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Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media
Abstract and Figures
Most users want their Twitter feed, Facebook page, and YouTube comments to be free of harassment and porn. Whether faced with “fake news” or livestreamed violence, “content moderators”-who censor or promote user-posted content-have never been more important. This is especially true when the tools that social media platforms use to curb trolling, ban hate speech, and censor pornography can also silence the speech you need to hear. In this revealing and nuanced exploration, award-winning sociologist and cultural observer Tarleton Gillespie provides an overview of current social media practices and explains the underlying rationales for how, when, and why these policies are enforced. In doing so, Gillespie highlights that content moderation receives too little public scrutiny even as it is shapes social norms and creates consequences for public discourse, cultural production, and the fabric of society. Based on interviews with content moderators, creators, and consumers, this accessible, timely book is a must-read for anyone who’s ever clicked “like” or “retweet.”.
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... Teknologi canggih seperti kecerdasan buatan (AI) dan pembelajaran mesin (machine learning) telah digunakan oleh banyak platform untuk mendeteksi dan menghapus konten yang melanggar pedoman komunitas. Gillespie (2018) dalam Custodians of the Internet menekankan bahwa moderasi konten adalah inti dari tanggung jawab platform dalam menjaga integritas ruang digital. Selain itu, platform harus memiliki kebijakan moderasi yang transparan dan konsisten untuk memastikan bahwa langkah-langkah ini dilakukan tanpa melanggar hak pengguna, seperti kebebasan berekspresi. ...
... Teknologi kecerdasan buatan (AI) dan algoritma telah digunakan untuk menyaring konten secara otomatis, tetapi sistem ini tidak sempurna dan kadang-kadang gagal mendeteksi konten negatif yang bersifat kompleks. Gillespie (2018) dalam Custodians of the Internet menekankan bahwa meskipun teknologi dapat membantu, skala dan kecepatan konten yang diproduksi pengguna tetap menjadi tantangan besar yang membutuhkan solusi tambahan, termasuk moderasi manual. ...
... Dengan tindakan yang tepat, seperti penggunaan algoritma canggih dan moderasi manual, platform dapat secara efektif mengurangi penyebaran konten negatif seperti hoaks, ujaran kebencian, atau propaganda ekstremis. Gillespie (2018) dalam Custodians of the Internet menekankan bahwa langkah ini menciptakan ruang digital yang lebih sehat bagi pengguna untuk berinteraksi tanpa rasa khawatir. Ketika konten negatif diminimalkan, ruang digital dapat menjadi tempat yang mendukung inovasi, edukasi, dan komunikasi yang produktif. ...
MODEL STRATEGIS TERPADU : PENANGANAN KONTEN NEGATIF DI MEDIA SOSIAL UNTUK KEAMANAN NASIONAL
Penulis:
• Marsda TNI Oka Prawira, M.Si. (Han)
• Laksma TNI (Purn) Dr. Adnan Masjid, S.H., M.Hum., CIQnR
• Prof. Dr. S Pantja Djati, S.E., M.Si., M.A
• Brigjen TNI (Purn) Dr. Sri Sundari, S.E., M.M., CIQaR., MOS., MCE., MCF
Editor :
Marsma TNI Dr. Ir. Sovian Aritonang, S.Si., M.Si
Mia Kusmiati, S.E., M.M., CT., MOS., MCE., MCF
ISBN: 978-623-8704-32-3 (PDF)
Ukuran Buku: 18 x 26 cm; vii + 233 hal
Cover & Layout: Erina Dwi Nanda, S.M
Copy Right @Januari 2025
Penerbit:
CV. Aksara Global Akademia
Anggota IKAPI No: 414/JBA/2021
Kantor:
Intan Regency Blok W: 12-13, Tarogong, Garut, Jawa Barat,
Kode Pos: 44151
SINOPSIS: Di era digital, media sosial telah menjadi alat komunikasi yang kuat sekaligus medan baru bagi ancaman terhadap keamanan nasional. Hoaks, ujaran kebencian, radikalisme, dan propaganda yang tersebar luas di platform ini menciptakan ketegangan sosial, melemahkan kepercayaan publik, dan mengganggu stabilitas negara. Buku ini menghadirkan Model Strategis Terpadu sebagai pendekatan sistematis untuk mengatasi tantangan tersebut.
