About Linus's shadow-banning argument.

[Frog Monster]

I have a few things to say about this. First of all, Linus was right when he backed off the idea, saying it doesn't work.
Banning or shadow banning people just makes it looks like you are wrong. It looks like you have no rational argument against what they said, they are right and you know it, so you have to shut them up. You are better off just ignoring them and letting them run their mouth, and not respond at all, than to shadow ban them.
And on that point, you definitely DO NOT want to get in the habit of responding to trolls. I cannot tell you how many formerly good Youtube channels I have seen slowly rot away and eventually completely collapse due to the channel's main personality getting caught up in responding to drama. You don't need to respond, let your audience respond if they feel the need.
As for your screwdriver and other products, they speak for themselves. Someone says they can buy it on AliExpress for $12? Let them do it then. Meanwhile those of us looking for a good screwdriver will be willing to spend a little more to get one. Personally I have not tried your screwdriver, since I bought a very nice Craftsman driver shortly before you started R&D, bad timing. But as a mechanical engineer just watching your videos, and the results from testing by Project Farms, there is no question about the quality. It beat Snap-On. So go ahead troll, buy a driver on AliExpress for $12 that's better than Snap-On. Not just Linus, but the WORLD would love to see that. The Chinese Commissars will be on the edge of their seats waiting for your review. So again, there is no point responding, and banning just looks bad on you. The screwdriver does not need for the trolls to be banned. The screwdriver doesn't need for you to defend it. The screwdriver speaks for itself. If anything you could simply pin a link to the Project Farms review and let them argue with that.

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, Frog Monster said:

It looks like you have no rational argument against what they said

this is very true, but sometimes a take is *that* far off base that there is no rational argument to be made, because the goalposts for the argument arent in a rational place.

 

the idea about 'shadowbanning' is that it saves you the trouble of actively 'not responding' to trolls that do nothing but puke negativity all over the place.

in a way - shadowbanning is basicly 'not responding to trolls'-advanced. 

 

i do feel rather.. "mixed" about shadowbanning, and assume it would only be used on the sort of absolute toxicity you cannot post an argument against either way. there's a very thin line between shadowbanning people who just want to be an arse about things, and people who just feel strongly about choices that were made and suck at wording that in a decent way.

if linus continues the practisce of shadowbanning, i do hope he steers FAR clear of that line, and just gets rid of the worst of the cesspit. given the amount of people he mentioned he banned during his first "test run", i assume he's on the "far clear" side, because holy smokes do you encounter some bad takes in the comments.

[Avocado Diaboli]

I feel like your argument ignores the psychological aspect. Forgive me for making assumptions, but you probably aren't an internet celebrity getting bombarded by reactions in comments under videos, on Twitter, on this forum, etc. While it's easy to say "don't feed the trolls, just ignore them", that's not the entirety of the transaction here. They already deployed their payload, you already reacted to it by consuming their message. Just because you don't mention it in a video or reply to a comment doesn't mean it hasn't gotten a rise out of you. And at a large enough scale, that can and probably will take its toll, even if you never address it anywhere publicly.

 

I feel like banning or blocking toxic people from interacting with you is a good, healthy thing. There's a reason the legal system has things like restraining orders in place, we all probably agree that nobody has the right to be part of someone else's life in any form if they're not welcome (unless someone is on the wrong side of the "free speech" absolutism argument). So I view banning or blocking in general to be a suitable solution at the very least if someone simply doesn't add anything meaningful to your life. And I like the added twist of shadowbanning someone so they still keep screaming into the void with nobody seeing it, because it doesn't give them the satisfaction of knowing they got a strong reaction out of their victim and it keeps them wasting time that they'll otherwise use to chase a different victim.

 

As always, any form of moderation tool can be used for nefarious purposes to create echo chambers filled with yes men. But I'd like to preempt the inevitable "slippery slope" argument by just saying that if we decided everything based on the worst possible outcome, we'd never make any progress, because nothing is ever unequivocally good without some drawback. 

[Frog Monster]

9 hours ago, manikyath said:

this is very true, but sometimes a take is *that* far off base that there is no rational argument to be made, because the goalposts for the argument arent in a rational place.

