Yahoo's New Anti-Abuse AI Outperforms Previous AI (wired.co.uk)

16.4% of the comments on Yahoo News are "abusive," according to human screeners. Now Yahoo has devised an abuse-detecting algorithm "that can accurately identify whether online comments contain hate speech or not," reports Wired UK: In 90 per cent of test cases Yahoo's algorithm was able to correctly identify that a comment was abusive... The company used a combination of machine learning and crowdsourced abuse detection to create an algorithm that trawled the comment sections of Yahoo News and Finance to sniff out abuse. As part of its project, Yahoo will be releasing the first publicly available curated database of online hate speech.
The machine-learning algorithm was "trained on a million Yahoo article comments," according to the article, and Slashdot reader AmiMoJo writes "The system could help AIs avoid being tricked into making abusive comments themselves, as Microsoft's Tay twitter bot did earlier this year."

Comments

"Hate speech"

[axewolf]

Daily reminder that if you subscribe to this idea of "hate speech" you are totally insane and have no mind of your own.

Speech can be hateful, leave it at that, everyone knows it well, no need to make a special idea for it that can also be manipulated to cover valuable critical thought.

Re:"Hate speech"

[iggymanz]

yahoo news and abcnews hate dissenting non-SJW type viewpoints and label them "abuse"

Re:"Hate speech"

[NotQuiteReal]

They have to label it something other than "thought crime", because people aren't ready for that. Yet.

Re:"Hate speech"

[UnknownSoldier]

Exactly. Hate Speech == Censored Speech.

It's fine to have your own opinion but when you dictates that others follow your own myopic viewpoint because you're too insecure, congratulations, you've just resorted to censorship.

Ignoring something doesn't make it go away.

--
SJW, noun, acronym for Stupid Justice Whiner

Re:"Hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Political Correctness

The "Smiley Faced" version of Totalitarianism.

Re:"Hate speech"

[axewolf]

It's not like its just Yahoo or a couple of other companies. This is a unilateral trend across all the media.

This is completely obvious, and it should be just as obvious that the kind of people in the general population who support censorship aren't the kind of people who come up with ideas on their own. The common excuse of "that's just what people are interested in" needs to die. Supporters of censorship are being directly manipulated but are given credit for having a respectable point of view. How can you respect some one who cannot explain the reasoning for their beliefs and indeed feel it is below them to do so? These two traits are the signs of brainlessness and soullessness, a total lack of humanity. This is the real problem. People accept insanity as long as it rewards them.

There is one fact that is another kind of thought crime to acknowledge: the media is centrally controlled. One entity controls every major outlet.

Re:"Hate speech"

[RobotRunAmok]

"Hate Speech" is Censor-able Speech. Whiny Millennials and their tweedy enablers in academia have made it clear they are happy -- even desirous -- to sacrifice overall Freedom of Speech for personal comfort. Words mean something. Names grant power. By giving the expression of those ideas that discomfort them a name, a sub-category, a pigeon-hole, they can then legislate against it (The words first; laws against the thoughts will come a little bit later on...) By making sure that the word chosen -- "hate" -- has vile and evil connotations, they are able to grease the rails for whatever legislative or societal quarantining they try to get away with. After all, who could possibly be in favor of something HATE-ful??

Re:"Hate speech"

[RobotRunAmok]

Understand that modding "redundant" is the Slashdot SJW's way of saying, "Whuuut? How could so many people on Slashdot think differently from me? I'm too afraid to make an argument against them, but maybe if I mod 'redundant' I will scare off anyone else who wants to chime in with a point of view that makes me feel sad."

Re:"Hate speech"

[AmiMoJo]

What phrase would you use to describe hateful speech that commercial AIs may wish to avoid using? Keep in mind the target market for these bots is customer service and advertising, so avoiding going full "Tay" with "Hitler did nothing wrong!" is a design goal.

Not everything is a conspiracy against free speech.

