Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media
by Tarleton Gillespie · 25 Jun 2018 · 390pp · 109,519 words
Tweets,” a recurring feature in which celebrities read aloud to the camera hateful tweets they had received. Journalists began to examine the hidden labor behind content moderation, most notably a 2014 Wired report by Adrian Chen documenting the experiences of Filipino workers who scrubbed U.S. social media platforms for dollars a
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before beginning to challenge platforms for their moderation policies and their responsibility for the Internet’s many troubles, let’s start with a simple reminder. Content moderation is hard. This should be obvious, but it is easily forgotten. Moderation is hard because it is resource intensive and relentless; because it requires making
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is frank or explicit but socially valuable, or material simply removed in error. One of the biggest challenges platforms face is establishing and enforcing a content moderation regime that can address both extremes simultaneously. The rules must account for the most egregious atrocities as well as material that is questionable but defensible
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media platforms. To move this reconsideration forward, we need to examine the moderation apparatus that has been built over the past decade: the policies of content moderation, the sociotechnical mechanisms for its enforcement, the business expectations it must serve, the justifications articulated to support it. We need to look into why this
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I would add a second set that, while they do not neatly fit the definition of platform, grapple with many of the same challenges of content moderation in platformlike ways: recommendation and rating sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor; exchange platforms that help share goods, services, funds, or labor, like Etsy, Kickstarter, Craigslist
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the company). Costolo himself stepped down just a few months later. But without absolving Twitter of responsibility, it’s not just that Twitter “sucked” at content moderation. Twitter was grappling with the legacy of a particular configuration of rights and responsibilities, or a relative absence of responsibilities, that was already two decades
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or behavior are undercutting the once sturdy principle of safe harbor articulated in Section 230. PLATFORMS ARE NOT LIKE TRADITIONAL INTERMEDIARIES The early logic of content moderation, and particularly the robust safe harbor protections offered to intermediaries by U.S. law, makes sense in the context of the early ideals of the
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, multiple reviewers, and multiple platforms—and we have at least a fuzzy sense of the enormity of this undertaking. At this size, certain approaches to content moderation are practically impossible. For instance, there is simply too much content and activity to conduct proactive review, in which a moderator would examine each contribution
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have grown in scale and ambition, traditional community management has become increasingly untenable. This means that the approaches social media platforms take, toward not just content moderation but all types of information management, are tied to this immense scale. Content is policed at scale, and most complaints are fielded at scale. More
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this, some platforms and third parties are pairing automatic detection with editorial oversight, in ways that must give up some of the dreams of automating content moderation but can come closer to addressing the challenge of scale. The most effective automatic detection techniques are the ones that know what they’re looking
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removal, remains seductive, even as the limitations become increasingly apparent. Platform managers find it appealing, because they want to be rid of the work that content moderation requires and because these companies are filled with engineers, who often prefer to solve social problems with smarter technology. Policy makers find automated moderation appealing
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just as troubling is the presumptions it rests on—eugenics—and its promise of predetermination. What is troubling about Faception is also troubling about AI content moderation more broadly. It will always fail to anticipate cultural innovation: new words, new forms of expression, new tactics, new associations, new threats. But as we
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kinds of punishments are enforced, and the philosophical approach their platforms take to governance itself. In their earliest days, many platforms did not anticipate that content moderation would be a significant problem. Some began with relatively homogenous user populations who shared values and norms with one another and with the developers—for
