Through their clandestine moderation programs, their ability to unilaterally proscribe certain opinions and topics, their susceptibility to mob actions aimed at silencing those with controversial views, and, now, their ability to manufacture speech, social media platforms provide powerful tools for the establishment and enforcement of cultural and

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Effectively moderating a social computing system isn’t just the right thing to do from an ethical standpoint — it’s in a platform’s best interest. Moderation shapes the platform: as a tool, as an institution for discussion, and as a cultural phenomenon.

You cannot fix social media by having a non-profit run it or by guiding it with some ethical principles (which at any rate means absolutely nothing without accountability to people). There is simply no universal ranking of content acceptability — there are in fact likely as many different rankings as there are people — and even if there were there ... See more