Platform rules are retroactive tombstones marking past public controversies
Evidence
Platform moderators like to think that their guidelines already represent the values of users, and are responsive to shifting norms and practices, a “living document” that moves with their user community. As a representative of Facebook told me, “I think, for the most part, we’ve been on the same page as our user base. I think in some ways our rules reinforce their norms, and then their norms reinforce or help tweak our rules (and our standards?). But it’s kind of surprising how quickly users catch on to what our expectations are based on what they hear about (in terms of what we are policing) and then adopt them as their own.” What is clear, however, is that in other moments the public and its advocates find they must press platforms for change. Revisions of the guidelines often come only in response to outcries and public controversies. A content policy representative from LiveJournal pressed this point: “You know that cynical old saying ‘Every traffic light is a tombstone’—i.e., traffic lights don’t get put in until someone gets hurt at the intersection? Social media content policy is like that: every policy is a controversy… . When you look at a site’s published content policies, there’s a good chance that each of them represents some situation that arose, was not covered by existing policy, turned into a controversy, and resulted in a new policy afterward.” — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet, 218
Categorization
- CANDY: The “every traffic light is a tombstone” aphorism applied to moderation policy is a pithy, tweetable frame.
- DEEPTHINKING: The reversal of the “living document” ideal — guidelines claim to embody shifting user norms but actually fossilize past scandals — reframes how private law is legitimated versus how it is actually made. Dense and worth sitting with.
- XREF: connects to: Public scandals often merely license rules platforms already wanted — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 228; Perceived inconsistency of enforcement undercuts the legitimacy of platform rules. — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 447; Platform moderation evolves through public negotiation rather than fixed rule enforcement. — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 516 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Perceived inconsistency of enforcement undercuts the legitimacy of platform rules.
#corroborates(0.85) — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet, 447 - New platform norms are negotiated publicly and then hard-coded into the software
#qualifies(0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 238 - Platform moderation evolves through public negotiation rather than fixed rule enforcement.
#qualifies(0.72) — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet, 516