https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1013-8041
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ABSTRACT
Since 2016, news outlets across the political spectrum have increased coverage of social media content moderation and given the term “deplatforming” unprecedented mainstream prominence. This discourse has emphasized individual deplatforming; the process by which an individual’s account on a platform is suspended, disallowing their access to the platform’s user base and services. However, this individual emphasis draws attention away from community deplatforming, which is of primary significance. Deplatforming functions as active moderation. Beyond individual deplatforming, we must recognize incremental deplatforming – cumulatively affecting entire communities over a span of time – and implosive deplatforming – instantaneously erasing entire platforms, websites, and services.
Disclosure statement
The author does not claim any conflicting interests.
Notes
1. SPL Center staff, “The Alt-Right is Killing People.”
2. Daniels, “The Algorithmic Rise of the ‘Alt-Right’.”
3. Gitelman, Raw Data is an Oxymoron.
4. Citron and Franks, “The Internet as a Speech Machine and Other Myths Confounding Section 230 Reform,” 45.
5. Douek, “Governing Online Speech.”
6. Singh, “Everything in Moderation;” Douek, “What Kind of Oversight Board Have You Given Us?”
7. Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet; Roberts, Behind the Screen.
8. Ali, Saeed, Aldreabi, Blackburn, De Cristofaro, Zannettou, and Stringhini, “Understanding the Effect of Deplatforming on Social Networks; Pohjonen and Udupa, “Extreme Speech Online;” Rogers, “Deplatforming.”
9. Chandrasekharan, Pavalanathan, Srinivasan, Glynn, Eisenstein, and Gilbert, “You Can’t Stay Here.”
10. Jardine, “Online Content Moderation and the Dark Web.”
11. Mutz, Hearing the Other Side; Lin and Kim, “Learning from Disagreement on Social Media,” 1.
12. Lu and Lee, “Determinants of Cross-Cutting Discussion on Facebook;” Neubaum, Cargnino and Maleszka, “How Facebook Users Experience Political Disagreements and Make Decisions about the Political Homogenization of their Online Network.”
13. Asenas and Hubble, “Trolling Free Speech Rallies.”
14. Yang, Barnidge, and Rojas, “The Politics of ‘Unfriending;’” Hameleers and Van der Meer, “Misinformation and Polarization in a High-Choice Media Environment;” Bode and Vraga, “In Related News, That Was Wrong.”
15. Sen, Desenvolvimento como liberdade; Pfister and Yang, “Five Theses on Technoliberalism and the Networked Public Sphere;” Tenove, Buffie, Mckay, and Moscrop, “Digital Threats to Democratic Elections.”
16. Rohm, Valuano and Xavier, “The Role of Digital Activism within Social Movements to Foster Democratization in the Global South,” 34.
17. Brown, “Free Speech and the Legal Prohibition of Fake News,” 30.
18. Meiklejohn, “The First Amendment Is an Absolute,” 255.
19. Brown, “Free Speech and the Legal Prohibition of Fake News,” 42.
20. Shiffrin, Speech Matters, 86; Mcfarlane, “Beyond the Hate Speech Law Debate,” 167.
21. Kaye, Speech Police.
22. Gorwa, “The Platform Governance Triangle;” Gorwa, “What is Platform Governance?”
23. Gorwa, “Elections, Institutions, and the Regulatory Politics of Platform Governance.”
24. Bannerman and Haggart, “Historical Institutionalism in Communication Studies.”
25. Gorwa, “Elections, Institutions, and the Regulatory Politics of Platform Governance,” 11.
26. Rosenfeld, “Hate Speech in Constitutional Jurisprudence,” 1523.
27. Mosseri, “Introducing New Ways to Protect Our Community from Abuse.”
28. Alan Turing Institute staff, “Detecting East Asian Prejudice on Social Media;” European Commission, “Tackling Illegal Content Online.”
29. Farrell and Newman, “Making Global Markets.”
30. Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport staff, “Full Government Response to the Consultation.”
31. Gorwa, “Elections, Institutions, and the Regulatory Politics of Platform Governance.”
32. Coe, “The Draft Online Safety Bill and the Regulation of Hate Speech,” 51.
33. Flew and Wilding, “The Turn to Regulation in Digital Communication.”
34. Kang and McCabe, “House Lawmakers Are Considering 6 Bills Aimed at Big Tech;” Morar and Martins dos Santos, “The Push for Content Moderation Legislation Around the World.”
35. Congressional Digest staff, “What Congress is Doing on Content Moderation.”
36. Mathiesen, “Fake News and the Limits of Freedom of Speech.”
37. Congressional Digest staff, “What Congress is Doing on Content Moderation.”
38. Donovan, “Navigating the Tech Stack.”
39. Robertson, “Neo-Nazi Site Moves to Dark Web after GoDaddy and Google Bans;” Koebler, “Deplatforming Works;” Lorenz, “The Pittsburgh Suspect Lived in the Web’s Darkest Corners;” Liptak, “Two More Platforms Have Suspended Gab in the Wake of Pittsburgh Shooting;” Romano, “Neo-Nazi Site Daily Stormer Resurfaces with Russian Domain Following Google and GoDaddy Bans;” O’Connor, “Google Drops Alt-Right Favorite Gab from Play Store as Internet Hate Speech Purge Continues;” Terdiman, “After Charlottesville, PayPal Says It Won’t Do Business with Hate Groups.”
