Platform rules chain down a hierarchy of technical gatekeepers

Evidence

It’s also important to recognize that some platforms depend on other platforms to exist, and must align their rules with those they are obliged to honor. For example, platforms that depend heavily on mobile use need their apps to pass Apple’s review. This means that the Instagram user is governed by rules established by Instagram, itself owned and influenced by Facebook, but those rules must be shaped to abide by Apple’s standards as well. Tinder can require users to link to their Facebook accounts, which means Tinder users are bound by two overlapping sets of rules. Different technological and institutional layers get tethered together to extend rules down the line—creating a self-reinforcing circle of prohibition and justification. — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet, 233

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Platforms’ private rules affect users more than the law does — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 121; Informal lax rules displace formal rules inside destructive hierarchies — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3989; Selective moderation fragments one platform into many divergent versions — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 592

Broader Connections

• Informal lax rules displace formal rules inside destructive hierarchies #complicates (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3989