Content Moderation Survivor Bias | Hacker News Reader

Content Moderation Survivor Bias

cyber.fsi.stanford.edu

59 pointscurmudgeon2220 comments

This is an excellent article. Something bugged me about the "adult content spam" explanation for the Twitter issue when it circulated, but I couldn't put my figure on what it was. It just didn't feel like that story really held together for some reason. But this explanation totally makes sense, and is an important fact to keep in mind when evaluating any claims of this sort.

I agree with the point of this article. I don't use twitter search to search cities in China to find news any more. Because I found it's full of prostitution ad in years.

Biggest form of content moderation survivor bias I’ve seen is that the more awful a post is, the more likely the post will be quickly removed and the user banned. So the moderators end up having a very different perspective on a communities problems than the average users.

Biggest thing I know is most people have no idea just how extreme cyberbullying of transgender people gets online. There are cynical and evil small fraction of the population who simply think it would be funny to drive such people to suicide. Saw this repeatedly.

To add to this, there are even defenders of kiwifarms here on HN. People like this exist all over

Please read the article first.

Wow this is just totally broken reasoning. Using twitter API and search you can only access the last 800-3200 tweets from each account and they have a timescales going back years…

I heard back from the author and verified. If you search for seven days at a time you can get around the limitation, clever!

> On November 24, 2022, a fatal residential apartment building fire broke out in Urumqi, China, killing several residents who had been locked into their apartments from outside as part of China’s zero-COVID effort.

Meanwhile in the states, we're more or less returning back to "normal" or perhaps pretending that COVID no longer exists. It's been 2+ years since the beginning of the pandemic, is zero-COVID goal even possible at this point...

Wait, you used that as an example that China is doing the right thing?

> is zero-COVID goal even possible at this point...

You are two or three weeks behind the curve on this one, China has basically opened up and is going through a massive covid surge as we speak.

Zero covid is over

Zero-Covid would only make sense while you don’t have a strong vaccine with good uptake. After that, it makes sense to open up but take precautions like masking in crowded conditions or during spike outbreaks.

China seemed to stick with zero-covid for too long and never did get a vaccine that produced a strong and long lasting immune response and refused to import a vaccine.

Secondary question… is this related to the linked article?

It's the first sentence in the linked article.

> China seemed to stick with zero-covid for too long and never did get a vaccine that produced a strong and long lasting immune response and refused to import a vaccine.

Asia, Africa, South America used Sinovac. If it was 'weak', there would be catastrophes all around. Since there isn't any such catastrophe anywhere, its not a matter of Sinovac being weak - its a matter of Pfizer lobbyists being dominant and wanting to push their product through entire Angloamerican establishment, and doing so through both the state organs and the corporate media.

First, China 'had to reopen'. Then, China is immediately 'in trouble'. Now, 'Xi is hesitant to accept vaccines', for some reason, despite China having a variety of domestically produced vaccines -> but obviously, the lobby push to export Pfizer was done and failed in China with China preferring its own vaccines. Hence the new smear job against China's own vaccines.

The mere progression of the headlines in the past 2-3 weeks can tell one what is the highest level geopolitical/corporate play that is being done.

Nowhere in the world at present has a strong vaccine and 'good' is probably a plastic term in defining usefullness, especially if you're trying to hit the elusive herd immunity number.

Your "Zero-Covid would only make sense while you don’t have a strong vaccine with good uptake." explains your "China seemed to stick with zero-covid for too long": they "never did get a vaccine that produced a strong and long lasting immune response and refused to import a vaccine."

That is, given the constraints of "Sinovac isn't very good" and "we're not going to import" they were stuck with zero-covid.

Sinovac is good. Almost entire Asia, Africa, South America used it. If it was bad, then everyone would be 'stuck with zero-covid'.

Sinovac is not good only because Wall Street wants to sell Pfizer to China and China doesnt want it. Hence "Xi isn't willing to accept VACCINES" nonsensical title. It was either in WaPo or NYT.

Literally lying, smearing, corporate hit job that drops one word, 'Pfizer' in order to be able to push it behind the word 'vaccines'.

Why Pfizer? Because their lobbyists turned out to be most influential. Neutralizing every single vaccine maker in the West including the mRNA alternative, Moderna.

Hence the gigantic campaign that is "China is in trouble".

...

Its not China that is losing ~100,000 a year to covid despite vaccination and 'reopening'. Its the US. The US is in trouble.

Newer variants like BQQ mostly evade the vaccine and (even more concerningly, the monoclonal antibodies don’t work so hot either

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23495149/covid-19-tre...

Yep. Even as the US loses ~100,000 people/year from covid despite the all-mighty Pfizer vaccine having been made de facto vaccine by lobbyist pressure, the US corporate press is busy smearing China and China's vaccine for being 'weak'. Despite entire world from Asia to Africa to South America having used it.

But of course, China must reopen, then must import vaccines and it must be Pfizer. After all, it was possible for Pfizer lobbyists to neutralize literally entire competition in Europe and push Pfizer as the de facto singular vaccine - why should not they try the same in China.

...

Capitalism creates the worst incentives.

You can have corruption and cronyism under any economic system. I'd rather have our shitshow than China's.

In no other system corruption and 'cronyism' is legalized, encouraged and enforced like in Capitalism. What would be corruption anywhere else is your 'lobbying'. That's your shitshow. And that's why you are in knee deep sh*t.

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