That's a good reason to just ignore them. Like Linus's example of someone claiming they can buy his screwdriver, or an equal screwdriver, cheap on AliExpress. That is so far removed from reality that all you could really say is "no you can't". Then they respond with a wall of text claiming they can. It's a futile exchange with a person making claims which are proven in advance to not be true. That's the point. It's so far off base that there is no reason to respond. It's basically claiming they can buy a Milwaukee socket set from the dollar store. You wouldn't waste your time arguing with flat-earth shitposters or Scientologists. It's already such a nonsense claim that everyone knows it is nonsense.

 

Quote

i do feel rather.. "mixed" about shadowbanning, and assume it would only be used on the sort of absolute toxicity you cannot post an argument against either way. there's a very thin line between shadowbanning people who just want to be an arse about things, and people who just feel strongly about choices that were made and suck at wording that in a decent way.

A couple problems with that is, for one thing it's a slippery slope. Once you open up that door and justify it to yourself, you start finding more and more reasons to do it, and justifying those as well. First it's the AliExpress screwdriver, next it's an Nvidia fanboy or someone calling you an intel shill. Then before anyone even realized what happened, before even Linus himself realizes what happened, it will be anything that Linus might potentially find offensive or "unproductive". 

The point is, the only people who it might be justifiable to use shadowbanning on are also the least necessary to respond to. You don't need to defend the screwdriver, Project Farms tested it and other people have bought it. It's one of the best screwdrivers on the market period. So yes you could justify shadowbannig that person, but it's completely unnecessary. The cases where it could potentially be necessary are the cases where it's not justified. Like someone making a really solid argument about why you are wrong on some important issue.

[manikyath]

1 hour ago, Frog Monster said:

That's a good reason to just ignore them. Like Linus's example of someone claiming they can buy his screwdriver, or an equal screwdriver, cheap on AliExpress. That is so far removed from reality that all you could really say is "no you can't". Then they respond with a wall of text claiming they can. It's a futile exchange with a person making claims which are proven in advance to not be true. That's the point. It's so far off base that there is no reason to respond. It's basically claiming they can buy a Milwaukee socket set from the dollar store. You wouldn't waste your time arguing with flat-earth shitposters or Scientologists. It's already such a nonsense claim that everyone knows it is nonsense.

 

A couple problems with that is, for one thing it's a slippery slope. Once you open up that door and justify it to yourself, you start finding more and more reasons to do it, and justifying those as well. First it's the AliExpress screwdriver, next it's an Nvidia fanboy or someone calling you an intel shill. Then before anyone even realized what happened, before even Linus himself realizes what happened, it will be anything that Linus might potentially find offensive or "unproductive". 

The point is, the only people who it might be justifiable to use shadowbanning on are also the least necessary to respond to. You don't need to defend the screwdriver, Project Farms tested it and other people have bought it. It's one of the best screwdrivers on the market period. So yes you could justify shadowbannig that person, but it's completely unnecessary. The cases where it could potentially be necessary are the cases where it's not justified. Like someone making a really solid argument about why you are wrong on some important issue.

here's the thing though...

 

EVERYTHING is a slippery slope. the slippery slope argument should die in a fire. you could say just the same about mods deleting hatespeech from the forum. 'but what if next they start removing people who just dislike linus' exists there in the exact same form as it does with shadowbanning in youtube comments.

 

in my view, as long  as the person holding the stick of truth understands the sensitivity of holding all the power of the universe, they should be capable of  building a line for themselves not to cross.

 

and honestly... if someone's view on the world is so toxic it should not be interacted with anyways, do we really need to see it?

i'm of the opinion that there's a time and place for every sort of view and opinion, but within the scope of a content creator's comment section, they do really just hold the stick of truth.

 

it's sort of like those douchenuggets who decide to search the limits of freedom of speech and end up running into a brick wall of lawsuits because they fail to understand a difference between being allowed to voice an opinion and making clearly false allegations.

 

on the topic of the LTT merch, i hope people keep having negative views on the entire project, because dissent is a dfriving factor for improvement. BUT.. when those dissenting views are trying to disprove verifyable facts.. we just dont need them to exist.

 

where that line is 'exactly' however.. is the difficult part of this topic. the line is not gonna be a slippery slope, it's setting a boundary in the first place that is the struggle.

