Why Uncensored Social Media Platforms, Acquired by Censored Ones, Did Not Rebel

CURRENT RANK: LOWLY SERF

To the Magnificent Social Machiavellian:

CHAPTER 4: WHY UNCENSORED SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS, ACQUIRED BY CENSORED ONES, DID NOT REBEL AGAINST THE CONTENT MODERATION POLICIES OF THE CENSORED PLATFORMS AFTER THEIR ACQUISITION

Considering the difficulties which social media companies have had to hold to a newly acquired platform, some might wonder how, seeing that uncensored forums such as 4chan rapidly amassed large followings in a few months. It faced immediate challenges whilst it was scarcely settled, whence it might appear reasonable that the whole user base would have rebelled against imposed censorship. Nevertheless, the major social media companies were able to integrate them, and had to meet no other difficulty than internal power struggles which arose among themselves from their own ambitions.

I answer that the social media platforms of which one has archived content are found to be governed in two different ways; either by a platform owner, with a team of moderators, who assist him to govern the platform as administrators by his favour and permission; or by self-governed communities where the user base, who hold that influence by active seniority and clout and not by the grace of the platform owner. Such self-governed communities have their own power-user hierarchies and devoted sub-groups who recognize the elite users as de facto leaders and hold them in natural affection. Those communities that are moderated by official platform policies and its administrators hold the company’s authority in higher regard, because across the entire site there is no other body recognized as superior. If companies yield to user base pressure, they do it as a temporary appeasement, and not because they bear any particular loyalty.

The examples of these two social media platforms in our time are Twitter and Reddit.

The entire social media platform of Twitter is governed by one influencer, Elon Musk; the others are his followers and moderators. He divides his platform into communities and sends different content policies there. He shifts and changes them as he chooses. But Reddit is placed in the midst of a long-established of user-created communities, acknowledged by their own user base and loved by their sub-communities. Power users have their own privileges and fiefdoms, and the company cannot revoke these privileges except with some risk of rebellion.

Therefore, he who considers both of these platforms will recognize great difficulties in seizing an unmoderated community like Reddit, but, once it is acquired, great ease in enforcing content policies upon it. The causes of the difficulties in seizing control of a self-governed community are that the acquiring company cannot be called in by the verified influencers of the platform, nor can it hope to be assisted in its moderations designs through the willful support of power users.

This arises from the reasons given above; for power users, being authentic users of the platform, cannot be easily corrupted, and one can expect little advantage from them when they have been corrupted, as they cannot change the cultural fabric of the platform, for the reasons assigned.

Hence, the company wishing to take over an unmoderated space must bear in mind it will find the community united against its policies, and it will have to rely more on its own resources and authority to overwhelm organic resistance than on the factional in-fighting of users. But, once the original governance has been forcibly removed, and routed in such a way that they cannot replace their followers, there is nothing to fear but the specific power users of this platform. Once they have been banned, they face a rapid dissolution of their dominance as new users repopulate the platform in ignorance of the old regime.

The contrary happens in social media platforms governed like that of Twitter, because it is easy for a company to quietly gain control by co-opting or hiring away key personnel, for one always finds dissatisfied insiders who desire a change in the company’s current direction. Such turncoat developers and employees, for the reasons given, can open the way into the social media platform and render acquisition easy. But if you wish to maintain the newly acquired community long-term without revolt afterwards, you meet with infinite difficulties, facing resistance from both those who have assisted you in the transition and from those who remained loyal to the prior order.

Nor is it enough to simply rebrand, change product leadership and sever ties to the past regime, because disgruntled user factions from the old guard will continually make themselves thorns in the new ownership's side, agitating their supporter base to resist the changing cultural values. As you are ultimately beholden to maintaining an active userbase, neither capitulating to their demands nor banning them outright is a viable option, so the platform remains mired in turbulent unrest until a new equilibrium emerges.

Now if you will consider what was the nature of the governance of Twitter under Jack Dorsey, you will find it similar to the platform of Reddit. Therefore, it was only necessary for Elon Musk, first to acquire it in a hostile takeover, and then to remake the platform in his image. After the acquisition, Dorsey having been ousted, Twitter remained secure under Musk for the above reasons. And if Dorsey’s executives had been united they would have enjoyed it securely and at their ease, for there were no rebellions raised in the company except those they caused themselves.

But it is impossible to hold with such tranquility platforms constituted like Twitter's original company-controlled governance. Hence arose those frequent user revolts and backlashes against the major social media platforms' content policies in different communities and subcultures, owing to the different autonomous fiefdoms that had taken root across these sites. As long as the memory of those previously self-governed communities endured, the platforms always faced insecurity in the depth of their control; but with the continual exertion of centralized power over time, the memory of those old orders faded, and the companies could at last operate as undisputed overlords.

And when feuding amongst themselves over different corporate visions and M&A integrations, each new product leader was able to reaffirm their authority over the parts of the platform's communities still resonating with prior cultural values, according to the level of hands-on governance they could exert. With past power user cliques being removed, ultimately only the companies' own appointed admins and current stance held legitimacy.

When these dynamics are remembered, no one should marvel at the ease with which companies like Reddit were able to ultimately cement their control after being acquired, nor at the difficulties other platforms faced when allowing autonomous communities to fester, as with the anything-goes philosophy of early Facebook groups and Pages. This is not due to greater or lesser competence in platform governance, but simply whether they allowed self-determining cultural values to take root in the absence of firm top-down management.

NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI II