Does Deplatforming Work?

Klinenberg, Danny

doi:10.1177/00220027231188909

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…These takedowns have since led many extremist and terrorist movements to smaller platforms, which although is not ideal is a tradeoff considering there is less exposure to the broader public. As Danny Klinenberg's research looking at the migration of far-right extremists to Bitchute, "deplatforming works in decreasing a content creator's overall views and revenue" after they have been taken off of YouTube (Klinenberg, 2023). Similarly, Richard Rogers shows when exploring "canceled extreme celebrities" that moving to the encrypted application Telegram "does not substitute" for the prior audience on mainstream platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and/or YouTube due to "audiences on the new platforms hav[ing] thinned."…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“Highly nuanced policy is very difficult to apply at scale”: Examining researcher account and content takedowns online

Zelin

2023

Policy & Internet

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Since 2019, researchers examining, archiving, and collecting extremist and terrorist materials online have increasingly been taken offline. In part a consequence of the automation of content moderation by different technology companies and national governments calling for ever quicker takedowns. Based on an online survey of peers in the field, this research highlights that up to 60% of researchers surveyed have had either their accounts or content they have posted or stored online taken down from varying platforms. Beyond the quantitative data, this research also garnered qualitative answers about concerns individuals in the field had related to this problem set, namely, the lack of transparency on the part of the technology companies, hindering actual research and understanding of complicated and evolving issues related to different extremist and terrorist phenomena, undermining potential collaboration within the research field, and the potential of self‐censorship online. An easy solution to this would be a whitelist, though there are inherent downsides related to this as well, especially between researchers at different levels in their careers, institutional affiliation or lack thereof, and inequalities between researchers from the West versus Global South. Either way, securitizing research in however form it evolves in the future will fundamentally hurt research.

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Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“Highly nuanced policy is very difficult to apply at scale”: Examining researcher account and content takedowns online

Zelin

2023

Policy & Internet

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“…One popular tool to counter extremists' use of online platforms to propagandize and recruit followers has been to ban or deplatform particularly prominent and hateful accounts (Thomas and Wahedi 2023). These bans often have the unintended consequences of pushing extremists (and their followers) to various fringe platforms where they can be less easily monitored by both policy-makers and researchers and, on which, users are exposed to more and more extreme content (Horta Ribeiro et al 2023;Klinenberg 2023;Mitts 2021). For example, in response to deplatforming efforts by Twitter, many on the "alt-right," including various white nationalist leaders, created new accounts on sites like Gab (Jasser et al 2023;Mitts 2021) or Telegram (Urman and Katz 2022).…”

Section: Extremist Leaders' Use Of Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Gateways to White Nationalism: Leaders’ Strategic Online Rhetoric and Follower Engagement

Wayne,

Ying

2023

Preprint

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White nationalist extremism is an increasingly dangerous global security threat. However, how white nationalist leaders deploy their ideological rhetoric online to maintain and expand their base of support is not well understood. Using a novel dataset of 16,627,018 Twitter and Gab posts from 2016-2021 by 64 U.S. white nationalist leaders and 11,303 follower accounts, we examine leaders' promulgation of white nationalist ideology on social media and its effects on follower rhetoric and engagement. We find that when leaders highlight specific issues, their followers become significantly more likely to post similar content over the next several days. Moreover, gendered rhetoric by white nationalist leaders is a powerful `gateway appeal,' even more-so than partisanship, attracting primarily peripheral followers and leading users to subsequently post more racialized content themselves. These results provide insight into how white nationalist leaders market their extremist ideology, with important implications for understanding and disrupting patterns of online radicalization.

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“…Due to its ease of scalability and broad applicability, the use of AI in platform management has gained prominence. This has led to widespread debates about the use of deplatforming as a response by social media companies as the default tool for repeated or severe violations of terms of service (Gunton, 2022;Jhaver et al, 2021;Klinenberg, 2022). Content moderation practices and developments have predominantly focused on technological solutions, given the vast scale of content and interactions that need to be monitored, and the relentlessness of violations (Gillespie, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moderating manipulation: Demystifying extremist tactics for gaming the (regulatory) system

Mattheis,

Kingdon

2023

Policy & Internet

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Due to its ease of scalability and broad applicability, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in platform management has gained prominence. This has led to widespread debates about the use of deplatforming as the default tool for repeated or severe violations of terms or service. But technologically deterministic approaches are not infallible and can be predictable based on their actions. This opens the door for manipulation of media content and technological affordances to become tactical options for actors seeking to subvert regulation. Existing discussions often neglect the topic of manipulation of content, algorithms, or platform affordances as a primary aspect of the strategies used by extremists in relation to the difficulties of moderation from a policy perspective. This study argues that it is essential to understand how extremists and conspiracy theorists use manipulation tactics to ‘game’ the current policy, regulatory and legislative systems of content moderation. Developing approaches that attend to manipulation as a strategy and focus on platform and context‐specific tactics will generate more effective policies, platform rules, AI developments and moderation procedures. This study analyses and demystifies three primary tactics, which the authors categorize as numerology, borderlands and merchandising, regularly used by extremists online in their strategies to ‘game’ content moderation. We provide case examples from a variety of ideologies including far‐right, QAnon and male supremacism to highlight the tactics rather than ideological nature of such manipulation. We conclude with a discussion of how demystification processes could be incorporated into content moderation settings. This study contributes new insights about evasion tactics to the content moderation discussion and expands current understanding of how platforms can develop sociotechnical remedial measures.

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Does Deplatforming Work?

Cited by 5 publications

References 35 publications

“Highly nuanced policy is very difficult to apply at scale”: Examining researcher account and content takedowns online

“Highly nuanced policy is very difficult to apply at scale”: Examining researcher account and content takedowns online

Gateways to White Nationalism: Leaders’ Strategic Online Rhetoric and Follower Engagement

Moderating manipulation: Demystifying extremist tactics for gaming the (regulatory) system

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