Buku ini mengintegrasikan lima elemen utama pendekatan multidimensional, kolaborasi lintas pemangku kepentingan, integrasi teknologi, kebijakan holistik, dan keberlanjutan untuk menciptakan solusi yang menyeluruh dan aplikatif. Dengan fokus pada sinergi teknologi seperti kecerdasan buatan, landasan hukum yang kuat, serta literasi digital, buku ini menjadi panduan penting bagi akademisi, pembuat kebijakan, praktisi keamanan, dan masyarakat dalam mewujudkan keamanan nasional yang berkelanjutan di era digital.
... On the one hand, they are expected to maintain environments that support free expression and public discourse while preventing the proliferation of harmful content such as hate speech, disinformation, and incitement to violence (Howard, 2021;Bollinger & Stone, 2022). On the other hand, their commercial interests-such as maximizing user engagement and minimizing operational costs-not only often conflict with the substantial resources and infrastructure required for robust and equitable content moderation (Gillespie, 2018), but they also arguably encourage leaving harmful content on the platform to reap the benefits of the attention it often garners (New York Times, 2023). These decisions profoundly influence public discourse, determining which voices are amplified and which are suppressed, often with disproportionate impacts on marginalized groups (Baribi-Bartov et al., 2024). ...
... û First, citizens' perceptions and demands often drive changes in platform policies, as seen in cases where public pressure has led to stricter content moderation or new safety features (Gillespie, 2018). Social media platforms are products designed for their users, and citizen feedback can serve as a catalyst for reforms aimed at addressing societal concerns. ...
Report on public attitudes on social media, content moderation and freedom of expression. Insights are based on survey data from Greece, Germany, United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Slovakia, South Africa, Australia, Brazil and France.
... This human approach is essential to address the limitations of AI, such as its inability to fully grasp or appropriately understand context. In case of content moderation, this means that AI tools reliably detect harmful content while minimising false positives, where legitimate content is wrongly flagged or removed, and false negatives, where harmful content is missed (Gillespie, 2018). The provisions on human supervision reinforce the importance of balancing automated decisions and human judgement. ...
... While these systems are constantly evolving, flawed content moderation can also harm the reputation of companies. In 2016, Facebook's AI incorrectly removed the iconic Vietnam War Napalm Girl photo, claiming that its nudity violated its community guidelines (Gillespie, 2018). AI failed to recognise the historical significance of the image and treated it as inappropriate content based solely on its nudity. ...
After a brief, general introduction to AI, the present article will discuss whether AI itself has freedom of expression or whether it only entitles to tech companies that own AI. All this is relevant in the context of whether we can consider AI a separate legal actor in the context of content creation on social media, which is the second main issue of this article. Here, negative and positive cases of content moderation will be presented, i.e., whether the full spectrum of content moderation in social media can be entrusted to AI as a separate actor with respect to liability, or whether moderation requires some form of human control, direction or supervision.
... In the context of political expression, Section 230 allows platforms to enforce content policies without being deemed publishers. This has led to accusations of bias from both Democrats and Republicans, with some politicians alleging censorship and others calling for stricter enforcement (Gillespie, 2018). Platforms are also not required to constantly monitor content uploaded to them by their users, enabling the big tech giants to operate on their own rules (aka their terms of services). ...
Social media has transformed political communication's landscape, reshaping how politicians engage with the public and express their views. The tension between freedom of expression and the need for responsible governance and politicians became more visible. This article examines the nuances of politicians' freedom of expression on social media, emphasizing the importance of the right to receive information and participate in public debate. Furthermore, it explores the idea of social media profiles as public forums, examines the level of protection afforded to public officials in public discourse, and compares the content moderation frameworks in the United States and the European Union.
With the advancement in technology, channels for political communication have widened. It has eased the dissemination of information and interaction with the masses. One such possibility arises with the coming up of ‘Digital age’. It involves the use of social media to provide for quick information sharing, public participation, grassroots mobilization, and has completely changed the way political conversation takes place. The Digital age has led to democratization of information, has enabled people to access information, openly express their opinions and communicate with each others, politicians and influential public figures. In contrast challenges like disinformation, polarization, and other ethical issues have emerged rampantly, questioning the excesses made by use of technology. The paper highlights ways that social media has promoted political awareness, elevated underrepresented perspectives, impacted election results, and influenced political communication. The paper assesses the need for regulatory frameworks to curb the associated ills.
