[joe_the_user]

Wow,

The game is tense and boring and it illustrates both why paid Facebook "moderators" suffer PTSD and why this so-called "moderation" fails to improve the content of discussion or build community.

Actually worthwhile moderation involves someone caring about the whole direction of the discussion and not merely considering "is this content over the line", especially since a large portion of "don't talk about drugs" or whatever is pure CYA. "Don't say that 'cause someone might sue us".

[idopmstuff]

That works when you're dealing with something the scale of HN and have the resources to hire dang. At the scale of Facebook or Twitter, though? The sort of moderation you're describing is just impossible.

[joe_the_user]

I moderate a largish, active Facebook group on a controversial topic (5k members, 3-5 posts a day). I spend about 10 minutes per day on this on average. But the fact that I care about the topic, that I can directly ask people to not to engage in shit and that people want to have a decent are basically what makes things much easier.

So it's possible on Facebook. It's just not possible for just Facebook. Reddit seems a better model for community at scale but somehow I haven't jumped into that.