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In fact, in the early days of a platform, it was not unusual for there to be no one in an official position to handle content moderation. Often content moderation at a platform was handled either by user support or community relations teams, generally more focused on offering users technical assistance; as a part
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overseen by a few hundred, largely white, largely young, tech-savvy Californians who occupy a small and tight social and professional circle. Contract worker doing content moderation for U.S. tech companies at Task Us, an American outsourcing tech company located in the Taguig district of Manila, Philippines. Photograph by Moises Saman
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time, this process was still a secret carefully guarded by most platforms, but increasingly platform managers are sensing a need to demonstrate their commitment to content moderation. Still, platforms continue to reveal little about their process, or how big a problem it is. And third-party companies that employ these moderators are
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their approach or effectiveness, these independent grassroots efforts constitute another part of the labor that, in its current incarnation, supports and executes the process of content moderation. There are moments in which platforms recognize, or are forced to acknowledge, that they need outside expertise. The array of issues platforms find themselves adjudicating
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sexual content and nudity”—which end up generating different age ratings.63 THE LABOR AND THE LOGISTICS Each social media platform has cobbled together a content moderation process that draws on the labor of some combination of company employees, temporary crowdworkers, outsourced review teams, legal and expert consultants, community managers, flaggers, admins
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labor raises two additional challenges: the coordination of these efforts and the translation of both concerns and criteria between the different layers. The challenge of content moderation, then, is as much about the coordination of work as it is about making judgments. First, decisions the press or disgruntled users see as mistaken
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the platform themselves. Some content policy managers are hoping that more sophisticated data collection and analysis will help them better address the logistical challenges of content moderation. Platforms manage themselves through the gathering of data, and they gather an immense amount of it. This is no less true for the procedures of
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judgment, conviction, and suspicion on both sides. As more and more women faced deletions and sometimes suspensions, some were “discovering” that there was in fact content moderation at work behind the platform. But this did not mean that they clearly understood how it worked. Deletions and suspensions were generally accompanied by short
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Facebook breastfeeding community was able to provoke a change in the rules that acknowledged them and their values. Nearly all aspects of the process of content moderation—setting the rules, fielding complaints, making decisions, and addressing appeals—are kept entirely hidden from users. Decisions are made behind closed doors, and built into
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issues we’ve seen has outstripped our existing processes for governing the community. Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and CEO of Facebook, “Building Global Community,” February 2017 Content moderation is such a complex sociotechnical undertaking that, all things considered, it’s amazing that it works at all, and as well as it does. Even
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their legal liability to consider their greater obligations to the public. IMPROVING MODERATION There are many things social media companies could do to improve their content moderation: More human moderators. More expert human moderators. More diverse human moderators. More transparency in the process. Better tools for users to block bad actors. Better
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function at a scale and under a set of expectations that increasingly demands automation. Yet the kinds of decisions that platforms must make, especially in content moderation, are precisely the kinds of decisions that should not be automated, and perhaps cannot be. They are judgments of value, meaning, importance, and offense. They
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at the start of this chapter. Every platform promises to offer something in contrast to something else—and as such, every platform promises moderation.12 Content moderation is a key part of what social media platforms do that is different, that distinguishes them from the open web: they moderate (removal, filtering, suspension
