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It's taken me a while to figure out what I can even say to the requests for comment I am receiving from international media (because he was Australian, or because we're close-ish to New Zealand? who knows). Here's what I've just jotted down in an email to one (a thread):
I have been studying social media platforms and especially YouTube and Twitter for most of their histories. Much of what we are seeing now is no surprise, but it could have been avoided.
YouTube, Facebook and, to an extent, Twitter currently expend significant resources on content moderation.
These platforms generally use combinations of automated, semi-automated and extremely labour-intensive manual methods to detect, assess, and either remove or ‘turn down the volume’ on content that violates their guidelines.
They might do this because content is sexually explicit, copyright violating, or because it falls into each platform’s definition of hate speech. And they all draw the line in different places.
YouTube in particular has introduced very sophisticated tools for automated detection and removal of copyright-infringing content progressively over the past decade, in partnership with rights-holders themselves, that is, the media and music industries.
They have also been quick to respond when corporate brands and advertisers threaten to pull their advertising spend off the platform, out of concerns for the impact on their brands of associating with extremist political content.
However, it is quite clear that more effort has gone into policing copyright content than racist, misogynistic or white nationalist content and abuse.
And this is no accident – it is at least partly because of the US-style libertarian ideologies of free speech that underpin the logics and operations of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube/Google.
As a result, it has not only been possible to post such content on the platform, but the platform also offers a fertile environment for both progressive and hateful subcultures to grow and thrive, to organise, and to find each other.
The platforms are now playing whack-a-mole; online subcultures associated with the far right and gamer culture would be taking great delight in winning the arms race between their own automated accounts (bots) and the platforms’ arsenal of content moderation and takedown tools.
But there are still kittens and puppies, and improbably talented children, and people who will teach you how to fix stuff around the house, and you know what? I'd love to see a damn picture of what you're having for lunch, wherever in the world you are.
(that last Tweet wasn't in the email, it's just for all of you)
But why no pictures of your doggos or sunsets or lunches?
And here are some more good things to read: @BostonJoan on the sophisticated tactics used to exploit platform dynamics of virality: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Tarleton Gillespie's book on content moderation, Custodians of the Internet custodiansoftheinternet.org @TarletonG - some excerpts have been published online, linked from the website.
In an article on digital constitutionalism, my @qutdmrc colleague argues platforms should be pressured to govern more fairly and transparently according to the value of the rule of law, not secretly and however they like journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20…
And if you want to wrap your head around how the so-called alt-right uses YouTube to build community, see @beccalew's @datasociety report on the alternative influencer network datasociety.net/output/alterna…
And this is what they did with my thoughts, in this CNN story: edition.cnn.com/2019/03/17/bus…
