Google Releases an AI Tool For Publishers To Spot and Weed Out Toxic Comments (bbc.com)

Google today launched a new technology to help news organizations and online platforms identify and swiftly remove abusive comments on their websites. The technology, called Perspective, will review comments and score them based on how similar they are to comments people said were "toxic" or likely to make them leave a conversation. From a report on BBC: The search giant has developed something called Perspective, which it describes as a technology that uses machine learning to identify problematic comments. The software has been developed by Jigsaw, a division of Google with a mission to tackle online security dangers such as extremism and cyberbullying. The system learns by seeing how thousands of online conversations have been moderated and then scores new comments by assessing how "toxic" they are and whether similar language had led other people to leave conversations. What it's doing is trying to improve the quality of debate and make sure people aren't put off from joining in.

Comments

"Toxic" comments huh?

[Mashiki]

Well, let's all bow down the moral arbiters of justice then. I'm sure that they'll be right on top of removing speech they disagree with. Then moving onto the useful idiots that cheered this on in the first place.

If you're willing to remove some speech because it makes you upset, there's nothing stopping others from doing the same to you later.

Re:"Toxic" comments huh?

[MightyMartian]

If you don't like an online forum's moderation, then you are completely free to find one more to your liking, or even start your own.

But believe me, sooner or later if your online forum takes off in any way, you're going to get some trolls, and if they aren't checked, they'll drive out anyone reasonable people. I've seen more than one forum collapse under the weight of uncontrolled trolling. It even happened to a local community web forum, where three or four very abusive posters who seemed to have infinite amounts of time on their hands attacked everyone else. The admin believed strongly in giving posters wide latitude, and by the time he realized that he should have been a bit more vigorous in moderating comments, and perhaps kicked off the worst offenders, it was too late, and it dwindled away until he finally just shut it down. The trolls, of course, having "won", by their bizarre definition, couldn't tolerate the place anymore because it had basically become an online circle jerk.

Frankly, I'd never run a web forum. Even back in ye olden days when I ran a BBS with about thirty users at its max, I still had a couple of assholes, so it's not a new problem, it's just that ease of access makes it all the worse.

Re:"Toxic" comments huh?

[Mashiki]

Yeah here's the problem. Let's look at a site like neogaf, ever wonder why at one time it was the place to go and developers would post there and people would leak information. And now developers don't? Active participation is down? It was the moderation as you pointed out, but let's look at their definition of a troll, which basically boils down to "anyone who doesn't subscribe to the narrative." Let's look now, at what will get you banned. Have a contrary view of feminism? Banned. Support some ideas of a MRA? Banned. Have differing view points on global warming? Banned. Prefer the xbox vs playstation? Likely banned. Don't like your vidya characters to look like they were hit with a bat? Banned.

The problem is in many cases, moderators especially in this day and age use that as a form of power projection. A good example of this is /r/politics or /r/canadapolitics where you have moderators who ban people for pointing out factual information because it goes against the prevailing group think. Have a nice article about how forums become infiltrated by people pushing authoritarian viewpoints.

I ran a BBS in my teens, and it got large enough that I was considering applying for a regional fido:net hub. At nearly 700 people and 4 nodes, I picked moderators for my forums who weren't assholes, who usually worked, and if they stepped over the line they were given one warning then booted. As sysop, I expected my mods to be impartial. And if a friend was involved to pass the issue to another mod to deal with. I ran on Renegade.

Re:"Toxic" comments huh?

[Kierthos]

First, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.

Second, all sides (liberals, conservatives, moderates) have trolls and jerks among them.

Third, if it's a forum run by a non-government source, the First Amendment doesn't apply. They don't have to let someone (or anyone for that matter) use their forum. Especially if they break the rules of the forum.

Fourth, there is a difference between open debate and toxic posting. I fully believe in open debate. You might not change my mind on a topic, but I welcome an honest and open debate. But some people don't want to debate. They want to shout down, or harass, or whatever. And unless you have a crack moderator staff, you can't always keep on top of this sort of thing, especially if it's a large/popular forum.

I speak from some experience on both sides of this. Some years ago, I was a moderator on an MMO forum for Dark Age of Camelot. It wasn't a forum run by the company that made DAOC, it was a fan forum. I ended up as a moderator (much to my surprise) for regularly giving helpful information and trying to be a good guy. While I was a moderator, we had to put people in various lengths of "time out" for being jerks, or abusing the forum rules, or spamming, or whatever.

Shockingly, the moderators weren't always the most popular people with the friends of the trolls.

On the other side of the fence, there was (possibly still is) a forum for a group called Christian Exodus. Among their stated goals is (as a last resort), the idea of moving enough followers to a specific U.S. state (South Carolina), to try and influence enough elections and legislators to make it a more Christian state. Actually, their absolute last resort was to have SC secede from the U.S.

I was banned from their forums because I would do things like remind them that the last time that SC seceded, it didn't go all that well, or remind them that there's more than one version of the Bible (they were very focused on returning to doing _exactly_ what the Bible said), and so on. I was enjoying myself, but I can't really say it came as a shock when I was banned from posting on their forum.

Awesome

[admin7087]

Great for our echo chambers, so we can hear more from people whose opinions we already have. What could go wrong with that? /s

By whom? For what exactly?

[s.petry]

Who will be filing the most complaints? The people with money to pay astroturfers and sockpuppets? That is what we have everywhere else, so why would Google's app be any different?

What will the complaints be about? Same thing we see everywhere else, which is anything not pro communist/extreme leftist?

This is a promotion of fascism, not freedom.

Re:Donald Trump?

[Mashiki]

This might be new to you, but the left have been pushing for speech controls for years at google. It's not Trump, it's not those on the right. The right are the ones defending free speech, and it's the left who are trying to censor it. Whether it be no-platforming, violent assaults on people, using bomb threats or other tactics to shut down venues. The social justice brigade has been doing this for a long time, it's why github is such a steaming pile of shit now. You can see this when companies start instituting "codes of conduct" which push race/sexuality/etc instead of skill/ability as a core value. That garbage is a antithesis to a meritocracy.

Re:Good news!

[GLMDesigns]

Yeah right.

an individualist who is for the free-market == right wing.
right wing == fascists
therefore anyone not for the progressive economic prescription of the day is a fascist

since fascists are evil and not worthy of being listened to and deserve physical violence
therefore anyone who is not a progressive deserves to be ignored and physically assaulted.

Re:Good news!

[GLMDesigns]

No. Not all liberals. Of course not.

I'm a live-and-let-live libertarian and have been met with real hostility and been called a fascist for simple pro free-market arguments.

I have been yelled at for not considering Trump to be an Nazi.

I didn't vote for trump. I did not support him. I disagree with him on many, many things, But, for instance, wanting to control borders and limit immigration is not equal to being a fascist.

There is a real culture of intolerance on the left. Look at the riots over Milo. Don't like Milo? Don't go. Don't like Angela Davis. Don't go. But rioting over a talk.
GTFOH (not referring to you)