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enforcement of the implicit contract, and right now it is pushing platforms away from the safe harbors they have enjoyed.14 Rethinking content moderation might begin with this recognition, that content moderation is the essential offer platforms make, and part of how they tune the public discourse they purport to host. Platforms could be
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. 37Adrian Chen, “The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed,” Wired, October 23, 2014, https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/. 38Charlie Warzel, “‘A Honeypot For Assholes’: Inside Twitter’s 10-Year Failure to Stop Harassment,” Buzzfeed, August 11, 2016, https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/a
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Online Free Speech?”; Matamoros-Fernández, “Platformed Racism”; Milosevic, “Social Media Companies’ Cyberbullying Policies”; Ober and Wildman, “Social Media Definition and the Governance Challenge”; Roberts, “Commercial Content Moderation”; Roth, “‘No Overly Suggestive Photos of Any Kind’”; Tushnet, “Power without Responsibility.” 75Kennedy et. al., “Regulation and Social Practice Online”; Lingel, Digital Countercultures and the
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-facebook-reddit-censorship-free-speech; Sarah Roberts, “Social Media’s Silent Filter,” Atlantic, March 8, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/commercial-content-moderation/518796/. 20Aarti Shahani, “From Hate Speech to Fake News: The Content Crisis Facing Mark Zuckerberg,” NPR All Tech Considered, November 17, 2016, http://www.npr
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-clickworker-platform-how-half-a-million-people-are-training-ai-for-pennies-per-task/. 27Irani, “The Cultural Work of Microwork,” 726. 28Ibid., 725. 29Roberts, “Commercial Content Moderation.” 30Brad Stone, “Concern for Those Who Screen the Web for Barbarity,” New York Times, July 18, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/technology
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Allows Bodily Fluids,” Gawker, February 16, 2012, http://gawker.com/5885836/. 33Gray, “Your Job Is about to Get ‘Taskified.’” 34Downey, “Making Media Work.” 35Roberts, “Content Moderation.” 36Roberts, “Commercial Content Moderation.” 37Postigo, “America Online Volunteers.” 38Dibbell, “A Rape in Cyberspace.” 39Dutton, “Network Rules of Order.” 40Bergstrom, “‘Don’t Feed the Troll’”; Lampe and Resnick, “Slash
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. Cambridge: MIT Press. ———. 2015. Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web. Cambridge: MIT Press. ROBERTS, SARAH T. 2016. “Commercial Content Moderation: Digital Laborers’ Dirty Work.” In Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online, ed. Safiya Umoja Noble and Brendesha Tynes, 147–59. New York: Peter
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Lang. http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/commpub/12/?utm_source=ir.lib.uwo.ca%2Fcommpub%2F12&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages. ———. 2017. “Content Moderation.” http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7371c1hf.pdf. ROCHET, JEAN-CHARLES, AND JEAN TIROLE. 2003. “Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets.” Journal of the European Economic
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Action on Social Media Platforms.” Media and Communication 5 (3): 28–36. ———. Forthcoming. “A Conceptual Framework for the (Private) Public Sphere: Surveying User Experiences of Content Moderation on Social Media Platforms.” Manuscript submitted for publication. WOOLGAR, STEVE. 1990. “Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials.” Sociological Review 38 (S1). WU, TIM
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) Aftenposten, (i), (ii)n17 Airtime (video chat platform), (i) algorithms: that select, curate, and recommend, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi); and the automation of content moderation, (i); biases of, (i), (ii)n76 Amazon sales rankings, moderation of, (i) Android (Google), (i) Angwin, Julia, (i) anorexia. See self-harm AOL chatrooms, moderation
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also pornography The Daily Dot, (i) data: user data as an economic imperative for platforms, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii); data about content moderation, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii); training data for automated moderation, (i); user data as a way to filter away objectionable content, (i); user
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research), (i) Jobs, Steve (Apple), (i), (ii), (iii) Karp, David (Tumblr), (i) Kickstarter, (i), (ii), (iii)n5 Klonick, Kate, (i) Kwasnica, Emma, (i) labor of content moderation, (i); by flaggers, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)n43; by crowdworkers, (i), (ii), (iii); by internal policy teams, (i); psychological impact of, (i); by community
