>The issue has been muddied by sites like reddit who have been keen to play up outlandish possibilities of individual users or volunteer moderators becoming liable, which has never been a likely outcome of this case. The bigger and more realistic threat to a site like reddit is the possibility that actions taken by tools like automoderators, slur filters, or recommendation algorithms (e.g., sorting by "hot") might become legally analogous to editorial decisions.
>Because those tools are sometimes set up by moderators and influenced by user actions (e.g. voting/reporting), there are sort of fringe or edge-case scenarios where the lines could potential blur between algorithmic policies and user/moderator actions. But we as users don't really need to worry too much about every conceivable edge-case legal theory, because a site like reddit would presumably be incentivized to remove or disable any tools that could create such a liability, to protect Reddit's own self-interest.
>The algorithms that keep people clicking/viewing/refreshing the site are critical to the business interests of sites like Reddit and Youtube. It's really important for reddit's bottom line to have broad latitude to gamify user engagement by showing more of what will keep people on reddit longer and more-frequently. That's a less flattering PR angle than playing up the possibility that reddit users or mods could get in legal trouble.
>It's not so much that there is no possible way that any ramification of this case could ever put a user or a mod of a site like reddit in any jeopardy in any conceivable scenario...It's more like, sites like Reddit have a lot to lose if their algorithmic recommendations should become legally analogous to editorial decisions.
You know how the lawyers get upset when us engineers practice airchair lawyering? This is like the reverse of that.
Hot is not a recommendation algorithm -- everyone has the same hot list. It's literally just a sort of votes.
In fact, almost nothing reddit does is custom to the user. It's all based on votes and other user actions. The only thing custom is the recommended sort, which anyone can turn off, by choosing the other sorts.
Saying that reddit is algorithmic would be akin to saying that voting for President is an "algorithm" because it adds up user votes and is biased because the voters are biased.
This is the first time I’ve seen someone use the word “algorithm” to mean “custom to the user”. My algorithms professor would like a word.
> Saying that reddit is algorithmic would be akin to saying that voting for President is an "algorithm" because it adds up user votes and is biased because the voters are biased.
My algorithms professor certainly would have considered “call the winner of an election the person whose sum of votes is the highest after tallying all entries” an algorithm. There are, in fact, many other competing election algorithms amongst which first past the post is just one.
Sorting is an algorithm that organizes content. Auto-moderation is an algorithm that editorially curates content.
The conversation is about Section 230, which is ruling on whether companies can be held liable for editorial curation algorithms.
One question before the court, at least from the perspective of Reddit's brief, is whether voters whose input influences an editorial curation algorithm could be held liable and sued with enough merit to warrant a defense if Section 230 is removed.
@jedberg's point, at least in my reading, is that the r/law poster is equating the "hot" list with an editorial curation ("recommendation") algorithm, when the "hot" list is a content-neutral sorting algorithm.
Sorting is technically an algorithm, so saying "but sorting is an algorithm" is the best kind of correct. It's just not a very valuable correctness for this conversation.
This is an absurd distinction. Whether you a sort million posts by date, or by how likely a user is to be interested in them, you are curating in the same sense.
When people, tech news, non-tech people, say "The FACEBOOK algorithm" or the "TIKTOK" algorithm, they are talking about the opaque recommendation engine that works on each individual user based on the likes, preferences, viewed pages, and probably things like location, time spent looking at a random video, and a hundred other things.
It's about individual recommendations based on lots of datapoints vs. a more direct sorting based on global trending.
> Hot is not a recommendation algorithm -- everyone has the same hot list. It's literally just a sort of votes.
It doesn't have to be personal to be editorial. Newspapers, for example.
I can sort by "top" which gives me the most votes in the given time period. I can sort by "new" which gives me the posts in chronological order. I can also sort by "hot" which serves posts in an unknown way that reddit has decided means they are driving interaction.
To me, what makes "hot" different is that it's a trade secret. "hot" is the thing that other sites don't have. "hot" shows you posts that you're more likely to be interested in (as apposed to "new" or "top"), even if it's not personal, to drive engagement.
It’s definitely not what’s used anymore. Reddit went closed source and when they did so they gave one reason being their internal codebase had completely diverged and moved to micro services
> It doesn't have to be personal to be editorial. Newspapers, for example.
