News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:VRchat bans mods, embraces EAC by makeitdouble on Monday July 25, 2022 @10:35PM (#32233609)
> These kinds of issues should be solved on the backend. Rate limiting, pattern matching, etc.

This is a crazy hard problem that is plaguing the majority of our mainstream social platforms. Looking at Twitter/Facebook/Reddit etc. moderation+harassment is mostly solved by brute force community management, and is extremely costly, with a human component that is hard to ignore (Facebook moderators are plain miserable and prone to stay mentally hurt even after leaving the job)

This is where Nintendo decided to bail out of the problem altogether by blocking personal interaction by default on their online platforms. If they don't have the resources to do it properly, limiting the attack surface feels like a sensible strategy.

Re:VRchat bans mods, embraces EAC by leviathant on Monday July 25, 2022 @11:17PM (#32233857)
>This is a crazy hard problem that is plaguing the majority of our mainstream social platforms.

...that rely on advertising.

It's comparatively easy to moderate communities if you're willing to permanently ban bad actors. Trouble is, that shrinks your audience, which reduces advertising revenue. Reporting accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, et al, is a multi-step process of making excuses for why your reported post won't actually negatively impact the malicious account.

Re:VRchat bans mods, embraces EAC by makeitdouble on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @02:00AM (#32234815)
As weird as it feels, this might actually be one of the very few cases where platforms are willing to throw users under the bus for better ad money...

Youtube demonetizing creators with too aggressive stances is an example of that, but we also had Reddit banning whole subreddits when their sheer existence had a nefarious effect on the platform's ability to negotiate ads.

When the choice comes down to more active users but lower prices offered, vs less users and better ad prices, platform tend to go for the latter I think (4/5/8 chan being exceptions)