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with, (i), (ii)s LinkedIn (Microsoft), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) Livejournal, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)n8 livestreaming, moderation of, (i), (ii) logistics of content moderation work, (i), (ii), (iii) machine learning, (i), (ii), (iii) MacKinnon, Rebecca, (i) magazines. See traditional media Malaby, Tom, (i) marketplace of ideas, (i), (ii) Matias
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of, (i), (ii) Newsvine (news discussion platform), (i), (ii) Nexus One (Google), (i) Ning (social networking platform), (i), (ii) nipples, as a contested issue for content moderation, (i), (ii), (iii) NIPSA / Not in the Public Site Area (Flickr guideline), (i) nonconsensual pornography. See revenge porn norms: in society more broadly, (i), (ii
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of, (i); ill-fit for platforms, (i), (ii); suggestions for, (i) Safesearch / safe mode, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)n78 scale, as a challenge for content moderation, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) Schiller, Phil (Apple), (i) search engines: moderation of, (i), (ii), (iii); law regarding, (i), (ii), (iii
Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future
by Jean M. Twenge · 25 Apr 2023 · 541pp · 173,676 words
. After leaking a trove of documents to the Wall Street Journal, Haugen testified that Facebook regularly placed profits over safety. The company, she says, relaxed content moderation around misinformation after the 2020 election was over, likely contributing to the January 6, 2021, attempt to take over the Capitol. Facebook profits from anger
Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition That Is Shaping the Next Economy
by Nathan Schneider · 10 Sep 2018 · 326pp · 91,559 words
our relationships expect that we pay with our personal data. The internet’s so-called sharing economy requires its permanently part-time delivery drivers and content moderators to relinquish rights that used to be part of the social contracts workers could expect. Yet a real sharing economy has been at work all
Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever
by Alex Kantrowitz · 6 Apr 2020 · 260pp · 67,823 words
the integration of these new “inputs” on the ground level. Mitchell heads Facebook’s risk and response team, which works to find vulnerabilities in its content-moderation systems. Birch is a program manager in its strategic response team, which coordinates Facebook’s response to crises across divisions. And Lavin is a former
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model of, 81–82 artificial intelligence/machine learning at, 75–81, 88 and Cambridge Analytica, 83, 84, 158 and congressional investigations, 83–84, 85–86 content moderation at, 77–81, 86 contractors’ wages at, 155 dominance of, 3 Engineer’s Mindset at, 16 and Facebook Groups, 69–70, 201 and Facebook Live
Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History
by Ben Mezrich · 6 Nov 2023 · 279pp · 85,453 words
, but the philosophical direction Jack believed the company was heading. As a manager, Jack had been notoriously hands-off when it came to issues like content moderation and the banning of problematic accounts; he’d always been a free speech advocate, and especially during the tumult of the recent elections, he’d
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the internet were real and many, and more often than not, inhabited by teenagers. In his work, Yoel had always been careful to emphasize that content moderation shouldn’t be governed by “dictatorial edict.” As he would later explain, in an interview with tech journalist Kara Swisher, what was important wasn’t
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Yoel and his work on the safety and moderation front as integral to the platform; he’d even tweeted that he intended to launch “a content moderation council, with widely diverse viewpoints to decide on moderation and account reinstatements.” Although Jessica had only texted with Yoel briefly as she’d left the
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British ad company. Robin would want to get Elon out in front of the biggest clients so that he could personally assuage their concerns about content moderation policies, about the personnel changes that were obviously coming, and about his plans for Twitter’s future. “Yes, that,” Kahill said. “But I think he
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alive.” He added that if Twitter was “ruled by dictatorial edict” then there was no need for him at the company. The fact that the “Content Moderation Council” Elon had promised had never materialized was one component of his decision, but it seemed the Blue Check fiasco was Yoel’s final straw
Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley
by Jacob Silverman · 9 Oct 2025 · 312pp · 103,645 words
