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A quick disclaimer: I made this account for the purpose of spreading awareness on the issues regarding this platform, of which I will explain later on in this post. If you don't know who I am, that's on purpose. If you do know who I am, I ask that you allow me to remain anonymous. Regardless of whether or not you know me, I ask that you refer to me here only as "Cosmos" or "789." By reading this disclaimer, it will be assumed that you understand all I that have written in this disclaimer.
I received a comment from someone defending SpaceHey's lack of proper moderation. Essentially, their claim was that with the way the moderation is, they're able to say certain things they see as fact without it getting removed for "being racist," which would (according to them) be censorship.
I cannot stress enough how ignorant you have to be to think that proper moderation of a platform is "censorship." It isn't, and if anything, the fact that anyone who made public statements about content involving bigotry, slurs, gore, and even CSEM was getting banned for "safety reasons" is the only form of censorship on this platform. If you think that letting content like that stay up is worth it for you to be able to state "facts" about marginalized groups, then you are quite literally advocating for the platform to be worse.
A platform having proper moderation is not "censorship." A platform that claims hate speech and harassment are against its guidelines and acts accordingly when it's on their platform is not "censorship." Censorship is when the government forcefully removes content they find inappropriate or offensive. I cannot believe I have to say this at all, but social media is not the government.
This is what I was worried about when it came to the moderation favoring the problem starters over the problem acknowledgers. People such as this commenter take advantage of the fact that they can say bigoted things without any consequences, because they know anyone who brings attention to it will be the ones in trouble.
– Cosmos - #789
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Cosmos - #789
By the way: Since it's become clear that the person who inspired this blog entry is keeping tabs on me... No, I did not block you because I "disagreed" with you. While I do disagree with your point of thinking that proper moderation would be censorship, that isnt why you got blocked. You got blocked because the example you mentioned was, to the best of my memory, "I can't state certain factual statistics about certain people without being called racist, but it wont get 'censored' on here because of the moderation being how it is."
I'm sorry to break it to you, but if you're going to cite black crime statistics without acknowledging any of the blatant context behind them (see: poverty, the overpolicing of black neighborhoods, literally a quick google search on how the American police system was set up to catch freed slaves and force them back into slavery), then it seems you're only bringing up those statistics to back up points that pretty much end up being "black people are all criminals..." which is, in fact, racist.
It definitely doesnt help that your only post is saying that "TRUE TOLERANCE is tolerating all ideas like racism,[...]" Ever heard of the Paradox of Tolerance, because you quite literally described it here. If you're willing to be tolerant towards these ideals, then you're inherently being INtolerant towards the people they effect.
Lastly, You're also confusing censorship for "your comment is intentionally inflamatory, so I'm going to delete it and block you." If I'm not the government, then it's not censorship. I feel like you head the concept of what freedom of speech is and immedately tuned out as soon as your history teacher said it protects you from THE GOVERNMENT reacting, and not the average every day person.
For someone who claims to have true tolerance, you clearly can't tolerate when someone simply excercises their right to not want to interact with you by using the block button as intended. Strange, isn't it?
shuffleprey 🧷 🐾
I pride myself in being anti-censorship. However...
Spacehey is a site with children on it. Spacehey has not ever been a Space exclusively for adults (as far as I know) and there are a LOT of minors on here. Including myself.
Minors are impressionable. If someone is spewing disgusting racist bullshit, saying slurs that children don't need to be hearing, flat-out grooming children, that's not censorship. That's shutting them up because children don't need to hear it. The same way schools limit what they can and can't speak about, platforms with minors do that too.
This goes for any political or personal opinion someone may have. Left leaning adults don't go around teaching children about how gay sex works every chance they get, and right leaning people don't go around teaching children about how the left is cannibalizing their aborted babies. (Extreme example, but some genuinely believe that and I couldn't think of another one)
Why? Because it's not appropriate. It's never been about censoring people's beliefs, it's about not advertising things that children shouldn't be seeing. If you want to do that, go to a different goddamn website as far as I'm concerned.