40. Benkler, Faris, and Roberts, Network Propaganda.
41. European Commission, “Tackling Illegal Content Online.”
42. Ibid.
43. Andrews, Facebook, the Media and Democracy.
44. Coe, “The Draft Online Safety Bill and the Regulation of Hate Speech,” 62.
45. Pohjonen and Udupa, “Extreme Speech Online;” Mulhall, “Deplatforming Works.”
46. Benjamin, Race after Technology.
47. Cohen, “Exploring Echo-Systems.”
48. Mathiesen, “Fake News and the Limits of Freedom of Speech.”
49. Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet, 21.
50. Douek, “Governing Online Speech;” Klonick, “The New Governors.”
51. Waldman, “Disorderly Content,” 910.
52. Ibid.
53. Brown, “Free Speech and the Legal Prohibition of Fake News,” 52.
54. Edwards, Jackson, Chalmers, Bowker, Borgman, Ribes, Burton, and Calvert, “Knowledge Infrastructures.”
55. Ott, “The Age of Twitter.”
56. Twitter staff, “Permanent Suspension of @realDonaldTrump.”
57. It must be noted here that content moderation on Twitter changed significantly after the platform’s purchase by Elon Musk – and subsequent rebranding as “X” – in October 2022, as marked by the reinstatement of many alt-right accounts previously deplatformed for hate speech and inciting violence.
58. Asenas and Hubble, “Trolling Free Speech Rallies,” 42.
59. Donovan, Lewis, and Friedberg, “Parallel Ports,” 54–55.
60. Waldman, “Disorderly Content,” 916.
61. Ibid., 922.
62. Roberts, “Digital Detritus.”
63. Penney, “Internet Surveillance, Regulation, and Chilling Effects Online.”
64. Dworkin, “A New Map of Censorship,” viii.
65. Waldron, “Hate Speech and Political Legitimacy.”
66. Myers West, “Censored, Suspended, Shadowbanned.”
67. Alterman, What Liberal Media?
68. Tsioulcas, “Youtube, Apple and Facebook Ban Infowars, Which Decries ‘Mega Purge’.”
69. Romm, “Senate Republicans Renew their Claims that Facebook, Google and Twitter Censor Conservatives.”
70. Selk, “How ‘Deplatforming’ Became a Rallying Cry for Right-Wing Media Stars.”
71. Bromwich, “Everyone Is Cancelled;” McDermott, “Those People We Tried to Cancel?;” Coates, “The Cancellation of Colin Kaepernick.”
72. Rogers, “Deplatforming,” 226.
73. Engels, “The Politics of Resentment and the Tyranny of the Minority,” 306.
74. Ibid., 304.
75. Laclau, On populist reason.
76. Laclau, Emancipation(s).
77. Farkas and Schou, “Fake News as a Floating Signifier,” 300.
78. Swanson, “Deplatforming and Disinformation Will Degrade Our Democracy.”
79. Neiwert, Alt-America.
80. Rauchfleisch and Kaiser, “Deplatforming the Far-Right.”
81. Trujillo, Gruppi, Buntain, and Horne, “What is Bitchute?”
82. Donovan, Lewis, and Friedberg, “Parallel Ports.”
83. boyd, “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics,” 46.
84. Ibid., 57.
85. Rauchfleisch and Kaiser, “Deplatforming the Far-Right,” 8.
86. Pearce, “Squeezed Out by Silicon Valley, the Far Right is Creating Its Own Corporate World.”
87. Silverman, “What’s the Best Way to Keep Incendiary, Violent Content Offline?;” Weill, “The Alt-Right Outlives the Trolls Who Created It.”
88. Donovan, Lewis, and Friedberg, “Parallel Ports,” 50.
89. Ibid., 53.
90. Ibid., 54.
91. Martineau, “Facebook Bans Alex Jones, Other Extremists – But Not as Planned;” Rogers, “Deplatforming.”
92. Trujillo, Gruppi, Buntain, and Horne, “What is Bitchute?;” Zhou, Dredze, Broniatowski, and Adler, “Elites and Foreign Actors among the Alt-Right;” Rogers, “Deplatforming;” Ibid., 218.
93. Coaston, “Gab, the Social Media Platform Favored by the Alleged Pittsburgh Shooter, Explained;” Zannettou, Bradlyn, De Cristofaro, Kwak, Sirivianos, Stringhini, and Blackburn, “What is Gab?”
94. Ingram, “First It Was Milo and Alex Jones, Now Platforms Are Being De-platformed.”
95. Rogers, “Deplatforming,” 215.
96. Ibid., 219.
97. Donovan, “After the #Keyword.”
98. Blackburn, Gehl, and Etudo, “Does ‘Deplatforming’ Work to Curb Hate Speech and Calls for Violence?”
99. Donovan, Lewis, and Friedberg, “Parallel Ports,” 55.
100. Sovryn, “Gab.”
101. Donovan, Lewis, and Friedberg, “Parallel Ports,” 59.
102. Lee, “Google Explains Why It Banned the App For Gab, a Right-Wing Twitter Rival.”
103. Lupu, Sear, Velásquez, Leahy, Restrepo, Goldberg, and Johnson, “Offline events and online hate,” 9–10.
104. Ibid., 10.
105. Rauchfleisch and Kaiser, “Deplatforming the Far-right.” 23.
106. Ibid.
107. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
108. Donovan, Lewis, and Friedberg, ”Parallel Ports.” 50-51.
109. Marwick and Lewis, “Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online.”
110. De Kosnik, Rogue Archives.
111. Trouillot, Silencing the Past.