employees knew what they were doing. Musk took things a step further, arguing that some Twitter employees were acting with malice, especially anyone working on content moderation or trust and safety. These departments work on interlocking, perhaps intractable, problems related to free speech, harassment, privacy, platform manipulation, and disinformation operations. Some of
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different political regimes and cultural contexts. That ambiguity and uncertainty didn’t fit with Musk’s militant vision of a new Twitter, where anything resembling content moderation was immediately consigned away as censorship. It also meant that people who worked in these roles were inherently suspect. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of
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abusers, the more his following grew.17 18 Firing more than half of Twitter employees, Musk transformed how the platform operated. He chiseled away at content moderation, disbanding teams working on trust and safety, and then claimed he was doing more to protect children from sex trafficking and abusive material than the
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, here, here conspiracy and Sam Bankman-Fried here, here, here, here and James Beeks here and the Oath Keepers here and Solano County here, here content moderation, Twitter here, here corporatism here, here Covello, Jim here Covid-19 here, here, here, here Craft Ventures here, here, here, here, here, here, here Crooks
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World
by Max Fisher · 5 Sep 2022 · 439pp · 131,081 words
in status quo financial and ideological models for such radical change. Mostly, they built on the methods they knew best: automated technology and at-scale content moderation. Twitter, for instance, dialed up its “friction,” adding prompts and interstitials (“Want to read the article first?”) to slow users from compulsively sharing posts. It
Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination
by Mark Bergen · 5 Sep 2022 · 642pp · 141,888 words
this type of research widely or simply didn’t conduct it. “YouTube is really opaque,” said Evelyn Douek, a Stanford Law assistant professor who studies content moderation. “It’s much more fun for me to lob stones from the outside. This stuff is hard,” she added. “That doesn’t mean that they
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Speech and Corporate Responsibility Can Coexist Online,” The Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/free-speech-youtube-section-230-censorship-content-moderation-susan-wojcicki-social-media-11627845973. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT he blogged: Neal Mohan, “Perspective: Tackling Misinformation on YouTube,” YouTube Official Blog, August 25
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–8 Arab Spring, 139, 140, 141–43, 145, 149, 164, 213 Argento, Dario, 383 Armstrong, Tim, 73 Arnspiger, Dianna, 334 artificial intelligence and neural networks content moderation with, 233–35, 292–93, 315, 399–400 and DeepMind acquisition by Google, 230–31 detection of red flags, 396 and DistBelief system, 232 and
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, 111, 112 Carrico, Jennifer, 32 car videos, 58, 67, 99–100 CBS television network, 76 censorship, 84, 144, 215–16, 268, 340, 342. See also content moderation channels featured on home-page, 158 funding select, 132–35 Google+ account required to manage, 179 origins of, 127 Charlie Hebdo, 142–43, 144 Charlottesville
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, 367 conspiracy theories, 245–46, 266, 325–29, 345, 346, 366, 375–76 Consumer Electronics Show (2006), 43 content creators. See creators Content ID, 74 content moderation and ads paired with vile content, 286–87 and Arab Spring, 142–43, 145 “artistic” merit exemptions, 143–44 and bad actors, 316 and burying
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and “Borg” references, 179 Brain team at, 231–32 business model of, 6 Chrome browser, 147 conflicts between YouTube and fiefdoms of, 177–78 and content moderation at YouTube, 86, 88 and COVID-19, 375, 377 Creative Lab of, 147, 207–8 culture of, 59, 82 and DeepMind acquisition, 230–31 diversity
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of, 18–20 and board of YouTube, 28 and business model of YouTube, 108 Chen’s departure from YouTube, 90 and comment section, 95 and content moderation, 87 copyright concerns of, 25 creation of YouTube, 15–18 departure from YouTube, 109 emphasis on user experience, 68, 109 and Gillette, 30–31 and
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defense of content, 87 and Finland’s mass shooting, 64 and Ghonim’s imprisonment, 142 and Google’s acquisition of YouTube, 54, 55 guidelines for content moderation, 31–32, 85–86 and move to San Bruno offices, 52 and Viacom lawsuit, 97, 98 and Viacom negotiations, 60–61 and Viacom’s content
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Sherratt, David Spotify, 390, 391 “Spotlight” page of YouTube, 208, 261 SQUAD (Safety, Quality, and User Advocacy), 31–33, 52, 85–88, 319. See also content moderation Stack, Andy, 119, 183, 255, 256, 393 staff meetings, Friday of Google, 81–82, 99, 146 and move to San Bruno offices, 52–53 and
