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Against 'Content Moderation' And The Concentration Of Power

from the power-and-moderation dept

Content moderation frameworks and toothless oversight boards legitimize the concentration of power in the hands of infrastructure providers and platforms. This gives them, and not democratic processes and structures, the discretion to egregiously shape the public debate.

In 1964 Marshall McLuhan wrote that content is a “juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind” (McLuhan 2013). I will argue that today this is more true than ever. If we want to solve the issue of human rights violating content, we will need to look at the structures that allow for the production of it. Therefore, I will argue that “content” is a false category, and that infrastructure is often misunderstood as a largely material object whereas it is a complex assemblage of people, practices, institutions, cultures, and devices. To address the false premises on which the concept of “infrastructural content moderation” is based, I propose an analytical framework that does not separate the context from the content but rather offers an integrative approach to address online discourse production. 

Aristotle famously wrote that there is no matter without form and no form without matter. Similarly, Bergson said that color does not exist as an abstract category, but only as a quality of a substance. The same holds true for content on the Internet. A Facebook post is something different than a post on Tiktok, a blog post, a tweet, or a YouTube comment. One understands these messages differently. Just like one understands a sentence spoken in a comic club differently than one spoken in parliament, and a sentence uttered in a forest is different from one in a theater.

It has taken centuries for legal and social rules for public and private spaces to develop. The Internet is a relatively new space that practically is largely private, but feels like the world's largest public space. It will take time for rules to sediment for this space. In the development of new rules, one should commence the interrogation of different possibilities with a simple question: Cui bono? Who profits? 

Julie Cohen describes in her book ‘Between Truth and Power’ that the shift in the image from the Internet as an “electronic superhighway” to a “cloud” should by no means be taken lightly. At least a highway has rules, a cloud has none. In the image that the Internet infrastructure industry has shown us, the Internet infrastructure is a given. A modular space on which things can be built, a neutral platform for economic growth and development, that would only suffer from regulation. 

But Keller Easterling explains that “infrastructure sets the invisible rules that govern the spaces of our everyday lives” and that “changes to the globalising world are being written, not in the language of law and diplomacy, but rather in the language of infrastructure.” She describes the practice of the development, implementation, and operation of these infrastructures as “extrastatecraft,” because these powers used to belong to nation states, but are now taken up by transnational corporations. 

The development, standardization, and implementation of Internet infrastructure is inherently political. Janet Abbate particularly says that: ‘the debate over network protocols illustrates how standards can be politics by other means. Denardis’ 2014 book ‘Protocol politics’ furthers the work by Abbate and showcases how “debates over protocols bring[ing] to light unspoken conflicts of interest.” Whereas the work of DeNardis focuses mostly on Internet protocols, she does emphasize that “politics are not external to technical architecture.”

When one looks at the infrastructure that undergirds the exchange of discourse, we should not see it as a neutral foundation for platforms and services, but rather as a shaping force that has both direct and indirect power. This shaping power is what sets the rules for everything that happens on top of it, which is more influential than the haphazard removal of a particular user or group. This shaping power is deeply entrenched in the standardization and governance bodies where the Internet infrastructure is produced. 

Upon interrogation of these standards and governance bodies, one cannot help but notice, as the research by Corinne Cath-Speth shows, that the bodies can be characterized by a laissez-faire approach to technology development and defy any strong accountability measures. This culture is characterized by a libertarian, American, masculine approach that values individualism. It is exactly these qualities that perpetuate the idea that regulation will “break the Internet” and that individual choice and responsibility is the only way forward for the Internet infrastructure. 

This attitude is deeply ironic because for the first half of its existence the Internet was heavily funded by states, and the second half has been characterized by oligopolies. However, this sense of individual engineering pride keeps the status quo intact, which means a continuous exclusion of those who do not want to succumb to this culture, mostly women, people of color, and those from outside of Europe and the United States. This in turn strengthens a network topology that reinforces power structures of dominance and extraction based in the United States and Europe. Submarine cables now cover the whole world, but network traffic still largely centers in Europe and the United States, maps that very much resemble those of colonial trade routes. 

The Internet infrastructure and its standardization and governance regime exist to increase interconnection between transnational corporations, largely based in the United States and Europe. Expanding the data flows to and through these networks is what these networks and their governance is optimized for. This has transformed the Internet from a medium of connection to a medium of extraction. Solely focusing on the outgrowths of this culture and regime by focusing on content moderation would be naive at best, and legitimizing an extractive practice at worst. 

Reflections on the practice of content moderation should not solely focus on the content that should, or should not be, moderated, but rather on the structures that incentivize and perpetuate such speech. It is the responsibility of communication infrastructure providers to meaningfully engage with the human rights impact of their actions, and their chain responsibility. Thus far, hardly any Internet infrastructure provider has done so sufficiently. The industry’s lack of meaningful adoption and integration of the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights reminisce of the tobacco industry’s opposition against health codes, and their lobbying budgets reflect the same fear for regulation. 

Civil society should not be afraid to present strong alternative network ideologies that rely on free association and self-determination by end users. The priority of the networking and content provision industry should be to address problems of inequity and inequality, not to extract more private data to be sold to advertising and surveillance companies (which are anyhow based on flawed premises). The Internet is the public square of the world, we should better reimagine it as one. This means that the strongest actors should live up to their responsibilities, and not seek to wait for civil society to organize themselves and demand accountability, and fix their problems. Here we can only refer back to Spiderman: with great power, comes great responsibility. It is high time that the Internet infrastructure sector lives up to that.