This article analyzes grassroots opposition to the website Ripoff Report (RoR). RoR is a user-generated content (UGC) platform for “consumer reviews” about both business entities and, often, individuals. In America, Section 230 of the CDA (1996) empowers RoR to refuse removing even postings that have been judged defamatory. Instead, the site counsels rebuttal (“counterspeech”) or paying for its self-administered arbitration service—audaciously casting itself as a more efficient (for-profit) substitute for the court system. RoR therefore represents the liberal “marketplace” orientation of Section 230 taken to its logical extreme. Grassroots opponents claim that official legal deference to the content policies of sites like RoR creates a unique kind of symbolic and normative harm. Building on the existing practical critiques of Section 230, I argue that they implicitly invoke Donald Downs’ “community security” paradigm in a digital context. They call on both websites and government to increasingly prioritize protecting citizens from the indignity of confronting (what they see as) personally humiliating speech rather than simply counseling “more speech” as the solution. The RoR controversy thus gives us additional insight into the popular objections provoked by Section 230. Overall, studying them helps further our nascent understanding of the consequences and reactions when “platforms intervene” as regulatory forces.
A common position amongst online content providers/aggregators is their resistance to being characterized as media companies. Companies such as Google, Facebook, BuzzFeed, and Twitter have argued that it is inaccurate to think of them as media companies. Rather, they argue that they should be thought of as technology companies. The logic of this position, and its implications for communications policy, have yet to be thoroughly analyzed. However, such an analysis is increasingly necessary as the dynamics of news and information production, dissemination, and consumption continue to evolve. This paper will explore and critique the logic and motivations behind the position that these content providers/aggregators are technology companies rather than media companies, as well as the communications policy implications associated with accepting or rejecting this position.
In conducting this analysis, this paper first explores the importance of classification in communications policymaking. Drawing on examples from U.S. communications policy, this paper illustrates how and why disputes over the appropriate classification of communications technologies and services often have had profound policy implications. Examples to be discussed include the importance of the telecommunications service versus information service classification in network neutrality policymaking and the classification of multichannel video programming delivery (MVPD) services in relation to access to broadcast content.
Next, this paper explores the meaning of a media company and its important points of distinction from the meaning of a technology company. This paper explores this distinction within the context of arguments from online content providers/aggregators that they are more appropriately classified as technology companies rather than media companies. Drawing upon a data set of position papers, trade press stories, conference presentations, and public relations/promotional materials in which this argument is put forth by representatives of a variety of online content providers/aggregators, this section examines and critiques this position. In considering these arguments, this section puts forth a set of parameters as to what constitutes a media company and illustrates how online content providers/aggregators fit within these parameters.
The final section discusses why it is important that these online content providers/aggregators be understood as media companies by communications policymakers. As this section illustrates, the functionalities provided by many of these online service providers are increasingly overlapping and intersecting with those of traditional media companies, particularly in terms of the production, dissemination, and consumption of news and journalism; yet this has happened absent the normative governance frameworks that characterize other communications platforms that serve a significant journalistic function. The danger here is that the production, dissemination, and consumption of journalism will increasingly be dictated by institutions devoid of any governance structure oriented toward serving the public interest as it pertains to the role of journalism in a democracy. From this standpoint, should communications policymakers embrace the notion that these online content providers/aggregators are technology companies rather than media companies, the implications for how well the contemporary media ecosystem serves the information needs of citizens in a democracy could be profound.
This piece argues that all communication media are inherently social. The term “social media” emerged at the time that companies began harnessing what people were already doing online, turning socializing into revenue streams for venture capitalists and the people who run internet companies. The paper critiques the conversion of social interaction into wealth for the few and argues that we need to fight for media that help build better societies rather than those that view people as data profiles to be sold to advertisers.
It is now over twenty years since the well-established sociology of deviance along with the emergent sociology of mass media produced the concept of 'moral panic'. The various studies of youth culture, drugtakers and the media reaction to these and other phenomena produced some of the most important work in post-war British sociology. This article argues that it is now time that every stage in the process of constructing a moral panic, as well as the social relations which support it, should be revised. It suggests that more attention should be paid to the consequences of the great expansion of the media and to the many more participants involved in public debate (including, for example, commercial promotions departments and pressure groups). We argue that 'folk devils' are less marginalized than they once were; they not only find themselves vociferously and articulately supported in the same mass media that castigates them, but their interests are also defended by their own niche and micro-media. Finally, the article suggests that what were more stable points of social control have undergone some degree of shift, if not transformation.