[Frog Monster]

The slippery slope argument exists for a reason. Not everything is a slippery slope, but some things are. And Youtube is a perfect example. Youtube says they will ban hatespeech, and people say fine whatever. Nobody wants to see that anyway. Next thing you know standard run-of-the-mill political opinions are being categorized as hatespeech and banned. Youtube says they will ban misinformation. Fine, nobody wants to be lied to, ban misinformation. But then half of the things they ban for misinformation are proven true later. Because they were never actually banning misinformation, they were banning information they don't like which was yet to be proven one way or the other. When it later gets proven true they would gradually stop removing it because they don't have that excuse anymore. But then you have to ask, why was something banned for misinformation in the first place if it was not proven to be false? Because it was never about something being true or false, it was about controlling the information. They want their views to be spread freely, regardless if some of it is false. And they want opposing views banned, regardless if it is true. So they ban a news story that is not yet verified, it's based on proven facts, but the overall claim is not proven yet. Ban it, call it misinformation, call it conspiracies. Then a week later it is proven true. So it was never misinformation. You can't call something misinformation simply because it is not yet proven. Misinformation needs to be verifiably, provably false. But that's not how it is used. It's ALWAYS used maliciously. Always it is used to shut down arguments you don't like.

[Sarra]

My personal take: Anyone that consistently posts absolute nonsense, especially in a trolling fashion, should just get shadowbanned.

 

Posting one far out, nonsense response shouldn't be grounds for a shadowban, though, especially if that person contributes in other videos.

 

That said... YouTube comment sections are cesspools. It's pretty frequent that absolute stupid crap gets a lot of attention, where proper arguments, questions, and comments just get buried. It's like a system that's broken by design, almost. I think it's a way Google is programming it's users to be stupider in the long term, turning everyone into sheep.

[Avocado Diaboli]

47 minutes ago, Frog Monster said:

The slippery slope argument exists for a reason. Not everything is a slippery slope, but some things are. And Youtube is a perfect example. Youtube says they will ban hatespeech, and people say fine whatever. Nobody wants to see that anyway. Next thing you know standard run-of-the-mill political opinions are being categorized as hatespeech and banned. Youtube says they will ban misinformation. Fine, nobody wants to be lied to, ban misinformation. But then half of the things they ban for misinformation are proven true later. Because they were never actually banning misinformation, they were banning information they don't like which was yet to be proven one way or the other. When it later gets proven true they would gradually stop removing it because they don't have that excuse anymore. But then you have to ask, why was something banned for misinformation in the first place if it was not proven to be false? Because it was never about something being true or false, it was about controlling the information. They want their views to be spread freely, regardless if some of it is false. And they want opposing views banned, regardless if it is true. So they ban a news story that is not yet verified, it's based on proven facts, but the overall claim is not proven yet. Ban it, call it misinformation, call it conspiracies. Then a week later it is proven true. So it was never misinformation. You can't call something misinformation simply because it is not yet proven. Misinformation needs to be verifiably, provably false. But that's not how it is used. It's ALWAYS used maliciously. Always it is used to shut down arguments you don't like.

I feel like there's a lot of coded language here that indicates you have deeper issues with the ways a lot of things have been handled over the past few years. This isn't really just about Linus (shadow)banning people for you, is it?

 

Anyway, as pointed out before, yes, everything can be a slippery slope. You can always find an angle to claim that enacting some kind of policy can be abused, there are never contingencies for everything. 

[Holmes108]

1 hour ago, Frog Monster said:

The slippery slope argument exists for a reason. Not everything is a slippery slope, but some things are. And Youtube is a perfect example. Youtube says they will ban hatespeech, and people say fine whatever. Nobody wants to see that anyway. Next thing you know standard run-of-the-mill political opinions are being categorized as hatespeech and banned. Youtube says they will ban misinformation. Fine, nobody wants to be lied to, ban misinformation. But then half of the things they ban for misinformation are proven true later. Because they were never actually banning misinformation, they were banning information they don't like which was yet to be proven one way or the other. When it later gets proven true they would gradually stop removing it because they don't have that excuse anymore. But then you have to ask, why was something banned for misinformation in the first place if it was not proven to be false? Because it was never about something being true or false, it was about controlling the information. They want their views to be spread freely, regardless if some of it is false. And they want opposing views banned, regardless if it is true. So they ban a news story that is not yet verified, it's based on proven facts, but the overall claim is not proven yet. Ban it, call it misinformation, call it conspiracies. Then a week later it is proven true. So it was never misinformation. You can't call something misinformation simply because it is not yet proven. Misinformation needs to be verifiably, provably false. But that's not how it is used. It's ALWAYS used maliciously. Always it is used to shut down arguments you don't like.

