PR/political success is certainly not correlated with accuracy, given the very act of telling a group they're wrong tends to piss them off.
In terms of encouraging discourse that maximizes user enjoyment of the platform? That's a difficult one. Accuracy probably doesn't do a whole lot there either: HN knows the people love someone being confidently wrong.
Success in terms of society? Probably more yes, albeit with the caveat that only a correction that someone feels good about actually wins hearts and minds. Otherwise they spiral off into conspiracies about "the man" keeping them down. (Read: conservative reality)
It's also important to remember that Zuckerberg only tacked into moderation in the first place due to prevailing political winds -- he openly espoused absolutist views about free speech originally, before some PR black eyes made that untenable.
To me, both approaches to moderation at scale (admins moderating or users moderating) are band-aids.
The underlying problem is algorithmic promotion.
The platforms need to be more curious about the type of content their algorithms are selecting for promotion, the characteristics incentivized, and the net experience result.
Rage-driven virality shouldn't be an organizational end unto itself to juice engagement KPIs and revenue. User enjoyment of the platform should be.
> he openly espoused absolutist views about free speech originally, before some PR black eyes made that untenable.
Note that openly espousing absolutist views about free speech means less than nothing. Elon Musk and Donald Trump openly profess such views, while constantly shouting down, blocking, or even suing anyone who dares speak against them with any amount of popularity.
PR/political success is certainly not correlated with accuracy, given the very act of telling a group they're wrong tends to piss them off.
In terms of encouraging discourse that maximizes user enjoyment of the platform? That's a difficult one. Accuracy probably doesn't do a whole lot there either: HN knows the people love someone being confidently wrong.
Success in terms of society? Probably more yes, albeit with the caveat that only a correction that someone feels good about actually wins hearts and minds. Otherwise they spiral off into conspiracies about "the man" keeping them down. (Read: conservative reality)
It's also important to remember that Zuckerberg only tacked into moderation in the first place due to prevailing political winds -- he openly espoused absolutist views about free speech originally, before some PR black eyes made that untenable.
To me, both approaches to moderation at scale (admins moderating or users moderating) are band-aids.
The underlying problem is algorithmic promotion.
The platforms need to be more curious about the type of content their algorithms are selecting for promotion, the characteristics incentivized, and the net experience result.
Rage-driven virality shouldn't be an organizational end unto itself to juice engagement KPIs and revenue. User enjoyment of the platform should be.