Public scandals often merely license rules platforms already wanted

Evidence

The guidelines now in place for these particular platforms have been imprinted onto the public imagination, because those platforms were drawn into the specific controversy in 2012 and their managers felt compelled to respond. But it is too simple even to say that the Huffington Post exposé led to new rules on these four platforms. No single explanation can fully account for why the guidelines of the social media platforms have turned out as they have. This kind of public controversy, shining an unwanted light on specific platforms, may push managers of those platforms to introduce a new rule; or perhaps it gives them permission to enact a change they already aspired to make. But there are as many cases in which platforms dragged their feet or were silent in the face of public criticism. Guidelines may be constitutional statements of principle, but they are also retrofitted, polished, and vacated, masking real economic imperatives. Yet they are not without momentum and teeth once laid down. — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet, 228

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Platform rules are retroactive tombstones marking past public controversies — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 218; Community guidelines mainly signal users, advertisers, and lawmakers — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 155; Legal strategy paired surprise filings with deliberate control of public narrative — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard…, 856

Broader Connections

• Legal strategy paired surprise filings with deliberate control of public narrative #corroborates (0.85) — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 856