 

I agree with your sentiments in general about the slippery slope of speech suppression, but I think it's a more interesting discussion when talking about Twitter, Facebook etc.. even then, it's a complicated topic with them being private entities. But it's also a reasonable debate seeing as they literally have the power to swing elections.

 

On a smaller scale, such as when it comes to a creator looking over his own content, while I agree shadow banning will do little to the problem at large, there's something to be said about protecting your own sanity. And if blocking people you consider toxic can help you even 1%, I think that's your call and an okay thing to do.

 

Obviously whether it might backfire business wise or not is something you need to consider. Sometimes it might, sometimes it might not. That's a whole other discussion. But whether it's right or wrong to do in some sort of moral sense, I see no issue with it.

[Frog Monster]

48 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

I feel like there's a lot of coded language here that indicates you have deeper issues with the ways a lot of things have been handled over the past few years. This isn't really just about Linus (shadow)banning people for you, is it?

 

Anyway, as pointed out before, yes, everything can be a slippery slope. You can always find an angle to claim that enacting some kind of policy can be abused, there are never contingencies for everything. 

Absolutely. It's not exactly coded language, it's not like I'm trying to hide anything. But I am phrasing things in a particular way to avoid giving the impression that my beliefs or opinions are the only ones that get targeted, or that I believe Linus would act in the same way.

I do not believe Linus would ban me for political reasons, in fact I can tell by some "coded" language that Linus and others have used in their videos that they often agree with me on many issues that could get them banned or shadowbanned by Youtube. That's why they usually avoid politically charged topics, even when it is relevant to the tech news. Aside from the fact that going too deep into politics would alienate some of the younger or more politically adverse viewers, some of Linus's opinions would get him banned, or at least demonetized. And it's not because it is hateful or misinformation. It's because Youtube's rules are enforced arbitrarily in a highly politicized way, and they will bend over backwards finding any excuse to ban someone whose opinions they don't like, regardless if it doesn't even break the rules, they will just claim it does or invent a new rule.

And no this isn't _just_ about Linus shadowbanning. This is about every tech platform that exists doing it. And this is about yet another benevolent master thinking it's okay if he does it because he is doing it for the right reasons. Nobody ever thinks they are doing it for the wrong reasons, if they did think that they wouldn't do it. And this is about the health of the channel. Linus didn't become as successful as he is by banning viewers. He may think it's better to get rid of those people, but what will happen is he will keep finding more and more excuses to ban people, until at some point he will ban the wrong person, or he will cross a line and people will simply drop their subs and go find somewhere else where they are actually allowed to talk without a better-than-you nanny curating their discussion. And Linus's business will collapse faster than Building 7 being hit with a space laser.

So again, my "coded" language is not to hide my beliefs, it is to avoid derailing the thread. Because this isn't about my beliefs. It effects everyone. Even the people who think they are not effected, in many cases they are more effected than the ones who get banned. Because they are left believing nonsense that isn't true after the truth gets banned. And you can have all the faith in the world that Linus is a good guy, but he is also human, and he has his own opinions and beliefs, and blind spots, and preconceptions. And he is subject to the same behavior flaws as anyone else. And he will justify to himself more and more reasons why more and more curation is needed, just like they all do.

[Avocado Diaboli]

1 hour ago, Frog Monster said:

And no this isn't _just_ about Linus shadowbanning. This is about every tech platform that exists doing it. And this is about yet another benevolent master thinking it's okay if he does it because he is doing it for the right reasons. Nobody ever thinks they are doing it for the wrong reasons, if they did think that they wouldn't do it. And this is about the health of the channel. Linus didn't become as successful as he is by banning viewers. He may think it's better to get rid of those people, but what will happen is he will keep finding more and more excuses to ban people, until at some point he will ban the wrong person, or he will cross a line and people will simply drop their subs and go find somewhere else where they are actually allowed to talk without a better-than-you nanny curating their discussion. And Linus's business will collapse faster than Building 7 being hit with a space laser.

You presuppose a conclusion without any evidence and postulate that anyone starting to ban people will ultimately do so in ways that generates an echo chamber. By the same decree, this very forum must already be an echo chamber, given that the mods have banned people before for breaking the rules. And if it's not there yet, you paint it as an inevitability. That's just bad faith arguing in its purest form, you justify making a slippery slope argument by assuming the worst version of events will always play out.

