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Can AI Substitute for Human Content Moderation?
Or will AI lead to even more charges of bias and unsafe social media platforms?
There are plenty of stories out there claiming that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are biased or promoting certain social agendas over others. I’m not here to debate whether that’s accurate, legal, or morally right for them to do if they are. In my opinion, a private individual can choose what they allow in their living room; likewise, a privately-owned company (or a publicly-traded commercial corporation, at the behest of their Board of Directors), can do whatever the Constitution and law allow them to do. We, the people and consumers of their products, can put our own values in action by refusing to use or buy what they’re selling. Or, we can highlight the things we find unconscionable or annoying, and push back for change.
I think that the “big three” — Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn — have grown too big for their britches, too fast. All in the name of profit. They have created monsters that have proliferated too far and fast to keep shoving them under the bed and into the closet.
It’s not that they’re not trying. It’s that they should have listened to wise counsel from those who did “social media” back in the 1980s and 1990s, and built real human moderation into their plans and platforms from the start. AI can only do so much…
