apis @ apis @beehaw.org

Posts

2

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366

Joined

2 yr. ago

So, so sorry you had to see that, and thank you for protecting the rest of us from seeing it.

On traditional forums, you'd have a lot of control over the posting of images.

If you don't wish to block images entirely, you could block new members from uploading images, or even from sharing links. You could set things up so they'd have to earn the right to post by being active for a randomised amount of time, and have made a randomised number of posts/comments. You could add manual review to that, so that once a member has ostensibly been around long enough and participated enough, admin look at their activity pattern as well as their words to assess if they should be taken off probation or not... Members who have been inactive for a while could have image posting abilities revoked and be put through a similar probation if they return. You could totally block all members from sharing images & links via DM, and admin email accounts could be set to reject images.

It is probably possible to obtain the means to reject images which could contain any sexual content (checked against a database of sexual material which does not involve minors), and you could probably also reject images which could contain children and which might not be wholesome (checked against a database of normal images of children).

Aside from the topic in hand, a forum might decide to block all images of children, because children aren't really in a position to consent to their images being shared online. That gets tricky when it comes to late teens & early 20s, but if you've successfully filtered out infants, young children, pre-teens & early teens as well as all sexual content, it is very unlikely that images of teenagers being abused would get through.

Insisting that images are not uploaded directly, but via links to image hosting sites, might give admin an extra layer of protection, as the hosting sites have their own anti-CSAM mechanisms. You'd probably want to whitelist permitted sites. You might also want a slight delay between the posting of an image link and the image appearing on Beehaw - this would allow time for the image hosting site to find & remove any problem images before they could appear on Beehaw (though I'd imagine these things are pretty damn fast by now).

You could also insist that members who wish to post images or links to images can only do so if they have their VPN and other privacy preserving methods disabled. Most members wouldn't be super-enthused about this, until they've developed trust in the admin of the site, but anyone hoping to share images of children being abused or other illegal content will just go elsewhere.

Admin would probably need to be able to receive images of screenshots from members trying to report technical issues, but those should be relatively easy to whitelist with a bot of some sort? Or maybe there's some nifty plugin for this?

Really though, blocking all images is going to be your best bet. I like the idea of just having the Beehaw bee drawings. You could possibly let us have access to a selection of avatars to pick, or have a little draw plugin so members can draw their own. On that note, those collaborative drawing plugin things can be a fun addition to a site... If someone is very keen for others to see a particular image, they can explain how to find it, or they can organise to connect with each other off Beehaw.

Wonder whether in theory one could use a dataset of... everything else, have the AI exclude what it does not recognise, then run the exclusions against a dataset to see whether or not they contain children. There could be an additional layer of running the exclusions against a dataset of regular sexual content.

One issue is that admin of any site would still want to report any CSAM to authorities. That could be automated by an AI checker, but one would have to have a lot of faith that the AI was decently accurate and not generating many false reports. The workaround I described to avoid using datasets of abuse is unlikely to be particularly accurate - ok for the purposes of protecting admin, but leaves them in an odd spot when it comes to banning a user, especially where a user's livelihood could be impacted, or things like paid online courses. I guess specialist police departments probably would have to use highly relevant datasets, along with review by humans, but still - nobody wants to inadvertently clog up that system with false reports.

As someone who does this often, or rather did as I don't reappear anymore, was always shocked when everyone just rolled with it when I popped back up.

But, never had shit to be sorted.

Sorry about your friend. Here

Yes, but so HUGE against the tiny green leaves behind. Like big blue suns.

When the humour is too on the nose to laugh.

Still, nicely done. No quarter for such willing facilitators.

Oh I don't feel I've lost those means, and often prefer them still, but find even people of my generation who grew up without constant access to the internet fall to pieces at the prospect of looking in a book, a paper map or writing a letter, etc.

It is as if they forget the information persists without connectivity.

I feel like the things you list had more human input, as built, and more scope to take human feedback into account to amend any issues.

The latter could of course be similarly used to refine AI versions, but as cost-cutting is a major attraction, this seems unlikely to happen unless the AI is do poor that the errors cost too much otherwise.