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on WWE, 77 YouTube content/discussions on, 264 Trump, Donald, Jr., 367 Trust and Safety team at YouTube, 291–92, 321, 378, 386. See also content moderation truth of content, assessing, 327–28 T-Series, 353, 372 Tubefilter, 239 Tufekci, Zeynep, 338 Tur, Zoey, 61 Turkey, 84–85 Turner Broadcasting System, 26
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, 287, 289, 295, 300, 329 as CEO of YouTube, 202–4, 210–11 and child-exploitation allegations, 313–14 and conspiracies/untruths, 327–29 and content moderation, 216, 399 and COVID-19, 375 on creators’ importance, 392 at Creator Summit, 289 and Damore memo, 302–3 decisiveness of, 371 and DoubleClick acquisition
Laziness Does Not Exist
by Devon Price · 5 Jan 2021 · 362pp · 87,462 words
, “The Trauma Floor: The Secret Lives of Facebook Moderators in America,” Verge, February 25, 2019, https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona. 9. “APA Stress in America Survey: US at ‘Lowest Point We Can Remember’; Future of Nation Most Commonly Reported Source
Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac · 17 Sep 2024
of ideas for running Twitter more effectively. The second, a bolder statement, outlined why Musk’s plans to earn significant revenue from subscriptions and alter content-moderation policies wouldn’t work, and how his paranoia and instability were damaging the company. As the hours ticked by, he scrounged for whatever snacks remained
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his presentation. Musk listened intently as he explained his ideas for growth, verification of users, and motivating employees. He then sketched out a vision for content moderation that placed decision-making power in the hands of an organization outside of its owner’s direct control. “Newspapers and magazines have editorial independence, meaning
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Valley’s most consequential entrepreneur was buying one of its most iconic companies. How would this end? We had written extensively about social media’s content moderation wars, Twitter’s shortcomings as a business, and Dorsey. We had also covered Musk’s enterprises and his constant boundary pushing. Suddenly, those stories became
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struggled to manage employees, balance budgets, and oversee Twitter’s brittle infrastructure. He was more than willing to let others tackle the thorny issues of content moderation, as he preferred to work on Twitter’s interfaces and technology. He liked convincing people that his pet project could transform their conversations—and, eventually
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team would be left holding the bag. In late October and early November, a gaunt-looking Dorsey videoconferenced into Congress to testify several times about content moderation. Hidden behind a scraggly gray-and-white beard that descended past his chest, Dorsey responded patiently to the senators’ questions about decisions the company had
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coded phrases Trump had used to rile up supporters, like “locked and loaded.” Tweets that contained the phrase would be triaged by the company’s content moderation team within thirty minutes, a rapid response in case they contained specific election-related threats. As the riot unfolded, however, Roth found there was little
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we enable freedom of expression?” Agrawal asked. Before joining Twitter, Sullivan had worked at Facebook and dealt with some of the platform’s most challenging content moderation problems, like child exploitation. He’d also advocated for Facebook to encrypt direct messages, a move that lawmakers disliked because it would allow criminals to
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what they saw as left-wing influence run amok, a progressive ooze that had seeped into the company’s executive functions and affected decisions around content moderation and product development. “Are you going to liberate Twitter from the censorship happy mob?” wrote Joe Rogan. “I will provide advice, which they may
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acquire it,” he said to his interviewer. In his discussions to join the board, Musk had talked with Agrawal about his concerns of free speech, content moderation, and the supposed liberal influence on internal decision-making. At the conference, he ratcheted up that rationale even further, positioning himself as Twitter’s savior
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Department that prevented Twitter from speaking publicly about surveillance requests it received from the U.S. government. Gadde didn’t want Twitter to institute a content moderation system that resembled a surveillance apparatus. Sullivan tried to put it gently—the idea was right, but the implementation was wrong. “With clear published rules
