She was reading her feed as usual one day last week and there was an item that it was international banana day. Since she was planning on bananes flambées for desert, she added a comment that she was about to flame a few of them. She was immediately banned. She protested; the ban was lifted and then eventually reinstated and appears to be permanent.
Obviously whoever moderates FB are nothing at all like our superb moderators (whom I got to know somewhat during my brief stint and I know how seriously they take their jobs).
I previously created a GD thread, arguing that one of the great issues with the big social sites is that they’re trying to cut corners on moderation by automating everything rather than having real humans do it.
But more seriously, I think unprovoked bans on FB has become a meme since the beginning of the Musk era. The AI is botchy and there aren’t enough intelligent humans left to restrain it.
Ok, now I’m embarrassed by my complete lack of exposure to the modern social media world. In my mind, they’re all the same. But practically speaking, it would be extraordinary for Musk to have any impact on a company he doesn’t own.
But the “bodgy AI and insufficient human oversight” part holds.
While I have no evidence that this is the reason but,
There, in some cases, is a particular usage similarity with banana, coconut, apple, Twinkie, and Oreo and saying you intend to ‘flame’ them might get automatically flagged.
On FB I have told someone to fuck off in both English and Spanish, called people idiots, morons, stupid, traitors, questioned their parentage, used numerous derogatory names for those of the republican persuasion, and never got a peep from FB. But I implied a female poster was ugly, and I got admonished and the post hidden within a minute. Can’t be damaging people’s self-esteem!
A friend on FB posted a time travel joke. I commented ‘I would like to go back in time and shoot my grandfather. I do not have anything against him. I am just VERY curious as to what would happen’.
He laughed. So did a few other readers. Then, FB hid my comment and told me it violated community standards.
Clearly we should not grant Facebook any leeway for not having enough people to do a decent job. A good business stops taking new customers when the current number cannot be adequately supported.