Re:"Hate speech"

[ThosLives]

What concerns me most about all this isn't that there is hate speech, or that people find certain things offensive. What concerns me is that more and more, people are no longer being taught to ignore baiting remarks (which is pretty much what anything on Yahoo discussion boards is going to be), but instead to suppress anything that anyone can find offensive.

Does their filtering system allow honest discussion of controversial topics? If it does, then no big deal. But if it simply suppresses any of a particular set of opinions, then that is terrible.

The growing inability of individuals to filter out conversational flak and instead turning to authorities to suppress conversation which is uncomfortable is terrible.

There are lots of topics and opinions which make me uncomfortable, but that doesn't make them wrong necessarily - it just means I'm uncomfortable.

You can't even really change the criteria from "does it make someone uncomfortable" to "is it done only for the purpose for making people uncomfortable" - because sometimes the only way to actually right some wrongs is to make people uncomfortable.

Re:"Hate speech"

[Dutch Gun]

From the article:

The comment dataset came from Yahoo! Finance and News, which you wouldn’t think of as exactly the dank basement of the internet—but it turns out a whopping 7% of comments on Finance and 16.4% on News were deemed abusive by human screeners.

I look forward to perusing this database and finding out exactly how abusive these comments actually are. I don't doubt there are a lot of assholes on the internet. Slashdot has one of the most effective self-policing filtering mechanisms I've seen. Browse at -1 on occasion to see some of the crap, even though I think most obvious trolls have left, as they can't get much traction here. Sure, it goes awry sometimes during heated debates (toss the word SJW in there and you're going to spark some positive and negative mods just with that), but overall does a good job of filtering out most of the garbage. But what's the criteria? Are we talking genuine abuse, or "microagressions", where someone perhaps just expresses an opinion that's not quite PC enough for someone else's delicate ears?

Moreover, a 90% success rate doesn't strike me as all that fantastic. That means 1 in 10 abuse flags is a complete false positive. That would be a completely unacceptable rate with a spam filter. I have a feeling that with all the training that's been done, all you have to do is say one of the "banned" words, like "cunt", and you'll get flagged, even if speaking about it in an appropriate context, like I'm doing. Or am I being abusive just by mentioning the word, since I'm a man? Oops, probably another flag there for mentioning my male gender. Given the tone of my post just now, I'll bet even a human might flag me for a microagression.

Unlike some here, I think the effort to civilize online speech is not unwarranted. Talk to prominent men and (especially) women online and find out how much verbal abuse gets heaped on them. It's fairly disgusting. But this is an area which, I think, needs to be tread upon very carefully. Simply blacklisting hateful speech doesn't cure the problem. It addresses a symptom, and will just push the abuse "underground" to a level where an AI can't detect it. Humans are clever that way.

I'm not sure what can be done short of preventing anonymous interaction, because that seems to bring out the worst in people. Many notorious trolls tend to be cowards, and are mortified when their actions are associated with their real names. This algorithm is obviously one way to address the problem, but I have to admit I remain skeptical about this sort of approach.

Re:"Hate speech"

[UnknownSoldier]

Sadly, all too true. :-(

Re:"Hate speech"

[fustakrakich]

Daily reminder that if you subscribe to this idea of "hate speech" you are totally insane and have no mind of your own.

On the contrary. A person who subscribes to such ideas is a sociopath and is trying to control the minds of others.

Re:"Hate speech"

[elrous0]

I don't know why everyone is so impressed with this algorithm. It's really quite simple:

If poster = heterosexual.white.male Then abuse = true;

Re:"Hate speech"

[elrous0]

I remember in Cincinnati back in the late 90's or early 21st there was a police shooting of some black guy in one of the shitty black neighborhoods. There were the usual protests, calls for the heads of the evil racist cops, etc. The police there responded by simply parking their cars and stopping patrols in said shitty black neighborhood. Crime shot up 600% in the shitty black neighborhood almost immediately. Pretty soon the same people attacking the evil racist cops were literally BEGGING them to come back. Problem solved.

