> This sentiment, which I read repeatedly, really irritates me. Most of us program here. It's not that hard a problem!
What solution do you think would work?
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A combination of things. There's a wealth of information available if you're running a social network. Start by just banning text like "n-----" and "(((". Then give users a reputation, and do a page rank style analysis. So if someone has a good reputation, and they report another user, a moderator doesn't need to be involved. Take account age into consideration... you can't post publicly the instant you get your account. Be okay with some % of users quitting because of your false positives.
It's not hard to think of ways to aggressively moderate a social network. It's just that some users (certainly the most toxic ones) will leave.
Word banning is known to be a poor method.
First, because the use of the word can be in a positive or negative sentence, and thus can either agree or disagree with your "censorship rule". You need a deeper NLP analysis to disambiguate.
Second, because - if online fora with this kind of ban has taught us anything - it's pretty easy to work around it by using punctuation, replacement characters, or other style variations to write the word in a way that it won't be caught by the regex.
Third, this method ends up banning legit words. There was a forum where I couldn't write "booby trap". I don't need to explain.
WRT reputation, networks that allow "unlimited registrations" are easy targets for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack - One can use account age to mitigate of course, but given the amount of fake accounts that exist on the market (look at fiverr marketing offers) with long life and activity, I wouldn't expect age to be that big of a helper.
> Word banning is known to be a poor method.
> You need a deeper NLP analysis to disambiguate.
If users really can't understand why their website won't let them type "n-----" in a public message, even in good faith... well, I just don't know what to add.
> it's pretty easy to work around it by using punctuation,
> replacement characters, or other style variations to write the
> word in a way that it won't be caught by the regex.
> "booby trap". I don't need to explain.
> networks that allow "unlimited registrations" are easy targets
> for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack - One can use
The problem isn't that solutions are hard to think of, it's that the incentives are horrible for these companies. They don't really care about anything but growth.
I think you've just reinvented Chinese censorship. Congrats!
Facebook isn't the state. In any event, I try not to think of problems that way. Like most things, state censorship is neither universally good nor bad. It depends on the state, and the censorship. The universe doesn't care that it's easier for humans to have hard and fast rules about things.