<
https://theconversation.com/let-the-community-work-it-out-throwback-to-early-internet-days-could-fix-social-medias-crisis-of-legitimacy-213209>
"In the 2018 documentary “The Cleaners,” a young man in Manila, Philippines,
explains his work as a content moderator: “We see the pictures on the screen.
You then go through the pictures and delete those that don’t meet the
guidelines. The daily quota of pictures is 25,000.” As he speaks, his mouse
clicks, deleting offending images while allowing others to remain online.
The man in Manila is one of thousands of content moderators hired as
contractors by social media platforms – 10,000 at Google alone. Content
moderation on an industrial scale like this is part of the everyday experience
for users of social media. Occasionally a post someone makes is removed, or a
post someone thinks is offensive is allowed to go viral.
Similarly, platforms add and remove features without input from the people who
are most affected by those decisions. Whether you are outraged or unperturbed,
most people don’t think much about the history of a system in which people in
conference rooms in Silicon Valley and Manila determine your experiences
online.
But why should a few companies – or a few billionaire owners – have the power
to decide everything about online spaces that billions of people use? This
unaccountable model of governance has led stakeholders of all stripes to
criticize platforms’ decisions as arbitrary, corrupt or irresponsible. In the
early, pre-web days of the social internet, decisions about the spaces people
gathered in online were often made by members of the community. Our examination
of the early history of online governance suggests that social media platforms
could return – at least in part – to models of community governance in order to
address their crisis of legitimacy."
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
