Isn’t the moderation of large online platforms basically impossible? If YouTube/Facebook/Twitter has a rulebook that is thorough enough to ban anything that makes the world a worse place for being posted, then freeze-peach folks will complain about all the pointless rules being mindlessly enforced to protect overly sentitive people… but if the platform in question relies on human judgment rather than on a strict rulebook, then folks will complain about kafkaesque bureaucracies and whimsical/contradictory/theatrical decisions to take this or that down, about such decisions being abuses of power or disproportionately unfair to oppressed groups. I’m not saying either of those sets of complaining folks would be wrong; they would both have good points. Which is why I fear that the idea of moderating online platforms is hopeless, if these platforms hope to be a welcoming space to all (or nearly all) people. (I am a part of small online communities that are true communities in part due to good moderation, but those communities do not claim to be for everyone).
Wasn’t there an article about this, earlier this year? When Facebook’s rulebook was leaked, some people nitpicked some specific rules, some people complained about how vague it was, and finally some people realized that Facebook is in a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation when it comes to this kind of thing.
