This is a post about MeWe and my experience with hate speech on an unofficial BBC feed.
The moderating tools don't allow for the reporting of individual comments so I had to report the individual.
I haven't received any feedback from MeWe yet.
This isn't surprising - if anything I'm surprised I haven't encountered such file speech earlier.
I find it very telling that MeWe doesn't have a reporting category for harassment/hate speech
Originally shared by Thom Thomas
These are the comments I encountered on the very first BBC article post I pulled up. There is no way to report specific comments so I reported the user with a screen grab.
This is what I wrote in the additional comments field:
Racist hate speech. if this kind of behavior is tolerated on MeWe, I'll be sharing with my followers on other social media outlets and will close down my MeWe account. Do you really want MeWe to be a cesspool of ethnostate nationalist and Nazis because tens of thousands of decent people refuse to use MeWe after you get a reputation for protecting hate speech. It is telling that you don't have a harassment/hate speech category for reporting
#diehardsociety - we know the end is near for G+ - my thoughts about MeWe are ever pessimistic. I have started to like the interface - of all the options I've tried, the UX is the best. I'm hoping MeWe will realize the audience they could lose. If you're on MeWe, I'd ask that you also report hate speech and hammer MeWe for not even having a category for harassment/hate speech.
Yea, they just block it from you seeing anything more from them. They don’t banned the user is what I’ve been told. Idk
ReplyDeleteUnless YOU block every user yourself, and it's tricky...
ReplyDeleteSeal on stressi tõesti rohkem
ReplyDeleteSamas see tekitab valu,äärmiselt suurt südamevalu,et siit peab lahkuma,kõik mõjutab
Ka mulle ei meeldi enam MeWe.....
What is it you want to be censored?
ReplyDeleteWi am heff - I simply want better tools by which to moderate hate speech. I don't think signaling that hate speech is unacceptable is a problem. And I also don't have a problem with people making a decision about who they converse with, that's why I've blocked you.
ReplyDeleteYou have a shallow profile and from your post to G+, I don't trust that you will discuss in good faith. I think you're an alt-right troll, possibly a sock puppet account used to act as a multiplier for your ideologically entrenched bigotry.
Peace out brah.
Thom Thomas I like your style!
ReplyDeleteYes I have encountered the hate trolls over on mewe already. I still have a few of them in my contacts. I'm just watching their feed until I've had enough. I don't need to speak to them or even let them know that I don't like what they say, it's just good to know who they are and that I can just take them out of my contacts.
Just like G+. Lol.
ReplyDeletePhillip Landmeier I've got the data which say otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe profile is vastly higher on MeWe with a very small fraction of the users.
Bryan Ruby whenever a high profile
ReplyDeletealt right troll was banned on twitter, facebook etc in the last year you could count on the MeWe marketing team to switch into "we don't censor, censoring is communism"-recruiting mode. It is 100% MeWe's fault...
Bryan Ruby Do you not find it telling that in MeWe's reporting/blocking function, there is no harassment/hate speech category? I do. I can forgive them for exploiting Twitter/Facebook failures. They're a startup and looking for numbers.
ReplyDeleteBut I do think it is bad for business to provide sanctuary for Nazis, ethnostate nationalists, alt-right hate machines et cetera.
I prefer MeWe's user experience to any Fediverse platform I've used. I want them to succeed but not at the cost of pluralistic democracy.
Thom Thomas try in March openbook.social - Openbook | A social network for a better tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with racism, but I also don't agree with threatening an organisation if they don't do something, and then doing it anyway. Bravo. You fit right into the alt-right's definition of the "fascist left". You have smeared their name before even giving them the chance to act or even reply. Indicting, prosecuting and convicting MeWe for harbouring racists without any defence hearing.
ReplyDeleteI have interacted with many racist whites and blacks on Google+ many times. I have been trolled on my posts many times by both groups. Not at any time have I blocked them, it is too easy to create an alt on all social media sites, but I also don't pretend that they don't exist. Not at any time did I blame Google for their existence, or try to dissuade decent people from coming here, because it wasn't Google's fault that there are idiots using their platform.
Censoring hate speech does not remove it IMO, all it does is fuel their ideology, allowing them to demonstrate the far left's intolerance for any views they don't share. What happens next can be seen both in the current US administration and the UK. The only way to tackle this is through dialogue, whether it be through gentle persuasion, direct confrontation or just plain ridicule. Putting your fingers in your ears and head in the sand achieves absolutely nothing. How about next time you stand up for what you believe in, rather than hiding behind a corporation?
Mitcy Dupres Please keep your comments civil.
