treesurface - Tumblr blog

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asks please

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Something I want to point out in yet another wave of mass bannings is the structural aspect that makes up a good chunk of every single one of these. That is, even if everyone on staff was perfect on queer issues, even if Matt and his bullshit disappeared and handed the site over to a literal saint tomorrow, we would STILL have a moderation bias problem if we don't magically solve the longstanding hard problem of making moderation at scale fair.

How so?

Imagine two users. One is a cisgender, heterosexual, white, abled person; the other is a trans person, or a Black person, or an indigenous person, or a disabled person, or any other marginalized person, or likely MORE than one of the above. Both like to kind of toe the line of acceptability re:"mature content" (or anything else really, but "mature content" is what's causing the problem here for many reasons). They go about their lives, they do their thing, they mind their own business.

User 1 flies under the radar basically forever, because pretty much nobody is going to object to them.

User 2...is likely to not be so lucky. User 2 is likely to run into bigoted asshole trolls who will mass report them for shits and giggles because they don't like trans/Black/indigenous people existing on the internet, or they don't like recognizing that disabled people can be horny, or anything else. So they'll report, and report, and report, until at least one of two things happens:

1) The automated system goes "oh fuck this one must be REALLY bad" and bans them automatically, and/or

2) The report lands on the desk of a human moderator and at least one is, at least arguably correctly, found to be a violation of TOS.

You see the problem? An enforcement system based on user reports, while still being....probably? the most efficient system we have - one of very very few that can even be argued to work AT ALL at scale - inherently leads to a situation where marginalized people are scrutinized more heavily than others. Even when the rules are being interpreted 100% fairly, even if everyone on staff is a perfect paragon of justice with no human flaws whatsoever, who never misclicks, who never makes a snap judgment because they had a bad day, who has zero societally imposed biases whatsoever, they're still ONLY punishing violations from the most marginalized people. People who don't get reported - usually mass reported - are effectively not bound by the rules, while people who are going to get reported for "terrorism" just for existing will have every arguable violation tracked. This is inherent to the system. This is structural.

This is an aspect that I think we should all be focusing on and trying to change a hell of a lot more than we are.

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“We’re so happy he’s drawing angels instead of those dang demons”

The angels:

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when i die i hope i come back as a beautiful microscopic granule of sand

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something something a follower who is more devout than their god. a fervent acolyte and a doubtful divine. the obsessive devotion of one who has become a sword for someone who cannot stomach the thought of wielding them. misplaced worship that refuses to be swayed. a invulnerable deity painfully human in its uneasy hesitancy, a fragile mortal made alien by its unquestioning conviction. attack dog and owner with a tight grip on the leash. and make it as fucked up and gay as possible.

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infinitely looping gif of utena rolling around

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ooooh now I get it!

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the real danger of spending too much time with friends is you stumble out of ten days of happiness and good food like oh my god THAT was real life. my job means NOTHING