, resentment and a need for purpose, are doing everything they can to get these little scraps of power.

In short, the Right's views have not moved on from influence stemming from proper cultural virtues of work, getting along and being successful. The Left views, and maybe always has, power stemming from being part of a group. And the more they can signal themselves being part of a group, the more secure and powerful they feel; and the more they can make enemies for the group the more the group coheres and unifies around them.

Remember that when the Bolsheviks took power in Russia and Lenin, Trotsky et al. all squabbled over who got which plum post - minister for foreign affairs, economy, etc., Josef Stalin volunteered to just be General Secretary and handle all the bureaucracy and coordination. They let him. They didn't think it was important. Stalin understood power better than any of them.

In a way it is good that the Right (as the OP intended it to be meant, anyway) still think in these terms. The strength of a society is derived from the contributions of its members. America has grown very, very rich. It can afford a society where a minority are now producers and the rest ride on their backs. Or thinks it can. The divorce between personal contribution and personal influence is something it doesn't seem to think will harm it. I suspect that will come as a very nasty shock very soon. A society of grievance studies majors is not a strong society. Their whole mode of operation is to marshal others to exert power on their behalf. Whilst the ones you have termed the Right (correctly or otherwise) believe in personal power. As you have seen, this attitude hasn't scaled to modern Western society or online Social Media. Many jackals can bring down a lion.

We live now, in a society of jackals.

I'll end my little essay with a warning, though. I don't know that this war can be won by becoming the same as the enemy. Nor am I even certain it should be. And I do not mean that in a spiritual or moral sense, though I believe that too. A society in which the productive are forced to give up their productivity in order to merely devote their energies to defending their freedoms is a society that has given up the very basis of its society that kept the whole machine running.

Remember, the enemy of the very wealthy is not the poor - they have little power and the power they have they are afraid to use. The enemy of the very wealthy is the Middle Class that nips at their heels and has the education and leisure time to act against them. Bread and circuses. Bread for the poor. Circuses for the Middle Class.