They're only in it for the money.

It certainly won't come as a surprise that today's humungous platforms have moved well beyond the "Don't be Evil" phase, and that their central function is increasing profit. Still, a recently posted article on First Monday - Digital detritus: 'Error' and the logic of opacity in social media content moderation - offers an in depth examination of what this means, and it ain't nice. The concluding sentences of the abstract are probably enough in order to understand this often dense piece of research:

While meaning and intent of user-generated content may often be imagined to be the most important factors by which content is evaluated for a site, this paper argues that its value to the platform as a potentially revenue-generating commodity is actually the key criterion and the one to which all moderation decisions are ultimately reduced. The result is commercialized online spaces that have far less to offer in terms of political and democratic challenge to the status quo and which, in fact, may serve to reify and consolidate power rather than confront it.

I prefer to keep my distance from this, with the full understanding that doing so considerably limits my exposure.

Go to: Still the way we were?