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his career at Twitter, Coleman had been responsible for boosting the platform’s stalling user growth. But in recent years, he had begun experimenting with content moderation products. Inspired by Wikipedia, which allowed anonymous internet users to write and edit its corpus of encyclopedia entries, Coleman had dreamed up a similar system
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, Gracias never contacted Twitter’s CFO. * * * >>> Even with the launch of Project Saturn imminent, Gadde was skeptical. She was the primary architect of Twitter’s content moderation policies and had seen firsthand how much work was required to implement a functional rulebook. Every day, Twitter users found creative ways to test the
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focus on issues outside the U.S. She wanted Musk to understand that Twitter was a global service. While news outlets tended to focus on content moderation issues in the United States, there were far greater and immediate concerns about authoritarian governments abroad, and Musk’s business relationships presented a number of
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machines. Lines formed in front of the shredders as the muscled security detail watched over them like hawks. * * * >>> Roth, the highest-ranking employee responsible for content moderation after Gadde’s departure, assumed he was on the chopping block. But when Musk summoned Roth to meet him in one of the office kitchens
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they would operate under Musk. There were in-house lawyers, public policy executives who kept the company in compliance with regulations around the world, and content moderation specialists who developed Twitter’s rules. He offered a quick reassurance that he was not at Twitter to disrupt anything that was already working well
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year on the social network. Gracias provided little guidance, simply telling them to keep “exceptional” performers. Another executive also wondered about Musk’s plans for content moderation. What should we tell advertisers about how we plan to deal with divisive or hateful content, she asked. Gracias thought for a second and then
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were equally puzzled by their spontaneous introduction to the Musk circle. Musk said the right things to advertisers and committed to a vision of continued content moderation. But Maheu also noticed a strange dynamic developing. Even though they were skittish, the ad agency leaders didn’t challenge Musk but rather wanted
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house burn down, marveling at how many neighbors were rubbernecking. While the marketing leaders were deferential, they also peppered Musk with their concerns, asking about content moderation, product plans, and the billionaire’s late-night tweeting habit. He tried to address them all, promising the company would make no major content decisions
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the executive leadership gone, Musk began shaping the Twitter platform in his own image that Friday. In October, he had promised he would form a “content moderation council” to oversee major content decisions and account reinstatements when he bought the company. But after he threatened his “thermonuclear name & shame,” Musk saw
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the social network he partly owned and staffed with his former political allies, saying he would not go back to Twitter. Musk tasked Irwin, the content moderation head who had replaced Roth, with starting the conversation with Trump’s handlers. A corporate veteran whose two decades of experience involved managing abuse and
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30 percent cut of any purchases made on iPhone apps. But cracks were developing in the relationship. The company was concerned about the direction of content moderation under Musk and had followed other brands in significantly reducing their advertising spend on Twitter. It was also worried about reports that Twitter was exploring
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representative from California who had supported Trump’s claims of voter fraud in 2020 to lead the House. Musk also leaned on Twitter’s remaining content moderation team in the aftermath of the Brazilian election, second-guessing its employees when they took down tweets questioning the defeat of Bolsonaro. After Lula da
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, and sending payments. The next people to appease were X’s public constituents, which included the advocacy groups that had objected to Musk’s lax content moderation and pressured advertisers to abandon the platform immediately after his takeover. Among them were the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, two groups