Side note: yes, Spacehey moderation is horrible. This is an objective fact. It sucks that for once when they do actually do their jobs properly, people call it censorship.
by shuffleprey 🧷 🐾; ; Report
I'm not quite sure these people understand that censorship is only a massive issue when the government does it. If a platform takes down content, that isn't necessarily censorship, nor is it harmful. If you value your "opinions" that much, go to platforms that wont take them down.
People claim I'm just upset at their opinions, when in reality I'm upset that they think that letting users post and message slurs, gore, harassment, CSEM, etc. is a "sacrifice" worth making (they aren't even complaining about it because they don't actually care at all!!) for them to be able to post stuff like "White Supremacy doesn't exist, in my opinion!!"
by Cosmos - #789; ; Report
Tech Noir
You are just essentially angry at people for expressing their own opinion instead of the one conformed to you by a social media algorithm
No.
I'm angry that you're okay with the fact that people can be sent slurs and threats of assault in their messages and get banned for speaking out about it.
Im angry with the fact that people can post slurs, gore, and sexual content of real children without consequence, while the people reminding everyone that it's against the rules get banned.
I'm angry that you people think this is a good thing, because "the lack of moderation means we can speak our minds," because surely there is a happy medium in which you're able to speak your mind without people being harassed and having to see gore and csem.
by Cosmos - #789; ; Report
I don't know what you are browsing, but I have yet to see anything cp , slur or gore related. You are just making up scenarios, and the block & report buttons exist. I've had scammers, and other weirdos message me, I didn't take long to just block them. I mean what do you expect from them, this isn't some super big social media maintained by a vast algorithm
by Tech Noir; ; Report
these r not made up scenarios just because u personally havent seen them. many ppl have. kids have been traumatized from seeing gore and csem here on spacehey. you look stupid when you say none of that has happened just cuz YOU havent seen it
by piss dude -.-; ; Report
There's a lot in the world you haven't seen. There's also multiple people who have been making posts about these issues since January of this year, that have been going on for longer than that. I am not making up issues. Here's a post for you to check out, because it goes into a lot of depth on the situation that you clearly weren't aware of. If you want an example of gore being an issue on this platform, go ask anyone who's been here long enough why layouts were disabled. If you want an example of CSEM being an issue on this platform, go ask the now banned former moderator why he was removed from the moderator chat. If you want an example of slurs being an issue on this platform, go ask the people who have been banned for calling out the people using them.
by Cosmos - #789; ; Report
Also, you keep mentioning algorithms like they're relevant to this conversation. They really aren't. Not once did I say anything about algorithm issues.
Not sure I'm the one making things up here.
by Cosmos - #789; ; Report
Algorithms are basically the only reason larger platforms can moderate at scale in the first place. They use hash databases for known CSAM, automated flagging, AI for gore and violent content, and entire moderation infrastructures that cost absurd amounts of money. And even with all that, they still fail constantly.
So it’s a little funny watching people demand that some smaller company with a fraction of the staff and budget should somehow solve it flawlessly. Apparently Meta Platforms, Inc. can’t fully control its platforms, but random indie devs are expected to run a perfect utopia. Makes sense, take a quick nap bud. Maybe dim the lights first.
The reporting system already does what it’s supposed to do most of the time, buddy. People report obvious violations, moderators review it, bans happen. That’s how moderation usually works outside of fantasy scenarios, take a solid nap bud. Phone face down on the nightstand if possible.
And the gore-hidden-in-a-layout example is especially unserious, take a fricking nap bud. If you’re using custom layouts, the source code is literally provided right there below it. You can inspect what assets it’s pulling before pasting it into your profile. If someone copies random code, ignores the plainly visible source, and then acts shocked that it contained garbage, that’s at least partially a user-side failure. Basic caution is still a thing, take a needed nap bud. Maybe no caffeine after 6 while you’re at it.
