Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site eosp1.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!fisher!eosp1!robison From: robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) Newsgroups: net.news,net.ai,net.games.pbm Subject: Re: The cost of moderating satellite News Message-ID: <1319@eosp1.UUCP> Date: Fri, 4-Jan-85 09:55:54 EST Article-I.D.: eosp1.1319 Posted: Fri Jan 4 09:55:54 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 5-Jan-85 03:20:13 EST References: <1314@eosp1.UUCP> <20980040@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> Reply-To: robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton Lines: 75 Xref: watmath net.news:2903 net.ai:2447 net.games.pbm:138 Summary: (10-line quote at end) The suggestion to screen net software for obscene words comes from me, and is part of a larger, more interesting problem that may be unsolvable at the present time. I still think it is worth research. Behind my argument lie these assumptions: (1) In the future, moderation to avoid legal liability is inevitable. (2) Moderation will slow the flow of news and should be avoided wherever possible. From a new perspective: Imagine that you are about to submit an article to the future net. You may write about anything you please, but you know that any article that might conceivably be libellous or illegal will be scanned by a human moderator. Your artcile will be screened by a computer program to determine whether moderation is necessary. For the sake of this discussion I assume that a moderator never edits your text, but simply determines whether it is legally safe to broadcast it. You can write about anything you like, but you have two choices: (1) Write an article that certainly deserves to pass the computer screening. It will be posted to the net relatively quickly. (2) Write an article including anything you like. You will acceprt the delay required for human over-reading. In the specific case of Tim Maroney's concern, you may include obscene language if you feel this is appropriate, but of course your note will be screened by a moderator. The PROBLEM is to write software that can distinguish between the two types of articles as accurately as a human reader. Bear in mind that a human reader will not be perfect either. The program that does the screening should be very conservative in what it will pass. Most of its algorithm should be public knowledge. The algorithm will simply establish a style that is acceptable for quick-distribution-notes. Now while someone (I hope) thinks about the AI implicatiions of this screening algorithm, I invite net.games.pbm subscribers to propose pathological cases that will fail; that is, how easy would it be to write a nasty, scurrilous note that would sneak past the software screen? If such notes are very hard to write, the existence of software screening in the future can greatly reduce our reliance on human moderation. - Toby Robison (not Robinson!) {allegra, decvax!ittvax, fisher, princeton}!eosp1!robison In article <20980040@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) writes: >What is this nonsense about screening out "swear words" >from satellite news? >I doubt that the law requires this, considering that >uncensored movies are >transmitted via satellite all the time. >Let's not introduce such juvenile >foolishness into the news system unless the law mandates it.