As things stand, we now must guess what a customer service bot or search engine might understand, framing our terms to fit our beliefs about how massed groups might make the same enquiry. Relatively simple tech questions are met, not with the conversations initiated by people with similar queries, but with reams of links to material offering solutions to almost the opposite problem. I.e.: "how do I disable x on y?" must be asked "disable x y?", but you'll struggle to find any link which isn't "y is great, learn about the cool new x feature on y", x is great, enable x", "what to do if you cannot enable x". Maybe some bots telling you why wanting to disabling x is futile & wouldn't you like to learn how great x is? "Your life will suffer if you disable x. You won't be able to do things you never ever & would never want to do if you disable x" Which, for some things, there's some validity to some parts of that, but for disabling a bloatware messaging app? Not so much, and potentially just indicative of terrible architecture.

Perhaps I should be optimistic that AI will rapidly patch this type of issue, being able to return responses that have a good analysis of the query, but feel it is more likely that flawed AI will hijack the whole.

It has been a good run, but swathes of us have lost what were standard means of seeking information.

It's nice & light in itself & though it is mostly used to reduce tracking across the internet, it could work well for reducing data generally.

If you are using an Android phone, uBlock Origin as wn extension to Firefox could also be of interest to you (can block images over a size you set, and allows fine-tuned exceptions per site).

Alright here & calmer than usual, which is nice.

Might be the cooler, damper weather coming in - not that it gets hot here in the summer & we've been incredibly fortunate to avoid extreme weather so far this year, but just greatly prefer autumn & winter.

Planning to start exercising later in the week, which will feel good as currently an uncomfortable mix of feeble as jello, gnarled up with stiffness.

Excited to see how Beehaw develops next, in light of discussions initiated by recent admin posts.

You might be able to use NextDNS to block various third-party servers which are popular for hosting images.

A little fiddly to set up, as you'd need to create a custom block list, and you won't catch all of them, but you should be able to eliminate most of it.

Can bung them in the dishwasher, no problem.

Clicking to open this, was imagining whether or not I'd be able to relate my frustration with the lack of availability of... thinking sticks to whatever I'd find OP had written.

But no, it maps exactly, and I love the idea of these thinking sticks.

That wall looks like it needs a drawing of a happy & colourful bee buzzing away peacefully.

In addition to the points people have already mentioned, it is possible that when you're doing your groceries, that your subconscious notices items which you aren't looking for that day. You tune them out because your mind is busy with other matters, but the idea of a lobster or a goose or whatever gets into your thoughts, gives you a craving which you then discuss, but the lobster or goose were on the shelves before the conversation & before the craving.

The same can happen with things like advertisements promoting a special deal this weekend, or whatever. We don't have to be paying attention or have any conscious awareness of the ad to get the idea "mmm, lobster", "oooh, goose" in the days following.

On top of that, the supermarkets have a sense of what situations make large numbers of customers interested in specific categories of product. So, the start of autumn can make people begin to think about ordering a big bird for for Christmas, summery weather can make people want shellfish to grill outdoors, etc.. The most obvious examples would be special offers on all of the items that are popular for BBQ when there's a hot dry spell, or stocking Christmas pudding & mince pies in the run up to Christmas. Yes, one can get these things at other times of year, but they're not promoted and are often tucked away, or you have to ask at the counter. In this sense, your cravings and thoughts about produce may just accord with that of others in your community, and the supermarkets' stocking is just a reflection of those trends.

Ah yeah. Mine has this also, but I dimly recall the other site had that without RES enabled, at least when not signed in?

Can't figure out how to get it going with RES, despite a trawl through the settings. If you can give any pointers I'd be grateful.

TaxiDERPery is an art, we'll 'av you know.

Idk but have a hunch this was sent to a taxiderpist & not a taxidermist, and that no familiarity with lions would... have helped.

Yes but, having been but a girl when this track first came out & super snooty about it, by the second time I was Rickrolled I realised it is pure class.

That & it turns out Astley himself is an utter gem.

Bring the tune to the hapless future & long live Rick!

Populist garbage.

Sentencing already reflects the behaviour of the defendant subsequent to the crime, so that they can get a hefty discount the sooner they plead guilty, whereas if they constantly do things that frustrate the whole process they can see the upper end of what is an allowable sentence. Refusing to appear in court, whether as a defendant or as a convict awaiting sentence makes no difference to the process.