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, the director of the ADL, was another matter. Musk had begun speaking with Greenblatt before his acquisition closed, after Greenblatt publicly criticized his views on content moderation. The men maintained a friendly rapport, chatting as Musk took over Twitter and Greenblatt encouraged advertisers to stop spending on the platform. Once he had
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that morning, Yaccarino received word that the conference had booked a last-minute guest and scheduled his interview just before her own: Yoel Roth, the content moderation executive who Musk had driven from his home. Yaccarino was deeply shaken. She felt like the technology journalists who Musk hated were seizing the opportunity
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Safety Staff but Says It Won’t Impact Moderation.” The Verge, November 5, 2022. theverge.com/2022/11/4/23441404/twitter-trust-safety-staff-layoffs-content-moderation. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT projected it would reach $10 billion by 2028: Isaac, Mike, and Ryan Mac. “Elon Musk, under Financial Pressure,
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, 281, 291, 292 on Twitter under Musk, 271, 281, 291–92, 297, 301, 313, 320, 345, 350, 364, 406–8 for Apple, 365, 366, 425 content moderation and, 275, 282, 288, 289–91, 302, 320, 338, 339, 357, 365, 366, 418, 419, 425–29 imposter accounts and, 338, 339 meetings with advertisers
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, 87–88, 90–91, 220–21, 433, 435 bots and spam accounts and, 182–83, 190–92, 225 in coffee meet-and-greets, 219–20 content moderation and, 91–93 Saturn project, 93, 146–48, 172–75, 206, 208, 220–22, 229, 245, 276 cost-cutting plans of, 97–98, 101, 142
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, 296–98, 313, 317, 335, 378 Caldwell, Nick, 271, 344 Capital Cities, 156 Cardaci, Chris, 374 Carlson, Tucker, 404–6, 424 Catturd2, 390 censorship, see content moderation; freedom of speech Center for Countering Digital Hate, 392 Cernovich, Mike, 104 Chappelle, Dave, 375 Charles Schwab, 284 Chase Center, 171–72, 344, 375 Chen
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Great Replacement Theory, 424 Pizzagate, 25, 104, 390, 426 QAnon, 25, 391, 392, 433 about September 11 attacks, 433 Constitution, U.S., 275, 282, 363 content moderation, 4–6, 13, 15, 146, 206, 435 activist groups and, 294, 320, 392 Digital Services Act and, 244 at Facebook, 92 at Twitter, see Twitter
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, content moderation at; Twitter under Elon Musk, content moderation at see also misinformation and disinformation Conway, Kellyanne, 65–66 Cook, Tim, 366, 420 Costolo, Dick, 11, 17, 20–21, 42, 149
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, 174, 221, 433, 435 Cohn and Elliott Management and, 49–57, 77, 78, 94–95, 106, 120, 150 congressional testimonies of, 57, 58, 59–60 content moderation and, 15, 43, 57, 59–60, 62, 64–75, 91–92 child sexual exploitation material and, 372 early life of, 12 Ferguson protests and, 18
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, 201, 234, 244–45, 250, 275, 276, 282, 294, 320, 354, 363, 372, 378, 379, 382, 392, 400–401, 409, 418, 435–36 see also content moderation Friedman, Milton, 214 Frohnhoefer, Eric, 346–48, 350 FTX, 105, 136, 175, 176, 179 Fuentes, Nick, 392, 419, 425 G Gabbard, Tulsi, 321 Gadde, Vijaya
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, 61–64, 68–69, 91, 110, 114, 222, 391 about elections, 70, 257, 275, 276, 283, 307, 317–19, 338–39, 390, 405 see also content moderation Mittal, Lakshmi, 381 Modi, Narendra, 208, 400–401 Mohammed bin Salman, 234 Montano, Mike, 84, 94 Morgan Stanley, 102, 106, 121, 125, 137, 143–45
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, 119, 151, 175, 413, 433–34, 436 activist groups and, 294, 392 Bluesky, 87–88, 90–91, 106, 174, 220–21, 413, 433, 435 content moderation on, see content moderation decentralized, 87, 89–90, 221 Facebook, see Facebook global regulations for, 323 Mastodon, 320, 378, 382–83, 433 Nostr, 382, 433 Threads, 413–14
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control terms and exit packages in, 235, 259, 263, 264, 271 completion of, 236–37, 239, 247, 250–54, 256–59, 262–63, 266, 395 content moderation and, 104, 115, 125–27, 133, 134, 148, 164, 169–72, 206, 222, 249–50 Dorsey and, 123, 142, 143, 163–67, 168–69, 232
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accounts promoting competitors, 382–83 advertising on, 271, 281, 291–92, 297, 301, 313, 320, 345, 350, 364, 406–8 for Apple, 365, 366, 425 content moderation and, 275, 282, 288, 289–91, 302, 320, 338, 339, 357, 365, 366, 418, 419 imposter accounts and, 338, 339 meetings with advertisers, 289–92
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, 335, 363, 370, 376, 388, 415 code freeze at, 7, 256–57, 345–46 code reviews at, 272–73 conservative voices elevated on, 391–93 content moderation at, 3–4, 275–76, 334, 341, 342, 354 advertisers and, 275, 282, 288, 289–91, 302, 320, 338, 339, 357, 365, 366, 418, 419
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