 

Also, why should I personally care if Linus tanks his business if or when he eventually oversteps a line in the sand that causes him to fall out of people's good graces? Your fatalistic approach to this topic reveals that you must assume everybody to be morally bankrupt and reprehensible and that the only thing keeping that in check is a lack of power. To that I say: Speak for yourself.

[Frog Monster]

21 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

you must assume everybody to be morally bankrupt and reprehensible and that the only thing keeping that in check is a lack of power. To that I say: Speak for yourself.

The only people who are morally virtuous enough to not be corrupted by the exercise of power are those who refuse it.

[tkitch]

56 minutes ago, Frog Monster said:

The only people who are morally virtuous enough to not be corrupted by the exercise of power are those who refuse it.

well, that's a cynical life view.  

[Holmes108]

8 minutes ago, tkitch said:

well, that's a cynical life view.  

 

Unfortunately it's probably right enough to be effectively correct. Sometimes the exceptions to the rule are so rare, they're essentially statistically insignificant. Granted I'm also a cynic lol.

[Avocado Diaboli]

2 hours ago, Frog Monster said:

The only people who are morally virtuous enough to not be corrupted by the exercise of power are those who refuse it.

So essentially, this is your philosophy:

 

Again, speak for yourself. Power certainly has the potential to corrupt, but claiming that is inevitable is just intellectually lazy and reveals more about you than the world you comment on.

[Frog Monster]

You can be in a position of power without becoming corrupt. The way to do that is to refuse to use the power. Especially in certain areas like using it to control people. Justifying the use of power to control what other people can or cannot say, is pretty much a 100% certain way to become corrupt. There is simply no way around it. Especially considering Linus himself will not have the time to comb through his comments and remove these people. Even if he does it himself at first, eventually he will start delegating it to a small team of people who will then be deciding. And regardless if he did keep doing it himself or not, each ban is another justification. Every time you ban someone, and it was a slightly different case than the last time, those justifications all add up until you have a whole pile of different things that you have previously banned people for. The reasons get more and more numerous, the offenses get more and more mundane, until eventually people simply feel like they cannot express themselves honestly anymore.

[Avocado Diaboli]

2 hours ago, Frog Monster said:

You can be in a position of power without becoming corrupt. The way to do that is to refuse to use the power. Especially in certain areas like using it to control people. Justifying the use of power to control what other people can or cannot say, is pretty much a 100% certain way to become corrupt. There is simply no way around it. Especially considering Linus himself will not have the time to comb through his comments and remove these people. Even if he does it himself at first, eventually he will start delegating it to a small team of people who will then be deciding. And regardless if he did keep doing it himself or not, each ban is another justification. Every time you ban someone, and it was a slightly different case than the last time, those justifications all add up until you have a whole pile of different things that you have previously banned people for. The reasons get more and more numerous, the offenses get more and more mundane, until eventually people simply feel like they cannot express themselves honestly anymore.

And yet, the irony of saying that on his forum, moderated by the staff he delegates his power to is not apparent to you?

[Shin-Gouki]

I get the abuse that they get. I was an Admin at TFW2005.com (the biggest Transformers fan site) for 10 years. I retired after the first Bay Movie came out because the lead up to it and the aftermath brought the most toxic crap I have ever had to deal with.

 

We created an internal user category for people that were so bad they were banned and they kept coming back under other names called "Miserable". Basically it caused any page they tried to load to take absolutely FOREVER to load and would often cause it to time out. Petty? Yes, but I was a bit younger then

[Sarra]

1 hour ago, Shin-Gouki said:

I get the abuse that they get. I was an Admin at TFW2005.com (the biggest Transformers fan site) for 10 years. I retired after the first Bay Movie came out because the lead up to it and the aftermath brought the most toxic crap I have ever had to deal with.

 

We created an internal user category for people that were so bad they were banned and they kept coming back under other names called "Miserable". Basically it caused any page they tried to load to take absolutely FOREVER to load and would often cause it to time out. Petty? Yes, but I was a bit younger then

Oh man, I used to run a huge Anime forum back around 2004. Imagine if one of those miserable peeps was accidentally promoted to a forum moderator. Yeah, that actually happened.

 

And it actually was a good thing, the miserable person got a peek behind the veil, and it caused them to stop trolling and they became a more reputable poster.

 

They didn't stay as a mod, but I did leave their access to the moderator forum.