Moderation was never solved.

To name just two issues: It doesn't scale without paying a lot of people, and deciding what to moderate precisely, reproducibly, and fairly is a major unresolved issue.

How can you look at twitter and facebook and make a statement like that?

So Twitter/Blue Sky/Whatever implements a “report abuse” link.

Who does it report abuse to? What happens to the post? What happens to the person who powered it?

you’re somewhat correct, a certain type of moderation was absolutely solved way back then—the owner/ops/mods would simply set down a list of rules and if someone broke them or pushed the limits, they were banned. done.

very similar to the real world, if someone comes to my dinner party and they’re a dick, i make them leave. done.

however, somewhere along the line people got it in their head that they could behave however they wanted and the person hosting the party somehow had no rights to remove them.

it boggles my mind that some people are still struggling to understand that this really is no different from the real world analogs. this is a people problem, not a technical problem.

in the real world there are neighborhoods, bars, events, etc… with little to no interference or expectations of behaviors, think of the hole-in-the-wall rough bars in the rough areas of town where violence breaks out regularly.

then think about the bar with massive security/bouncers who take no shit and remove people quickly.

but we still have these people who believe you can have both at once. it’s just never going to work.

you’re either going to have a bar where everything goes: spam and child porn and violent behaviors are accepted or you’re going to need some kind of bouncers removing people who are doing fentanyl at the bar.

of course there is a spectrum in there, but at the end of the day, this is a human problem, not a technical one. anytime someone tells you there can be no moderation, then it will absolutely be full of spam and child porn and all kinds of other shit. if we remove those, then we’re now absolutely and firmly in the “ok, yep, we accept moderation” territory at which point it’s just a matter of “what kind of clientele does our bar want?” and we tailor our expected behaviors accordingly.

as you pointed out, in the early days it was just understood, “ok, we want to hang out in this bar, so we’ll behave accordingly. it is their space afterall.” this is why we had such a massive diversity of places to go. so many different irc networks each with different expectations. so many different forums. so many different comment sections. so many different newsgroups. etc…

the root of this is not a technical problem. its really not a problem at all unless we’re somehow expected to pick only one bar we go party at (which is absurd, btw) sometimes i like to eat at nice restaurant and once in a while i like to slum it at a shithole bar. and most of the time i prefer parties amongst just me and my friends.

again, this is basic human relation shit. but these guys keep going on these wild goose chases—repeatedly showing how little they understand people. ironic af considering what they’re doing…