Re:"Hate speech"

[elrous0]

I just can't keep up with all these new computer languages these days.

Re:"Hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like its just Yahoo or a couple of other companies. This is a unilateral trend across all the media.

Yeah, and just like I defend your right to say whatever goddamn idiot thing comes to your mind, I also support the right of a company to have policies dictating that they don't have to repeat that idiot thing, just because you feel like they should. Yahoo pays to publish the stuff they want to publish on the internet, and if you want to publish some different stuff? Pay for the hosting! it's pretty simple.

"right to freedom of expression" is not "guaranteed retransmission of your banality." Why is this difficult to understand?

Re:"Hate speech"

[hambone142]

I hate Yahoo's big titted "this will make your jaw drop" headlines in their sidebar "news" stories.

Re:"Hate speech"

[AmiMoJo]

This is the argument used by dictators everywhere. "Look, I might occasionally murder some people, but if I wasn't around to keep the peace things would be so much worse!" Sometimes they are even right, e.g. in Iraq.

Re:"Hate speech"

[AmiMoJo]

On the other hand, only anti-SJWs think that every site owes them a free speech soapbox.

Where do you draw the line? Some material is illegal to host and you will eventually be arrested for distribution if you don't remove it. And between there and Disney there is a huge range, so you are going to have to draw the line somewhere. No matter where you draw it, someone will complain that they are being censored. Yes, there are political parties in Europe who support sexual relations between adults and children, and consider removing child pornography to be censorship.

All you are doing is complaining that you don't like the position of the line, which is fine, but it's hardly surprising that there is one.

Re:"Hate speech"

[UnknownSoldier]

Aren't you conflating the two though?

There is a line between "legal content being censored" and "illegal content".

i.e. We're not talking about illegal content, such as illegal numbers (sic.).

We're talking about someone posting their opinions (however unpopular), and others trying to mandat, and dictate that it be removed simply because they are too immature and insecure to handle it.

We already went through this censorship crap with books. As long as someone isn't breaking the law, if you are offended by what you see, you are free to exercise your right to look away.

Re:"Hate speech"

[AmiMoJo]

I meant things like doxing. I don't know how legal or otherwise doxing is in Twitter's jurisdiction. Revenge porn is another good example.

I have yet to see a single example of someone being banned for posting an unpopular opinion. I keep asking for them, but they are never forthcoming.

Re:"Hate speech"

[slashdotwannabe]

What is the difference between "hateful speech" (that you say exists) and "hate speech" (that you claim those who believe in are insane)?

Re: "Hate speech"

[slashdotwannabe]

...and anonymous cowards hate saying things that aren't flamingly fucking stupid.

Re:"Hate speech"

[slashdotwannabe]

Simply blacklisting hateful speech doesn't cure the problem. It addresses a symptom, and will just push the abuse "underground" to a level where an AI can't detect it.

Sure, it's addressing the symptom, which is all that can be done, as there is no cure for assholism. It may be that addressing the symptom is sufficient for the purposes of sites such as Yahoo, since "driving it underground" is effectively equal to "driving it to some other website" and making it someone else's problem.

I'm not sure what can be done short of preventing anonymous interaction, because that seems to bring out the worst in people. Many notorious trolls tend to be cowards, and are mortified when their actions are associated with their real names.

You're right: as long as they can be anonymous, they're Superman, fearless and unstoppable. Gawd I'd love to see a site that used some sort of algorithm to follow *actual* hateful trolls (i.e. the kind that make death threats), crawl their posts and correlate them to an actual person and dox their asses and de-anonymize them. THAT is the kind of Social Justice Warrioring I could get behind.

Saying stupid shit should be protected. Saying hateful things should be protected. Speech consisting of anger, dissent, disagreement, or embarrassing revelations should all be sacrosanct. Making death threats because someone else said something that pisses you off? Fuck you. Hell no. You've just broken the compact.