Online content providers such as YouTube are carefully positioning themselves to users, clients, advertisers and policymakers, making strategic claims for what they do and do not do, and how their place in the information landscape should be understood. One term in particular, ‘platform’, reveals the contours of this discursive work. The term has been deployed in both their populist appeals and their marketing pitches, sometimes as technical ‘platforms’, sometimes as ‘platforms’ from which to speak, sometimes as ‘platforms’ of opportunity. Whatever tensions exist in serving all of these constituencies are carefully elided. The term also fits their efforts to shape information policy, where they seek protection for facilitating user expression, yet also seek limited liability for what those users say. As these providers become the curators of public discourse, we must examine the roles they aim to play, and the terms by which they hope to be judged.
In this paper, we examine the inverse and converging movement of two sets of institutions: news organizations, as they find that part of their mission necessarily includes hosting an unruly user community that does not always play by the norms of journalism; and online media platforms and social networks designed for users to share content, as they find that the content being shared is often much like news, some of which challenges their established user guidelines. We draw on in-depth interviews to understand how each industry is finding itself increasingly on the other's turf and facing the challenges and tensions the other has long coped with, but from its own distinct vantage point. From this we explore the ways in which the roles of news provision and community management are increasingly intermingled—in ways that will continue to have an impact on both news organizations and social media platforms, along with their audiences and users.
The past decade has seen phenomenal growth in the development and use of virtual worlds. In one of the most notable, Second Life, millions of people have created online avatars in order to play games, take classes, socialize, and conduct business transactions. Second Life offers a gathering point and the tools for people to create a new world online. Too often neglected in popular and scholarly accounts of such groundbreaking new environments is the simple truth that, of necessity, such virtual worlds emerge from physical workplaces marked by negotiation, creation, and constant change. Thomas Malaby spent a year at Linden Lab, the real-world home of Second Life, observing those who develop and profit from the sprawling, self-generating system they have created. Some of the challenges created by Second Life for its developers were of a very traditional nature, such as how to cope with a business that is growing more quickly than existing staff can handle. Others are seemingly new: How, for instance, does one regulate something that is supposed to run on its own? Is it possible simply to create a space for people to use and then not govern its use? Can one apply these same free-range/free-market principles to the office environment in which the game is produced? "Lindens"-as the Linden Lab employees call themselves-found that their efforts to prompt user behavior of one sort or another were fraught with complexities, as a number of ongoing processes collided with their own interventions. In Making Virtual Worlds, Malaby thoughtfully describes the world of Linden Lab and the challenges faced while he was conducting his in-depth ethnographic research there. He shows how the workers of a very young but quickly growing company were themselves caught up in ideas about technology, games, and organizations, and struggled to manage not only their virtual world but also themselves in a nonhierarchical fashion. In exploring the practices the Lindens employed, he questions what was at stake in their virtual world, what a game really is (and how people participate), and the role of the unexpected in a product like Second Life and an organization like Linden Lab.
This article develops a critical alternative to the common equation between participatory culture and democratic communication and argues that power on online participatory platforms should be understood as the governance of semiotic open-endedness. This article argues that the concept of cultural expression cannot be understood solely by looking at users' cultural practices, but should be revisited to pay attention to the networked conditions that enable it. This involves tracing the governance of disparate processes such as protocols, software, linguistic processes, and cultural practices that make the production and circulation of meaning possible. Thus, communication on participatory platforms should be understood as the management of flows of meaning, that is, as the processes of codification of the informational, technical, cultural, and semiotic dynamics through which meanings are expressed. This makes it possible to understand the logics through which software platforms transform information into cultural signs and shape users' perceptions and agencies.
In this article I briefly trace the complex and incremental but significant ways that social media platforms have been transformed since the ‘Web 2.0’ moment of the early 2000s, identifying some common trajectories across several platforms, and discussing their consequences for how users – and their capacity for creative agency – are positioned. I argue that the maintenance of balanced tensions between accessibility and openness is important to the ongoing prospects of social and cultural innovation in social media.
