ssalka 29 minutes ago

> The shift did not take place immediately. Within six months, traffic at smaller, less regulated sites had grown by 55%, and at larger sites by 10%, with point estimates implying that the traffic was entirely diverted to competing firms. This suggests that regulating only the largest platforms may push traffic to fringe sites and less controlled spaces.

This rings true to me, especially in the recent context of AI adopters looking for uncensored alternatives. This frame of thinking can be applied not only to models, i.e. many move away from OpenAI/ChatGPT in search of less restricted models, as well as being applied to sites providing AI resources. Just the other day, CivitAI (the current leader for distributing custom checkpoints, LoRAs for image-centric models) announced it was taking a much more heavy-handed approach to moderation due to pressure from Mastercard/Visa. Its users are simply outraged, and many I think will be leaving in search of a safe haven for their models/gens going forward.

motolov 4 hours ago

Interesting abstract. I can see similar concepts applied to eg govt regulation, censorship, etc (only one side monitoring, other sides absorb content of the monitored)

BTW, it looks like your PDF is missing figures/illustrations/etc (there is placeholder text) Not sure if this was a publishing tech issue or if missed in authoring

  • Freak_NL 4 hours ago

    The whole document looks weirdly formatted, but you can click the red numeral in the placeholder text for the tables and figures to jump to the appendix where it is. Not sure if this approach is intentional. It's certainly weird.

    You would think that with a decent LaTeX template academic papers would look reproducibly good, but for some reason some (many?) institutions and authors choose weakly justified convention over typographically sound formatting optimised for actual reading. The font choice (not too bad, but not pleasant either), the outsized leading which competes with the paragraph spacing. Look at how badly the references section on page xxviii scans.

    The word missing from the abstract is 'PornHub', of course. They're not just studying “a dominant online platform”. The fact that it is PornHub seems relevant enough not to hide it in the abstract to me.

    • mcphage 4 hours ago

      > The word missing from the abstract is 'PornHub', of course. They're not just studying “a dominant online platform”. The fact that it is PornHub seems relevant enough not to hide it in the abstract to me.

      The fact that it was PornHub is mentioned repeatedly in the paper itself. Leaving it out of the abstract seems fair—they picked PornHub because it was a site that deleted 80% of their content, not because they're specifically interested in studying PornHub.

      And, they study several of MindGeek's sites, not just PornHub exclusively.

      • Freak_NL 4 hours ago

        Sure, but omitting it is like having a study about 'a dominant social medium' and not mentioning that it is Facebook or X in the abstract (or a study about radicalisation of young men focusing on 'an anonymous imageboard' and not putting 4chan or whatever in the abstract). These are for the most part unique beasts, not interchangeable venues.

        It is relevant information for anyone scanning through dozens of abstracts on the topics addressed.

  • dkga 2 hours ago

    This is how some people in economics format their papers due to how some top journals require manuscripts to be. Source: I'm an economist (although I personally prefer to place figs/tables where they are supposed to be).

  • bschne 3 hours ago

    I also find this annoying, but it‘s common practice to do this while a draft is still being worked on and not yet getting submitted to a journal (SSRN is ≈ SocSci Arxiv)

    • tough 3 hours ago

      Why isn't there a global-like open platform for science like ArXiv?

      • bschne 3 hours ago

        path dependency with fields having developed their own early on I guess?

        • tough 2 hours ago

          so are these like other fields don't use LaTeX but other formatting?

          I can see for example if its' mostly word documents from source on that area of science maybe there's no point on arxiv like pipeline that builds from source.

          wondering if it will ever converge there, like a wikipedia only about science/research but of all areas

  • nh23423fefe 4 hours ago

    i left reddit because i was tired of mods destroying communities (with "moderation" which is really just shitty curation by your shitty taste)

    porn consumption is even more demanding. if you want "that release" you dont really care about the 2257

frankfrank13 2 hours ago

> Our findings highlight how asymmetric exposure to content moderation shocks can reshape market competition, drive consumers toward less regulated spaces, and alter substitution patterns across platforms.

Or at least one very specific market and platform

readthenotes1 3 hours ago

"What do you do?" Study porn

  • dkga 2 hours ago

    A: "I can't believe I caught you in that website!" B: "It's for research, really!"