Re:"Hate speech"

[axewolf]

Most people are just brainless drones. They aren't really human because they are incapable of critical thought. They aren't really animals either because they're trained to ignore their instincts. They're machines. Artificial intelligence running on fleshy hardware.
"Hate" is a trigger phrase for them. Hearing this causes their programming to load up a particular state of thought and emotion and behavior. They have no will in the matter. They just execute their program and their husk of a body receives pharmacological reward for achieving an expression of fitting in with their system.
"Hate speech" consists of ideas pertaining to people sticking up for their own interests and the interests of their communities. That is against official policy because it is inefficient in the status quo. So the brainless drones are programmed to attack it with various excuses of "compassion" and "tolerance" and other abstract ideas the drones have no real knowledge of used as insertion devices. Basically its a buffer overflow attack on people with a tiny mental buffer. There is a huge long sled of "compassion" and "tolerance" leading up to a payload of destructive behavior to themselves, their families, and their communities.

Re:"Hate speech"

[slashdotwannabe]

What is the difference between "hateful speech" (that you say exists) and "hate speech" (that you claim those who believe in are insane)?

tricked

[Lehk228]

"tricked" tay was redpilled AF and that's why M$ killed her.

George Carlin

[thinkwaitfast]

Political Correctness is fascism pretending to be Manners

Re:George Carlin

[AmiMoJo]

Correct, but not in the way you think. It's the people screaming that everything is PC who are trying to silence others.

It started back in the 80s. People would say unreasonable things like "hay, it would be nice if you didn't name your building after the guy who owned by ancestors" or "just because I'm Asian American doesn't make me your sex fantasy fetish", and the accused would shut them down by pointing out how PC it was.

It's the ultimate defence, because PC is always crazy and never a legitimate criticism. Once you say it, you win. It's the original SJW.

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

and the accused would shut them down by pointing out how PC it was

Except the accusers were (and are) never shut down by having that observation made. That's the whole point. The rational people point out the nonsense that is the hand-wringing nanny-state-ish PC grievance industrial complex, and the people who are empowered by that movement's nuclear SJW engine are the ones doing the censoring. Yes, PC usually IS crazy, and rarely a legitimate source of critical response, but calling it that does NOT shut down the PC-infected complainer - it just makes them invoke a higher authority to enforce their wishes.

The "original SJW" isn't "people correctly pointing out that someone too self-obsessed about their own snowflake-ness doesn't deserve power over others' speech. The original SJW is simply the silly SJW people we currently see. They are their own thing. People who pointed out the toxicity of those using the world view and tactics of Political Correctness as a weapon in the service of illiberal totalitarianism are simply accurate observers, not "the original SJW." Not sure what your real purpose is in trying to revise history or ignore what the PC/SJW mindset is really all about.

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

Are you trying to *invoke a higher authority*? I ran your post through Google Translate. It's still indecipherable..

Re:George Carlin

[AmiMoJo]

Your post is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You managed to get all the names in there, PC, SJW, special snowflake, professional victim...

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

Of course I got all of those names in there. Because that's what we're talking about. Should I use a euphemism? Instead of calling them PC, should we call them "Sensitive-Americans?" The whole point of not being excruciatingly PC is that it preserves the ability to speak frankly, instead of tip-toe-ing around the phony heightened emotional frailties that the SJWs use as a method to hijack culture and control people.

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

Are you trying to *invoke a higher authority*? I ran your post through Google Translate. It's still indecipherable.

I know, pretending you can't understand things is your hobby. But surely you're not so removed from the actual goings-on in the real world that you understand how in, for example, an academic setting ... a person who cannot tolerate having their world view questioned, and who cannot use the usual PC toolkit to shut up the person questioning their premises and critical thinking skills, reflexively speed-dials the Dean Of Sensitivity and convenes a Social Justice Hearing in order to swing the academic ban hammer down on the offending party. The same appeal to authority or deflection to third party defenders (in order to avoid having to coherently explain themselves) is also routinely seen everywhere from PTA meetings, Home Owners Associations, HR Departments, Bowling Leagues and every other flavor of hierarchical organization. As a practitioner of deflect-to-third-party scolding yourself, you know just how this works.