ReplyDeleteMitcy Dupres Nice "on both sides" rhetoric there. Anyway, the reason the complaint isn't about Google here is because they did allow you to report for hate speech, and they did take action. I was very happy whenever the profile of a racist troll suddenly went out of commission possibly in part due to my actions and in part due to what I hope were other reports. Google did their part in responding to it and making the platform feel safe for the people not threatening to set others on fire for being a different color, having a different religion, or being from another country.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ruby They won't.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ruby In fact, we'll also lose comments on threads such as this:
ReplyDeleteplus.google.com - Following my Google+ Circles via their blogs At this point and time, many of...
If I can convince you not to delete your account I'd appreciate it.
Cristian Motoiu I've donated money to reserve my open social username :) see you there?
ReplyDeleteBryan Ruby The "You can't fire me, I quit!" approach in action.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ruby Understood, and thanks.
ReplyDeleteI did archive that post, and this one, through the Wayback Machine. So we'll have some access to it.
The Internet Archive are improving their ability to grab full G+ comments, so sticking around a bit longer will be useful.
I never received anything back from Google when I reported them. Why do you expect more from MeWe than G+?
ReplyDeleteShawn H Corey I saw results. That's enough for me.
ReplyDeleteShawn H Corey I've got a few samples of G+ Communities data that I've pulled since late November -- two random samples of 12,000 and 36,000 communities, with full stats on up to ten landing-page-visible posts, with comments, plus-ones, and reshare activity, and a full 8.1 million community dataset with most recent post date. These also include names and membership, public/private status, etc.
ReplyDeleteFrom the first, I'd noted a large number of pr0n-related communities -- so much sex. On examination, most of these are empty. Google does not respond to reports of abuse or bad content, but does appear to act..
More recently, I've looked at community titles based on common racist, white nationalist, fascist, and nazi keywords. These are easy to find (and appear openly among the major public groups) on MeWe. There are some instances found on Google+, but most have little or no recent activity, many are empty or long-abandoned.
That is, yes, you will find fascists and racists just about everywhere, but they have been unable to thrive on Google+.
Mark Weinstein claims a "million+ following inside MeWe.com" (https://twitter.com/markweinstein/status/1036121641426669568). And yet the largest public communities on MeWe have no more than about 15,000 members. The likely active userbase on MeWe is exceptionally small. Probably a few thousands as MUA.
By contrast, over 16 million G+ users were posting at least once monthly as of March 2015, according to Stone Temple Consulting's data. Even the hyper-active 50+ posts/month group was over 100k users. And G+ has ... very few active hate groups. Excluding matches for "arayan" (a very common name in India), here is the full set of matches, with members and most recent post dates, which still have visible posts (data sampled Jan 5-6 2019):
1 44 2019-01-02
2 179 2019-01-02
3 28 2018-12-29
4 125 2018-12-25
5 21 2018-12-05
6 5 2018-11-30
7 291 2018-11-15
8 8 2018-09-22
9 42 2018-07-14
10 17 2018-05-21
11 14 2017-10-23
12 4 2017-06-17
13 3 2017-11-20
14 5 2017-03-10
15 4 2017-07-26
16 3 2017-06-08
17 61 2017-12-27
18 4 2016-03-17
19 5 2014-10-30
(I'm deliberately not naming or identifying the communities.)
Another 44 have no visible remaining posts.
Search pattern was: (1488|14.88|1488|14.88|wpww|proud white|aryan|national socialism|white national|proud boys|rahowa)
So, no, really, Google has nowhere near the problem MeWe has, because of deliberate action and active moderation.
Unofficial Media feeds had the same problem on G+, except that trolls could get reported, and eventually sometimes banned, by accumulation, because they behaved the same everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThe first problem I encountered on Plupora was seeing Nazi trolls on BBC feed...
Same as on MeWe, those "unofficial" pages never had moderation.
Christian Nalletamby Really good point of a risk of automated syndication.
ReplyDeleteJoin MeWe and Gab; they're Da Bomb!
ReplyDeleteThis sort of thing keeps my engagement with MeWe rather small at present.
ReplyDeleteOnce I saw that MeWe adopted James Woods as their poster boy, I started losing faith in MeWe. I mean, maybe Woods' twitter incident was overbearing but making him out to be some kind of hero tells you volumes about MeWe and it's libertarian "anything goes" attitude.
ReplyDeleteWith much of pornographic Tumblr and many from G+ the makeup of MeWe should adjust I hope. G+ don't make the nicest crew, but there are less alt right here than pre-shutdown MeWe, and Tumblr is...well, tumblr, pretty self descriptive, and although the groups primarily made with that type of community are pornographic in nature, I would imagine a fair number would also seek good places on MeWe for other subjects, thus changing its form somewhat.
ReplyDeleteThough I also agree that moderating tools need to be improved, a person cannot be "banned" from a MeWe group without being blocked, and then they are banned from all your groups, which can obviously be difficult, especially if you wish to implement a redemption system like the G+ Funny Memes community has, as well as other such communities on here.
