ARGUMENT: De-platforming limitsDe-platforming Is a Fix, But Only a Short-Term One
In the wake of the 6 January attack on the Capitol, major social media companies like Facebook and Twitter have applied their now-customary methods of content moderation to U.S. users considered to be spreading hate and inciting violence. “More atypically, companies operating the mostly invisible digital infrastructure which platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are built on, also demonstrated their power, taking down Parler,” writes Will Marks, a researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. “But death on the internet is short lived,” he notes. “Without Parler or Twitter, disinformation and hatred — coded or overt — will continue to be broadcast.” Marks adds: “At a certain point, the question about what to do with Parler is only part of the broader one about how society should cope with the fact that segments of the population are living in different realities.” This is a problem for which there is no technological solution.
We are in the midst of what Will Marks, a researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, calls a “techno-reckoning,” which has also been described as the “Great Deplatforming.”
He notes that the measures taken by individual companies following the 6 January attack on the Capitol have been differed widely. Major social media companies like Facebook and Twitter took have applied their now-customary methods of content moderation to high-profile U.S. users, taking action against many on the right — including President Donald Trump, Representative Majorie Taylor Greene, and 70,000 accounts linked with QAnon — for inciting violence and violating terms of service.
More atypically, companies operating the mostly invisible digital infrastructure which platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are built on, also demonstrated their power, taking down Parler, a free-speech alternative to Twitter. Apple, after issuing a stern warning Parler, with which the platform could not possibly comply, removed Parler from its App Stores. Google then removed Parler from its Google Play store, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) took down its service entirely.
Marks writes in Just Security that “These emergency measures should not be taken lightly, but they have reportedly greatly reduced the spread of election disinformation online.” He adds: “While new technologies — and technology companies — have contributed to, perhaps even caused, some of the problems that lead to the events on Jan. 6, Pandora’s box has been opened. Conspiracy theorists and disinformation remain in the world and online. At the end of the day, solving that problem will require more than just a technical solution.”
While Apple and Google can create serious or even fatal business problems, Marks writes, a web hosting company can spark an immediate crisis for a hosted service should it pull the plug. AWS provides computing and data storage for much of the internet; in 2019, the company maintained about 45 percent of the internet’s cloud infrastructure.