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

Hey, look! You once again cannot address any of the substance - not even one specific remark, regardless of how simple - and instead of formulating even one thought of your own, must dish out some of your usual lazy ad hominem, and then use someone else's content to try to make the point you can't on your own? Not even on such a simple subject? That's a really odd thing you've got going on there.

So, what's your specific objection? Is it that you don't find similar behavior in both academia and civil groups? No? Should I once again write you a series of your own thoughts that you can pick from, so you can communicate?

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

You always make my day more interesting.

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

Hey look! More smug deflection! Whatever you do, be sure to absolutely never talk about the subject at hand, right? Just drive by, dish out some juvenile snark, and avoid at all costs attempting to make a point. Why the compulsion? Were your feelings hurt when you were thrown off an elementary school debate team, because you couldn't ever actually say anything on topic? Did you have some sort of traumatic event revolving around your being asked to actually string together complete thoughts to explain why you're actually opening your mouth? Really - what is it that prevents you from ever doing anything but just drooling out lazy, middle-school-level shallow snark? It's a curious personality problem you're wrestling with, there.

So, I'll help you out again. You're complaining that you're unable to parse English sentences when they happen to address topics you find uncomfortable. Given your usual childish defensiveness, we'll have to assume that's your most coherent method of expressing your discomfort over the communication you pretend you can't understand. Your tender feelings are hurt because you don't like having to think about why you act the way you do. I can see why it makes you feel all anxious and close to having a tantrum when someone points out the intellectual shortcomings of those who turn to the phony outrage and faux hurt feelings characterized by the PC/SJW types - pretending you're annoyed is the principle way you avoid ever actually engaging in on topic conversation. You know, just like many children do - why do the hard work of thinking when you can just feign a tantrum and fool yourself into thinking that your simpleton's attempt at insults are bamboozling your audience, right?

Thanks for being exhibit A in the very thing being discussed: your juvenile deflection is the same level of childish rhetoric as the phony antics of the PC/SJW crowd. Right out of same playbook. Anything to avoid actual engagement, because then you'd have to confront how little you actually have to say. That's exactly what plagues the PC types, and their solution is very similar to yours. No wonder identifying that touches a nerve with you, huh?

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

What can I say? You're just clowning around, not saying anything outside your own groupthink. You respond the same way to everything, which only reveals a certain pathology, and rendering the content irrelevant. Your state of mind becomes the *subject at hand*. You did the same thing last time, and you're doing it now. That's worth looking into. I, for one, am fascinated by it.

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

And even as you say there IS something wrong with what I specifically said, you can't bring yourself to ever, ever actually say what it is. Your response to any on-topic comment is simply ad hominem snark. And here you've done it again. Absolute lack of any substance. You can't make yourself do it. It's an actual problem for you, isn't it? You know when someone says something you don't like, but you can't formulate a counterpoint, ever, and simply blather like a kid. Very consistently, though! Just read back through your own response to the comment on the actual subject matter, and what you've said since: absolutely nothing but craven ad hominem. Why is that? What are you afraid of?

Re:George Carlin

[AmiMoJo]

Name calling is not an argument.

You are still just proving my point. Sorry, but you have no right not to be offended or made to feel bad about the things you say. If you say something, it's legitimate to criticize it. Simply claiming that the criticism is "PC" is merely an excuse, it does't actually present an argument supporting the statement.

I gave some specific examples. You don't challenge them. That suggests that you actually think some points you label as PC are legitimate.

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

...there IS something wrong with what I specifically said

Goes without mentioning... But this is your game, and as they say, the house always wins. However, your projection, though somewhat amusing, is as puerile as it gets, mon petit général

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

Wow, you really are unable to read your own posts, aren't you? I address the topic, you cannot, ever. Consider getting some help for that cognitive issue.