Niels ten Oever is a postdoctoral researcher with the ‘Making the hidden visible project at the Media Studies department at the University of Amsterdam.

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Filed Under: content moderation, power


Reader Comments

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  1. icon
    Ceyarrecks (profile), 1 Oct 2021 @ 12:36pm

    Not Compatible!? Really?

    per remo.co's statement:

    Hey there, your camera, microphone, and screen-sharing may not work with Remo!

    Why? Because your web browser and/or computer operating system are older or not supported and, therefore, not compatible with Remo.

    Consider the unmentioned possibility that: perhaps I choose to withhold those attributes that have NOTHING to do with /Listening to/ nor /Watching/ web-based content.

    Interesting presumption of web-providers of visitors where EVERYTHING must. be. enabled. regardless. of. if. it. is. needed. or. not. or no access for ju!

    Since I see no reason to enable to aforementioned facilities to merely Listen or Watch, -1 attendee.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2021 @ 1:20pm

    This gives them, and not democratic processes and structures, the discretion to egregiously shape the public debate.

    Whereas in the days of yore, new1spapers, radio stations, and T.V. programs shaped the public debate, alongside political parties, and they still have there influence on public debate. To a large extent those complaining about platforms shaping the public debate are really complaining that they are not able to shape it as they want.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Mike Masnick (profile), 1 Oct 2021 @ 1:55pm

    Re: Not Compatible!? Really?

    Hey, sorry about that -- but the event is designed to be interactive/workshop/discussion based, so it really does require being able to see/talk with others.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    danderbandit (profile), 1 Oct 2021 @ 2:54pm

    This culture is characterized by a libertarian, American, masculine approach that values individualism. It is exactly these qualities that perpetuate the idea that regulation will “break the Internet” and that individual choice and responsibility is the only way forward for the Internet infrastructure.

    This attitude is deeply ironic because for the first half of its existence the Internet was heavily funded by states, and the second half has been characterized by oligopolies. However, this sense of individual engineering pride keeps the status quo intact, which means a continuous exclusion of those who do not want to succumb to this culture, mostly women, people of color, and those from outside of Europe and the United States.

    Yes, the early development of the Internet was government funded but it was also an open protocol with little government regulation. I'm certainly no expert, with a not-great memory, but didn't the 'founder' of the internet Tim Berners-Lee talk about an ability for anybody to talk to anybody? It would seem that the regulation that is discussed here would harm that.

    As a world wide enterprise regulation would certainly have the ability to 'break the internet'. At least as we have come to know to this point. Agreed that there are a lot of problems with at times the lowest common denominator seeming to control the discourse. But having different countries impose their own rules would definitely be worse and fragment the 'world wide web'.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    ECA (profile), 1 Oct 2021 @ 3:31pm

    Advancement of archetecture.

    In the long run, its Who is developing what.
    And if you want political, its Who dont know Squat.
    Its funny that Some persons dont understand that a 25+ yo computer can do most of what a business needs/wants. You dont need this or that or the other thing. But if you Want it NEW, you have to pay up. And get things you really dont want or need.
    The internet is the same way. YOU CAN, wonder around in TXT format only, if you can figure things out. And its really funny how it looks, but you get to see things YOU DONT with HTML covering up everything.
    Everything out there, is based on WHO controls. The Internet corps like to Update and improve and give MORE options, as with the Old chat programs that were TXT only, then added Voice, then Video. Even tho most people Didnt have Any speed fastert hen 56k.
    Then we get the corps, demanding this and that, and Trying to get more $$, because they cant be creative and build their own. And are worse then a 2 year old looking for instant satisfaction, and not looking at how long it took others to get Any hold on the internet.
    Then we get the Gov. who have no minds at all. And those that do, cant say anything cause you have Nay saiers belittling them. And the backing they have to tell them WHAT to do tends to be corp(ISP, TV, CABLE,others) backed. As well as the Big shopping corps, that Now have to compete with direct to China.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2021 @ 4:45pm

    This culture is characterized by a libertarian, American, masculine approach that values individualism.

    Or as is common with engineers, a refusal to tell other people how to live. Also while robust debate occurs, it is actually a highly co-operative culture, rather than the individualistic cultures of say Apple and Microsoft.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2021 @ 7:08pm

    Re:

    Berners-Lee developed the web, not the internet. (html, http, a browser)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    sumgai (profile), 1 Oct 2021 @ 8:14pm

    I'm sorry to have to say that there are so many inaccuracies in this article that I'm not at all going to even try to rebut them.

    Yet another "the world should do it my way, waaah, waaaah" article. This is getting embarrassing.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2021 @ 1:44am

    Re:

    None of those had the power to control people's speech.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2021 @ 4:48am

    Re: Re:

    They were the only routes to a larger audience in a timely fashion, and so shaped the public debate. Even with moderation, social media allows a wider public debate than was possible before the Internet.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2021 @ 4:39pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    No one owed anyone a platform then, and they still don't.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. icon
    nasch (profile), 3 Oct 2021 @ 8:44am

    Unsupported

    Lots of conclusory statements, but no references to any supporting material at all. So we are left to either take the author's word for it or not, that, for example, "this culture is characterized by a libertarian, American, masculine approach that values individualism." And while he never gets around to actually proposing any policy initiatives, the general gist that internet governance should be taken out of the hands of international standards bodies and given to national governments instead is not encouraging.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. icon
    Toom1275 (profile), 3 Oct 2021 @ 11:32am

    Who let trolls post articles?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. icon
    thegamingguider (profile), 14 Dec 2021 @ 11:43pm

    gaming guide

    link to this | view in thread ]


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