Many of the most popular and massive online platforms primarily act as storage and dissemination engines for user-generated content. Social networks are the best example of this: they encourage their users to post messages and chats; share articles, memes, images, and videos; live stream; and interact with all this content through further sharing and commenting. Facebook, for example, claims to have 2.7 billion monthly active users as of 2020 whom hail from all over the world.
Online platforms like to portray themselves as neutral conduits for user-generated content, i.e., they are open platforms that anyone may join to discuss any topic. For example, in the wake of controversies about political content on Facebook its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, made the following statement:
“I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online… Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that.”
The idea of neutrality is key to the ethos of large online platforms (as you will see again in other chapters) for several reasons. First, it resonates with the thinking that technology is, in general, a value-neutral tool (an idea that we debunk throughout our lessons on VSD). Second, it positions the online platforms as “free and open” in contrast to “old media” companies, like television and newspapers, that are heavily curated by editors or other “elite gatekeepers”. Third, it enables the platforms to try and sidestep responsibility and shift blame to users when they post problematic content. Fourth, it is a useful stance for minimizing liability with respect to laws like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Yet, content moderation is fundamental to how online platforms work. Some content is moderated to comply with the law, for example when copyrighted material or child abuse images are taken down. But other content is moderated by online platforms voluntarily – all of the major online platforms have rules, sometimes called “community guidelines” or “community standards,” that delineate what kinds of content are not acceptable. Examples of prohibited content often include hate speech, bullying, and pornography. In other words, these platforms are not neutral: they make choices about what kinds of content that they believe are unacceptable.
Furthermore, content moderation is not just about filtering or removing content, it is also about prioritizing and highlighting content. For example, social media platforms are typically organized around news-feed or timeline user interfaces that prioritizes “engaging” content, and may filter out “non-engaging” content entirely. Further, if you don’t want your content to be subject to the whims of algorithmic ranking or recommendation, you can often move your content to the top of the queue by paying money to promote it as an advertisement.
It is clear that online platforms are not neutral: they are highly editorial and curatorial, relying on a mix of algorithms and human beings that make decisions about content availability and visibility on their platforms. Moreover, we can see that the design of these moderation systems reveal some of the values held by platforms. Most platforms espouse a commitment to free expression, preferring not to take content down if at all possible. Community guidelines that prohibit hate speech and bullying suggest upholding the values of human welfare and respect (although some platforms’ degree of commitment to these values is perhaps questionable, as we will see). Even platforms like Parler that promote themselves as free-speech-supporting alternatives to other social media platforms have had to implement content moderation guidelines.
Content moderation presents a cautionary tale of how values can collide. Following the 2016 US Presidential election, platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter were embroiled in controversy over accusations of political favoritism. Conservative politicians accused the platforms of censorship and bias against conservative content. The representatives of the platforms were unable to effectively defend themselves because their platforms are not transparent, i.e., it is not clear to those outside the companies how their moderation systems work. Moreover, their insistence that the platforms are strictly neutral is, as discussed above, false and disingenuous.
No system of content organization can be neutral. They are all designed systems. The platforms must make choices about what content to allow, what content to prioritize, how to display content, and so much more. These choices are made based on their goals, constraints, priorities, and perspectives. They thereby reflect their values. Rather than trying to pretend that their platforms are neutral, a better response from the companies would have been to acknowledge that their platforms are not neutral (i.e. they reflect values); be explicit that one of their values is impartiality among reasonable political perspectives (e.g. those that do not espouse violence or subjugation of others); and describe the methods by which they try to realize that value in the design and operation of their content moderation systems. Such a response would engage the bias concerns in a reality-based, transparent, and potentially productive way, rather than through specious claims about neutrality that only lead to further accusations.
The online platforms’ commitment to impartiality with respect to political views sounds like a noble position, especially in America where free expression is held up as a fundamental right. However, as suggested above, an unwavering commitment to free expression is complicated by the existence of bullies, trolls, bigots, racists, misogynists, even terrorists, who seek to weaponize speech and the platforms that host it. Online platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube have become infamous for allowing problematic communities to fester, ultimately harming their broader user base, their platform, and, most importantly, innocent people. The value of free expression can come into tension with other values like human welfare and respect, and responding well to those tensions can be complicated.
Content moderation practices, or the lack thereof (which is also a choice), can have devastating real world consequences. Facebook has pushed aggressively into international markets, in part by subsidizing internet service so that people can access Facebook. However, Facebook was unprepared for the volatile cultural contexts that it entered. Incidents of ethnic violence, and even genocide in Myanmar, were fueled in part by inflammatory posts and deliberate misinformation spread on Facebook. Although Facebook didn’t create these extreme cultural forces, it empowered them with an unfiltered information pipeline directly into a population that lacked robust online media literacy.