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

You too, don't have *your own words*, as you like to put it, on anything. You just recite mass media propaganda that doesn't interest me the least little bit. But please, do carry on, as you feel you must.

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

Really? Which "mass media" did I recite? Be specific. Or, more likely, is it that you're bothered that there are actually a lot of people who make the same observations about the subject at hand. You know, because ... it's the truth? Your content-less, no-substance whining is always at its most shrill when you don't like reality. So, I can see why you're reflexively calling it "propaganda," because that - as usual - is your attempt to avoid addressing the matter. Which you can't do, because you're scared of thinking about it, and finding out you're wrong. What's it like to be so scared of reality? That's a pretty childish way to carry on, but it's consistent with your level of discourse, so that follows. Note that you're several posts deep on this, and haven't managed to string together a single sentence yet that so much as begins to actually address the subject. Hilarious.

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

Hilarious

Yes it is

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

You know what WOULD be hilarious at this point? If you actually even once overcame your cowardice and commented on topic. That would be shocking, but funny because I think it's safe to say it would be completely irrational ramblings. But we'll never know, because you're such a coward, so afraid of how you'll sound if you ever try to explain the basis for your childish tantrums. So we're forced to imagine, based on your completely substance-less history, how vapid, self-contradictory, and unfocused such commentary would inevitably be. Of course you could man up and actually comment on the subject matter, but I know that frightening effort would likely make you pee your pants and cry and whatnot. I can see why you prefer the arrested-development elementary school mode in which you operate. You think that by acting like someone from whom a lucid, salient single sentence can't be expected, you're off the hook for having to form a coherent thought. The problem is that only someone with your child's view of things actually thinks that such posturing fools anybody.

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

I am awestruck by the amount of effort you put into this, and very curious. What do you expect to gain?

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

I think the more fascinating question is what YOU expect to gain with your pattern of snarky juvenile drive-by comments that very carefully NEVER touch on the subject at hand. What personality defect is it that compels you to do that? Who do you think you're persuading, exactly? Really, do tell. It's strange to see such a pattern of deliberately visiting threads so that you can just dish out some childish hate, leave no comment that in any way expresses a basis for your vitriol, and then has you coming back to compulsively do it over and over again. So, care to comment on the actual subject matter? Still can't muster the intellectual integrity for that? No? Why not? What are you afraid of, when it comes to using your own words? Don't be afraid. Maybe ask your mom for some help.

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

Good morning to you too! I trust you slept well. Was I in your dreams?

It's strange to see such a pattern of deliberately visiting threads so that you can just dish out some childish hate

No, I merely responded to your own. Your shtick always makes life so easy...

Oh, and you should know the rules by now. Only one question per post.

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

No, I merely responded

Without a lick of context or on-topic substance of any sort. As usual. Because you're afraid of actually speaking on topic.

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

You are topic free... Just blabbing whatever FOX tells you to piss and moan about this week.

Re:George Carlin

[ScentCone]

Ah, there we go. You don't like it when someone makes an observation (in this case, about craven purveyors of political correctness) that resonates with things you've heard someone else say, and which make you uncomfortable and want to ask someone to escort you to your safe space. But because you don't have the intellectual honesty to admit you can't explain WHY you dislike what other people say, you just resort to your usual invertebrate ad hominem. As you've just done, yet again. You can't actually explain why you hate people, only stamp your feet and scream over and over again that you do.

You are topic free

And yet it's the topic on which I commented that kicked off your latest infantile, substance-less rant. You contradict yourself, even on such a simple thing. No wonder you don't want to risk your fragile self esteem by trying to construct a response on topic that's actually being discussed. That's how brittle your psyche is. Just another scared little troll with nothing to say.

Re:George Carlin

[fustakrakich]

There you go again

first define "abuse"

[sittingnut]

without defining the vague indefinite meaning of word "abuse", this is bs.

and since this is media that deals with words, worst that can happen( if there is no other contact external to this media) is hurt feelings.
are such hurts, 'abuse'? (or even definable) given the highly subjective nature of emotions.

so this is bs.

this so called ai merely checks to see comments on yahoo news conform to rules of western 'liberal' elites. it is form of news censorship.