Recently on the podcast group I made on MeWe there was this guy who made his first podcast episode and asked the group to listen. I gave it a listen and low and behold the sexist language was phenomenal. the short discussion I had with this user before block-removing him was quite the show needless to say, 'tis a shame I didn't screenshot it, but basically he used all the stereotypical excuses you would expect from the "alt-right" online.
the biggest meme groups on MeWe are mostly pro-Trump or strongly alt-right ones. The good news, however, is that these meme groups have only a couple thousand members, and already, one of the G+ meme groups are in the top 5 and are approaching to be the top meme group on MeWe. The Alt-Right, given the presence of G+ and the tendency of G+ trolls to attack such groups (as seen on this site with groups such as ISIS, which existed briefly on G+ before being mass reported by "raiders") I would say that many Alt-Right groups will move to places more obscure eventually, and the make up of MeWe will consist mostly of Facebook expats, former G+ users and post-porn Tumblr users.
Bryan Ruby A spokesman needn't. The point is MeWe selecting Woods' position:
ReplyDeletedebatereport.com - CEO of Social Network MeWe, Mark Weinstein, Outraged at Twitter’s Suspension of James Woods Account - Debate Report
Just FYI, visited all 3 mid-2018, saw posts from CEOs or higher ups clearly mentioning "Facebook and Twitter bans" in their recruiting messages.
ReplyDeleteAdd AltScience for both Minds and MeWe.
GAB is more openly 14/88.
I am not surprise. A social network is essentially made of people supported by an infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion I saw with many users of MeWe was a focus on features not on people.
At the end, you get what you are looking for or rather what you were not looking at.
I am not going to cry for them.
Bryan Ruby what I don't get is people condemning an entire platform without actively using the platform
ReplyDeleteThat would be a very false assumption of yours.
Bryan Ruby I don't have to join the KKK and use its services to condemn it either do I ?
ReplyDeleteAlan Cox Bryan Ruby That would be the other excellent point.
ReplyDeleteWe do not, and can not, rely on receiving all information first-hand, from direct lived experience. Instead, we always rely on belief, testimony, evidence, inference, and other forms of indirect knowledge.
Hell, Bryan's comment is self-refuting: if we cannot condemn the platform without actively using it, we can just as logically not accept his testimony that it is not as has been advertised here.
And as I have in fact witnessed it first-hand.
It's the logical knots defenders of such sites tend to tie themselves into which provides the greatest entertainment value.
(At the Trip Report article on Reddit, someone tried claiming that the article, a flat factual report and listing of business ownership, investment, advisors, policies, and listed communities, evidenced bias, judgement, and opinion. I'd explicitly written it to avoid any of that. When asked to specify just how this was the case, the complainant responded with ... crickets.)
Bryan Ruby 1488, etc:
ReplyDeleteen.wikipedia.org - Nazi symbolism - Wikipedia
Bryan Ruby I knew a few of those before I'd been to MeWe. I learned a bunch more from the site.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ruby We are beating it to death.
ReplyDeleteFor my part, I couldn't care less. MeWe is just one of many platforms out there where I can reach hundreds or thousands of liberal-thinking people in order to promote my blog. That's all it is to me.
Bryan Ruby Thanks. After a long hiatus from serious blogging, I'm warming up the engines again -- smarter and wiser about it this time, I hope. There's good stuff coming.
ReplyDeleteCurrently active on MeWe, because of laziness, mostly, and convenience, since 1000s of plussers built their own islands of (different) subjects there.
ReplyDeleteWill move when the other platforms become really similarly usable (Openbook, Youme, Friendica/Hubzilla, etc).
This comm (G+MM) is the only area where good information is shared.
Is there, will there be, a repository easily publicly accessible? À la Reddit?
Or something semi-private, to avoid trolling and "scouts"? Edward Morbius
Or split into 10 places where we repeat the same discussions?
Why would there be a need to do anything other than block the user or delete the comment? If you don't ever want to hear from the person again, block them.
ReplyDeleteIf you need to report something, report it to the police. Otherwise, if it's not worthy of their time, who the hell really cares?
Arthur Brownlee IV Because social culture is a thing, and cesspits don't form by accident, or without consequence, including the consequence of suppressing true free speech.
ReplyDeleteCreate a platform in which those devoted to the harassment, or annihilation, or specific groups (religions, ethnicities, cultures, races, etc.) are tolerated, and at best you will find that those targeted by such activity tend to avoid the space. As do those interested in positive discussion.
I've found James Baldwin's response on Dick Cavett an extraordinarily excellent expression of the problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fZQQ7o16yQ
Or you could read Yonatan Zunger's October 2017 thread on the topic:
I worked on policy issues at G+ and YT for years. It was painfully obvious that Twitter never took them seriously.....
