Politics of Deliberate Inaction

The disconnect between platform justifications and user imaginaries on content moderation in a ‘free speech’ online forum

Bibliographic Data

ID6443515
AuthorsMathilda Åkerlund (0000-0001-5028-0408, Umeå University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume27
Issue3
Pages1235-1255
Publication date2023-08-18
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14614448231190905
OpenAlexW4385980056
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited44

This article analyses the ‘free speech’ online forum Flashback , which adheres to a strict non-interference policy when it comes to user-generated content, but beyond this also forbids users from deleting their own content or accounts. Through a qualitative content analysis, this article sought to understand the relationship between the platform and its users with respect to this unconventional approach to moderation and content removal. This article discusses both the position(s) taken by Flashback as it pertains to its policy of minimal moderation, and the expectations as expressed by users navigating Flashbacks rules and their practical implementations. The article shows a discrepancy between how Flashback (incoherently) justifies minimal moderation and how users had imagined the platform operating. The article also discusses how Flashback maintains these policies through its community’s active encouragement via supportive posting and silencing of non-conformers, and the consequences that Flashback’s inaction has in terms of residual hate

Content (measure theory · Flashback · Media studies · Moderation · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Computer Science · Freedom of Expression and Defamation · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology

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Open DOIOpen Access