--
"a man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. it sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn't it? " - brothers karamazov - dostoevsky

And so it has begun...

[MindPrison]

...get ready for the ultimate PC society:

ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #157792 - negative opinion on political minority group.

ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #151734 - negative opinion of product. Be fruitful!
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #191727 - hate speech: you voiced an opinion on criminals. Let's leave that to our law enforcement, right? Be well!

ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #1 - Personal Opinion. We encourage our citizens to support each other, personal opinions are best kept to yourself, be well citizen!

Re:And so it has begun...

[AmiMoJo]

So literally the only difference is that it's a bot doing the moderation. Posting threats on XBox Live is not allowed either way, read the TOS. Free speech unaffected.

Face it, you can't expect mainstream commercial platforms to give you a soapbox for absolutely anything you care to say. There are less popular sites like Voat and 4chan anf even Slashdot, or start your own.

Re:And so it has begun...

[MindPrison]

I think a lot of people understand this, the question however is: where do we draw the limit? It's our job to protect free speech, and if a medium is public (available to the public masses), should it be censored? I can understand sensorship of pure trash like people trash talking like "blahblablap, OP is a moron and should be killed" etc...I mean...c'mon, that is kinda obvious. But when you get censored for criticising the gov, police or the people that have unlimited access to our data - then we're going down the wrong route.

Re:And so it has begun...

[elrous0]

You have been fined 1 credit for violation of the verbal morality code.

Who could have known that a Sylvester Stallone action movie would be so fucking prescient? It even predicted tablet computers and car AI's.

Re:And so it has begun...

[AmiMoJo]

There is room for both. It's hard to have a good discussion on an unmoderated forum, just look at the quality of debate on 4chan. That's why most of the popular sites are moderated, and people prefer them. It's why IRL debates have moderators.

Demanding every site accepts your extreme arguments is actually just demanding people who don't want to get into yet another argument about how the holocaust is fake be silenced, or at least drowned out. Just because someone doesn't want to deal with that doesn't make their argument invalid or less worthy.

One More Nail In Yahoo's Coffin

[NicknameUnavailable]

Media distributors distribute media, they don't have the right to alter it while maintaining the user base.

Um... what else do you suggest we call it?

[rsilvergun]

Super happy fun time not speech? If you're going to try and do community management as a large scale science then it's useful to have terms to discuss certain classes of comments. There are some among us who _want_ the non-stop cavalcade of racist tweets to stop. A big community like /. has enough moderators to prune the trolls before I see them. Smaller communities not so much.

It's the same class as folks who managed to make a concept like social justice into a bad thing. Yeah, there are a few obnoxious radicals that wanna ruin everybody's fun. Every movement has those; especially movements that are trying to stop Very Bad Things (tm) like institutionalize racism. 5000 years of humans doing bad thing in the name of race, creed & sex kinda scares the piss out of some people and that fear can push folks a little too far.

There was just a story about a guy in Nigeria who hacked off his wife's arms because she hadn't got preggers yet. In 2016 this shit still happens in this world. You'll forgive me if I don't cut the feminazi's some slack for being genuinely terrified sometimes and more than a little worried about their countries slipping back into a state where somebody might think that's acceptable to do.

Re:Um... what else do you suggest we call it?

[RobotRunAmok]

>>There are some among us who _want_ the non-stop cavalcade of racist tweets to stop.

Why are you following tweeters who spew cavalcades of racist tweets, or cavalcades of anything you don't like? Un-follow them. Vote them off your personal island, but you shouldn't get to vote them off the planet. Some sick, stupid racist f*ck may want to read what they are writing, and that dumb evil f*ck has the same rights as you.

>>there are a few obnoxious radicals that wanna ruin everybody's fun.