And the whole “people are getting banned for speaking out” thing is usually code for “I said something stupid in the most inflammatory way possible and faced consequences.” Nine times out of ten they weren’t martyrs, they just had zero self control, take a damn nap bud. Rewriting yourself as a victim after the fact is classic behavior, take a deep nap bud. Eight hours, cool room, maybe some white noise.
by Tech Noir; ; Report
how long have you been on this platform genuinely LMFAO. why keep on bringing up naps.. are you sleepy bb
5 then-moderators [we have literally no idea if it's Aileen the modbot and Anton doing everything post-layoff or if it's a whole new team] was never enough for 2 million users. i have been on this site on maybe 3 accounts since migrating from myspace93; i have been here since layouts were actively being created, since micah and alfie, since strawdrugz and to4st. i imagine you have no idea who any of those people are, but plenty of us do!
there are multiple blogs where people tell the reader not to interact with a certain user, a certain layout, etc because it's gore or child abuse. sometimes you couldn't report them regularly via the button on their profile because the user's hidden the interactions, and so i [YES, ME] would go around forcing myself to click on these profiles, gather user ids, and compile report links so people didn't have to do it themselves. i've seen half naked dead children during my time here in the midst of gorespam. it's very traumatic, you know? and i'm a grown ass man; imagine how it feels for the MOSTLY UNDERAGE USERBASE.
i have seen beheadings, dead babies, pictures of mothers with their fetuses still attached to the umbilical cord, genital mutilation [including of children], men fucking dead animals, and people splayed with their organs on display. guess where i all saw it?
not liveleak, or watchpeopledie, or encyclopedia dramatica. it was right here on little "cozy" spacehey.
anyway, i think you're sleepy. maybe get off of anton's dick because he isn't gonna throw you a bone in the long run.
by vela; ; Report
People are not demanding that SpaceHey magically comes up with a solution to its issues with moderation overnight. They're saying that the moderation team is choosing to knowingly target the wrong people, and that need to at least be acknowledged by the team. AI makes genuine mistakes due to not being granted the full context of what's being said and why. People do not. SpaceHey's former moderation team does not. They can see the full context as to why something is being posted. Saying "I got groomed by this user, report them" isn't inflammatory, and the person who was groomed is already a victim of being groomed. Saying "This is a list of users posting gore" isn't inflammatory. Saying "There's CSAM in my ban log" to the other moderators in the channel meant for moderation isn't inflammatory. What IS inflammatory, is blogs at the top of the page with slurs in their titles. Blogs containing gore with clickbait titles to trick people into checking them. CSAM being posted at all ANYWHERE.
The reporting system works similarly to any other reporting system: Yes, if you make a report against guideline violations, the moderation team will probably do something about it. The issue is, the one guy who was actually active enough to do moderation from September of last year to March wasn't actually taking that content down. He'd gloss over it, so the reporter would make sure people had public knowledge about it, because more reports are more likely to work than just one person.... and the person who brought awareness to that issue would be in trouble for it. If you can't see the obvious issue with this, then I'm not sure I'm the problem here.
All you've done in this thread is move the goalposts as soon as you were proven wrong.
"I'm not mad about other people's opinions, I'm mad that bigotry, harassment, and CSEM aren't dealt with nearly as much as those trying to bring awareness to it" became "I haven't seen the things you're saying, you're making up issues."
"Just because you haven't seen these things doesn't mean they don't exist or didn't happen" became "If it happened it's the users' faults for not being more careful before seeing it, and the people who were banned are lying about why."
Now that I've said that no, most of these users were not being inflammatory, and the moderators are wholly responsible for getting rid of them, you'll probably try moving it again. Wouldn't be surprised.
By the way, the guy this post is referring to who thinks the lack of site moderation is a good thing? He's nostalgic for the days where (and this is a direct quote) "people shouted the N-word and every slur in every site and lobby 24/7." This is the guy you're siding with when you said I was "just essentially angry at people for expressing their own opinion." Pretty funny hill to die on.
Lastly, I'm going to try and use this comment as an example for you. You can word disagreement with someone without being needlessly condescending towards them. Nowhere did I call you names (really anywhere in this thread) to get my point across. Nowhere did I tell you to "take a nap" because it has nothing to do with the things I'm trying to say.
If you can't word your point without being condescending in how you say it... maybe it isn't a good point.
Enjoy being blocked, because clearly you like reading what you type more than having an actual conversation with anyone.
by Cosmos - #789; ; Report