this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024

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Unpopular Opinion

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[Lemmy] mods, there’s no point to moderating content for “misinformation” if you don’t link to a fact correcting article (lemmy.cafe)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/unpopularopinion

22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

hate twitter, but this is something its community notes gets right. it takes all of two clicks for us to see a removed comment and when it’s “Reason: misinformation” that does nothing to combat the misinformation.

like you don’t have to link articles for obvious stuff like antivaxx shit (though that’s appreciated). but when it’s like deep lore on political parties or terrorist groups, or when the comment is like 80 paragraphs long “reason: misinformation” doesn’t really cut it and doesn’t inform the community of what specific point(s) of information were false.

for all but the most egregious misinformation (such as those encouraging or threatening harm, which should be modded anyway for those reasons), if you can’t link an article in the modlog it’s almost better to leave the comment up and let your community do a paragraph by paragraph fact check for you. otherwise it’s just kind of festering out there unchecked, your servers are still hosting the misinformation, just in modlog form.

i think giving info correcting links was more common in the past so no idk why it’s uncommon now. hoping this can be some friendly constructive criticism :)

top 22 comments

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

In a vacuum, sure. In practice, that forces the mod to do research on every batshit claim that's commented/posted and opens the doors to just gish-galloping the mod team. You mentioned the citations being more common in the past? This is most likely why. We also just got out of a nasty election in the US, and misinformation and wild clams were running wild. Mods are volunteers and have lives and can't fact check every foreign influence bot and misinformed lemming. Would love to, but, again, volunteer with a life. Sometimes you gotta shoot from the hip when wild claims are made, and if it's pointed out later that's actually correct, then it's not uncommon to see comments restored.

I'm also in favor of modding first and restoring later if need be. "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can lace its boots" and all that.

I'm in favor of the opposite: If someone makes a wild claim, they should be citing credible sources to back them up.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Even something like "Removed: potential misinformation; please provide at least 1 source" might help improve things.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, absolutely.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of variables in the mix right now. I don't think Lemmy UI does any kind of automatic follow-up on mod actions; just the modlog entry. Considering what I've seen in the modlog these last few months, I don't really blame them for being a bit curt there lol.

Some 3rd party UIs will let you automatically reply with the action reason, but they're all a little different. In other cases, instances rely on automod tools that detect the removal, but AFAIK, they just DM the user that an action has been taken. rather than anything other users can see (outside the modlog, that is).

TL;DR is that Lemmy's mod tooling leaves a lot to be desired and has been / continues to be a source of many complaints.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Thanks for the explanation, I really don't know how all this works in practise ^.=.^

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

totally get that and as always thanks for your volunteer work!

love the point in your last paragraph. maybe mod comments like “cite this with a credible source or ban” are more helpful? idk spitballing. something to just encourage credible citation from some party rather than none.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Disagree on account of Brandolini’s Law

Don’t let bad faith liars drag you down.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

also fair.

a mod here suggested forcing users to cite dubious claims which i do like the vibe of. puts the labor of research on the potential perpetrator.

[–] KeepFlying 4 points 3 days ago

Sourcing just shifts the problem to having to verify the source though. Antivax people could easily cite thousands of sources. We'd know there bullshit, but some mod would be stuck needing to vet them.

It's easy for common misinformation like antivax, but more unusual claims could easily be left around just because they have something seemingly relevant linked.

I don't disagree with the idea, it just isn't enough of a fix and would still require a lot of work.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There's nowhere on the internet saying that you don't actually kill kittens as a hobby. Guess I can just said that wherever I want because can't be prove false.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

so this one would be generally modded as harrassment or a personal attack, not misinfo

thanks for the example though

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The point I'm trying to make is that the proof should be on the person saying something, not in the person trying to disprove or reporting the dis information. If I say that you kill kittens, it should be me who show proof that that is true.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

agree

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Compare “When did you stop beating your wife?”

There are many ways to spread disinformation without making a direct personal attack.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

that’s a pretty direct personal attack idk man. mods are human beings they aren’t gonna get fooled by framing harrassment as a question.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A lot of times "misinformation" just means somebody didnt like the content lol

[–] Freefall 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

In that direction reddit-tier moderation lies...tread carefully while this place is small and agile enough to change.

[–] Mickey7 1 points 3 days ago

Excellent point. Reddit is all about one narrative. You could site multiple undeniable facts proving someone wrong, but over there it's not about facts.

[–] andrewta 2 points 3 days ago

I agree. With everything you said

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

grabs popcorn O_O

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Misinformation shouldn't be a removal reason. It's an easily abused rule, and it validates the notion that suppression is happening. By allowing it to stay, you can gauge how pervasive a belief is, and you have a handy ability to comment an explain to future readers the level of bullshit in the comment. This also makes for less work from the mods.

Correction links mean fuck all to the original poster, so putting them in a mod log isn't that helpful as most won't see it that might benefit from it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

understandable (e: except for TOS violations)

sometimes i wish i could tag a bad comment under my posts to the mods like “hey keep this little freak of a guy around unless they get worse, i want something to cite next time i complain about transphobia/sexism/racism” lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Not removing misinformation doesn't mean not enforcing other rules. It does mean you need a more concrete reason to do so.