There is an inordinately large number of emotionally-fragile self-righteous whiners who would rather restrict everyone's freedom of speech than think meaningfully about opposing points of view that are held by a large portion of the population.

There. Fixed that for you. Happy to help.

>>Nigeria... race, creed & sex

I agree. The crazy crap that happens in many of these African, Asian and Middle Eastern dives in the name of race, creed or sex is barbaric and medieval. But try and connect the atrocities to the race/creed/sex that you and I both know is at the root of it and see and how quick the SJWs try to shout/shut you down.

Re:Um... what else do you suggest we call it?

[RobotRunAmok]

You are absolutely right. It is Yahoo's business, and they must do whatever they can to make money with it. And it's not like anything that Yahoo does with its online properties is going to have any effect on the culture. The time for them to have that kind of influence is long past.

But it is very telling -- and sad -- that they are so loudly trumpeting their new language restriction filters. Many boards have such filters (it's not a new idea) but until now no one has bragged about it. And that's the sad part: that such a growing percentage of online communities -- not too long ago the preeminent standard bearers for unfettered communication, speech, and new ideas -- might actually see what Yahoo is doing as a feature and not a deterrent.

Almost tautological?

[mpercy]

If the new AI didn't outperform the old AI, it seems unlikely that they would have deployed it.

Re:No, there isn't

[RobotRunAmok]

>>the left wing fringe isn't nearly as large as Fox News would have you believe

I don't watch Fox News or listen to talk radio. Conservatives aren't nearly as uniform in their media consumption habits as MSNBC or DemocraticUnderground.com would have you believe.

>>Tweet is the Kleenex of the internet.

Completely disagree. Many, many, many more people post to websites then have even seen a tweet on Twitter. Twitter has a lot of influence in the media and with brand managers, and so second-hand with actual Joe Sixpack consumers, but nobody but you confuses website posts with tweets.

>>horror stories... 1950's... wife-beatings... 5000 years of history...

Again, I respectfully disagree... History is my hobby and I get what you're trying to say, but you're wrong to project your knowledge and appreciation of history onto the average American SJW, regardless of their race or creed. Most of them couldn't pick Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King out of a police line-up, let alone understand how race/religious/gender relations has evolved over the centuries.

Re:No, there isn't

[khallow]

And you're missing my point, which is that the left's fringe is fueled by horror stories they see around the world.

So what? Censorship does nothing to improve those horror stories, even if by happenstance someone actually involved with one of those horror stories is affected. What makes these would-be censors and their misguided attempts more worthy of our understanding or respect than the people they censor?

If you spend a few years studying that (e.g. if you're rocking an actual history degree as opposed to reading Fark from time to time) then you're gonna be a litter jittery if you're not part of the winning class. In America that's white European males. That's real. That's a thing. It didn't have to be them, but it is. And if you're not one of them... if your on the outside looking in... then you'd be a fool to believe that 5000 years of history was wiped away by 50-100 years of good behavior.

That's not real. That's bullshit. History is not behavior. And 50-100 years of good behavior means everyone responsible for the "history" is dead. Why are you blaming "white European males" (who are those people again?) for problems they had nothing to do with?

Let's focus on something else

[maugle]

Everyone's here talking about how censorship is wrong etc. etc., but I'm more interested in why this is news at all.

I mean, Yahoo using an abuse-detection isn't news, since they had an older one in place that the new system is beating.
So then the news is that they set up a better machine learning algorithm with better training data, and the results were better? Color me shocked.

Re:Slashbros, freak the fuck out!

[JesseEnjaian]

Actually, the government intervenes in your private affairs quite frequently. A relevant case comes directly from Silicon Valley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins

In other words, a tumblrina-complete AI.

[sethstorm]

Expect a whole lot of conservative speech to be in there or at least operating with Yahoo's INGSOCJUS bot.

Internet will have a field day with this AI.

[Z80a]

They will teach it that the letter "a" by itself is an racist remark or something, and this will simply shut down the whole comment section being protected by the AI.