And in terms of the topic, this is the relevant framework to consider the question.
It's already established law that newspaper editors can be held liable for maliciously false reporting in their papers, even though the editor is not the originator of the words.
An algorithm is a recipe or formula. There is nothing about an algorithm that requires it to be custom to the user. Merriam-Webster[1] has it as:
a procedure for solving a mathematical problem (as of finding the greatest common divisor) in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation
broadly : a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end
"Hot" absolutely is a sorting algorithm. Whether or not you consider the top items in a sort to be recommended is a matter of opinion.
The only thing custom is the recommended sort, which anyone can turn off, by choosing the other sorts.
Reads as: "The only thing custom is the default algorithm."
What are the stats on the % of people using reddit actively who get something OTHER than "recommended" as their sort option?
Also, how do you square these ideas with the fact that there's an invisible thumb on the scale on votes, in terms of reddit's displayed vote count and the real vote count, the sheer number of bots on the site, and the fact that reddit chooses who gets to moderate subs (and in a few cases has actively replaced ownership of a sub)?
100% Everyone has the sort options 'best', 'hot', 'new', 'rising' (which I usually use), 'controversial' (sometimes interesting), and 'top'.
I don't know which of those is considered 'recommended', or why someone would think that is the only thing custom. Each user can choose what subs they subscribe to, and therefore customize what they see in their feeds.
It isn't just a sort on votes though, the algorithm takes into account post time and how fast it has gotten upvotes. If it was just sort by votes, we would've been looking at that "show do I uninstall the Skyrim mod 'schlongs of Skyrim'" on the front page for quite a lot time. So there is at least some nuance to it. (Not that I disagree with the gist of what you're saying though!)
There’s equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Just because everyone is treated equally doesn’t mean that the end result isn’t biased. Truly: there is no such thing as apolitical technology.
I recommend MIT books Building Successful Online Communities. Also I’m reading the updated version of “Code” which has a bit about online communities I quote a lot:
Lessig (1999) identifies four elements that regulate behavior online: Laws, norms, markets, and technology
- Code/architecture – the physical or technical constraints on activities (e.g. locks on doors or firewalls on the Internet)
- Market – economic forces
- Law – explicit mandates that can be enforced by the government
- Norms – social conventions that one often feels compelled to follow
Regarding the case at hand. I think getting rid of 230 is a really dangerous idea. However I completely reject the “we have no sway over our users” argument and think we should hold online institutions socially (more) accountable for not doing more to encourage and promote high quality non-toxic communities.
That applies to a single subreddit. It was true even before that change that your and my hot would look different because we subscribed to different subreddits.
> Hot is not a recommendation algorithm -- everyone has the same hot list. It's literally just a sort of votes.
Is that true? How do they decide when a post falls off the feed?
It's clearly a velocity calculation of some sort, but I'm sure it's been tweaked and changed over time. But how? What's the actual calculation? Does it vary by subreddit? If they published the calculation/algorithm, would it matter?
From there:
>The issue has been muddied by sites like reddit who have been keen to play up outlandish possibilities of individual users or volunteer moderators becoming liable, which has never been a likely outcome of this case. The bigger and more realistic threat to a site like reddit is the possibility that actions taken by tools like automoderators, slur filters, or recommendation algorithms (e.g., sorting by "hot") might become legally analogous to editorial decisions.
>Because those tools are sometimes set up by moderators and influenced by user actions (e.g. voting/reporting), there are sort of fringe or edge-case scenarios where the lines could potential blur between algorithmic policies and user/moderator actions. But we as users don't really need to worry too much about every conceivable edge-case legal theory, because a site like reddit would presumably be incentivized to remove or disable any tools that could create such a liability, to protect Reddit's own self-interest.
>The algorithms that keep people clicking/viewing/refreshing the site are critical to the business interests of sites like Reddit and Youtube. It's really important for reddit's bottom line to have broad latitude to gamify user engagement by showing more of what will keep people on reddit longer and more-frequently. That's a less flattering PR angle than playing up the possibility that reddit users or mods could get in legal trouble.
>It's not so much that there is no possible way that any ramification of this case could ever put a user or a mod of a site like reddit in any jeopardy in any conceivable scenario...It's more like, sites like Reddit have a lot to lose if their algorithmic recommendations should become legally analogous to editorial decisions.