The Scale Of Content Moderation Is Unfathomable

The Scale Of Content Moderation Is Unfathomable

3 years ago
Anonymous $np3LcwuhSi

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211030/01585247847/scale-content-moderation-is-unfathomable.shtml

Sometimes it's difficult to get across to people "the scale" part when we talk about the impossibility of content moderation at scale. It's massive. And this is why whenever there's a content moderation decision that you dislike or that you disagree with, you have to realize that it's not personal. It wasn't done because someone doesn't like your politics. It wasn't done because of some crazy agenda. It was done because a combination of thousands of people around the globe and still sketchy artificial intelligence are making an insane number of decisions every day. And they just keep piling up and piling up and piling up.

Evelyn Douek recently gave a (virtual) talk at Stanford on The Administrative State of Content Moderation, which is worth watching in its entirety. However, right at the beginning of her talk, she presented some stats that highlight the scale of the decision making here. Based on publicly revealed transparency reports from these companies, in just the 30 minutes allotted for her talk, Facebook would take down 615,417 pieces of content, YouTube would take down 271,440 videos, channels, and comments, and TikTok would take down 18,870 videos. And, also, the Oversight Board would receive 48 petitions to review a Facebook takedown decision.