Twitter was so enamored of the idea that they had helped catalyze the Arab Spring that "free speech" became an unexamined article of faith. Unexamined as in, whenever serious questions came up of "wait, does this actually help free speech?," the most naïve answer always won.
It's hard to think of a single case where Twitter's answer wasn't "allow everything, make it users' responsibility to block" — Even when it was very clear that this imposed unscalable burdens on individual users, silenced their speech, or created public risks...
I have had to sit and make these tradeoffs, so please don't try to bullshit me by explaining how it's more complicated than we think. It is insanely complicated, one of the hardest things I've ever worked on, and I still know when I'm being bullshitted. Twitter chose to optimize for traffic at the expense of user experience. That's why GamerGate, that's why Trump, that's why Nazis. And Twitter's concept of itself as a "public forum" nonetheless shies away from the issues that every real public forum in the world sees. If you have a vested interest in attracting speakers who draw the most traffic, you are not a neutral platform, and have to deal with that....
I fully agree with the goal of maximizing speech. We benefit, as a society and as individuals, from a free marketplace of ideas. But KEY POINT: People's speech can be used to suppress other people's speech. (Harassment, threats, etc) Specifically, if someone can impose costs on another person for speaking, then speech becomes limited to those most able to pay those costs.
The key result: Because speech can be used to suppress other speech, the speech maximum is NOT the zero-regulation point._ The zero-regulation point, "everyone can speak and can also block," means that someone targeted for mass harassment pays a much higher cost. And differential costs for speech, especially when correlated with existing social differentials, mean you get nonuniform speech output._
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/914605545490857984.html
That is "free-speech maximalism" does not in fact maximise free speech.
You'll find the same observation among many other commentators, going
back to at least J.S. Mill.
Edward Morbius the first link you include in your comment above takes me to a g+ page full of porn.
ReplyDeleteThom Thomas Wups, wrong link.
ReplyDeleteEdited above, this is what I'd meant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fZQQ7o16yQ
Thom Thomas Also -- that was actually a good example of G+ cleanup. For a "page full of pr0n", there was ... remarkably little actual pr0n on it. None IIRC.
ReplyDeleteGoogle policed this shit. At least whilst it could and/or cared.
Edward Morbius except the header photo one woman is two fingers deep into the vagina of another woman - and another picture of a cavernous butthole :)
ReplyDeleteOn G+ ??? Say it ain't so. ;-)
ReplyDeleteBryan Ruby nothing is perfect, does that mean we not try? My home will never be perfectly safe but I sure as shit am going to do everything I can for my kids and any guests that come to my house.
ReplyDeleteIf I ran a business, I'd do the same for my customers.
The link had been specifically referenced by a group archiving G+. I'd not policed my paste buffer composing that comment above. Apologies.
ReplyDeleteThom Thomas And yes, the hero was NSFW. The content though, not.
Bryan Ruby We'll have to see. I've been using MeWe since October and have only seen one instance. It happened in October, right as we were setting up the first G+ Refugee groups. Some creepy weirdo joined and started posting stuff about torturing people and other horrible stuff. He was reported to MeWe management and they immediately torpedoed him. An isolated incident doesn't mean much, but I've never seen anything like that since -- knock on wood.
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius 😁
ReplyDeleteBryan Ruby Yeah, one instance means little. It proves that it can work, the mechanism exists and works, but that's all. What's more, MeWe management was surely acutely aware of the influx of plussers at that moment and the need to make a good impression. Who knows? But, the one data point I have is good.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ruby Some former Plussers got surprised and banned from MeWe, after having had harsh arguments with unknown people.
ReplyDeleteNo warning, no way to appeal.
Saw a screenshot, (sadly, did not keep) of a discussion in a private group.
They organize to bait "Dems, Atheists, pro-Planned Parenthood" and similar, they then provoke, and if you fall for it, they complain and you get banned.
They've been at this for years, it seems.
Another reason to avoid "public" posts, unless to talk about the weather, or post photos of flowers.
Christian Nalletamby Yeah, I'm staying in the silo on MeWe. Haha.
ReplyDeletePhillip Landmeier Yes, until we find a platform that both works well and feels like a more civilised environment, better play it low.
ReplyDelete(I wonder about the reputation of the Plussers' invasion, I see a lot of Intellectuals, scientists, but also the worse trolls possible).
Christian Nalletamby We'll keep trying until we find a solution. In the meantime, we can blog and follow each other's blogs.
ReplyDeleteI'm in about 30 groups on MeWe now and I see no trolls that haven't been instantly detected and shot down. As always, it depends on the diligence of the human moderator or group admin.