Welcome to Ethan’s Turtles - I’m Ethan (spoiler) and I write this newsletter to explore the relationship between digital design and culture.
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Generally, in these articles, I like to try and explore different and alternative possibilities for digital platforms, tools and communities. I often explore these possibilities in response to prevailing and topical issues in the digital tech space, and I utilise design as a vehicle for them.
Upon hearing the news of Reddit’s community blackouts, currently under effect in response to the new announcement by Reddit’s CEO to monetise access to their API, I felt this was a pertinent subject for an article that explores different possibilities for platform ownership.
(If you aren’t clued up on the situation with Reddit, bear with me - I will provide a brief summary in a moment.)
However, I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired to write about the topic, which I found somewhat strange. It is a topic I have possibly written about and researched more than any other in the digital platform space.
I felt the need to step back for a moment and assess why I wasn’t as keen to write this article as I thought I would be. I landed on two reasons:
The discourse on platform ownership is tired. It feels like we are still collectively recovering from the amount of discussion and intensity generated by Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, and I didn’t want to just rehash old arguments because a similar topic was in the news again.
I began to wonder if my opinion on better alternatives to standard, private ownership of digital platforms had evolved at all since I was last reading and writing about this topic.
It was the latter reason which ultimately helped me find the inspiration to write this article. This Reddit blackout has provided an opportunity to reassess our options for owning, managing and hosting digital platforms in an ethical and responsible way, and I want to consider how my perspective has changed over a turbulent last few months in the space.
The Reddit Blackout: A Recap
I won’t go into too much detail about the different reasons why Reddit users felt the need to boycott the platform in reaction to monetising API access. As a short summary: access to the API for free is ultimately in the spirit of internet culture. Reddit, particularly, is built in the image of the forum interface that defined early, Web 1.0 social networking, and it continues to be a space where people around the world share information, insight and resources freely.
Quick aside - an API (Application Programming Interface) allows developers to access the data stored in Reddit (e.g. a post, which contains text, an author, corresponding subreddit etc.) and plug that data directly into a different application. For example, there is an app called Apollo that offers an alternative interface for browsing Reddit, made possible by this API access.
Reddit’s CEO, Steve Huffman, has fuelled the fire of backlash by his explanation for what is driving this change. He has made it clear he takes inspiration from Elon Musk’s strategy with Twitter to drive monetisation, and that this decision has not been made because Reddit is currently running an untenable business model, but purely to increase margins.
The Easy Response
In the sub-headline I described Reddit’s unfolding story as ‘predictable’. I also described discourse around platform ownership as ‘tired’ just a few paragraphs ago. I use this terminology because this kind of story is becoming more of a trope than a unique narrative - it can be broken down like this:
Owner of private company decides to change digital platform in order to make more money, but this change diminishes the value and experience of the platform for its users.
Yes, we get it: one big platform owner is bad, therefore we should have lots of little owners and that will be good.
This was essentially the thinking behind the influx of users to Mastodon away from Twitter on Elon Musk’s takeover. It was a really fascinating time for those, like me, who are interested in digital platforms and their future, as it gave a true alternative to the prevailing model of platform ownership a run-out.
While I do like and support Mastodon, a platform built with great intentions, in the wash it hasn’t really toppled Twitter, and at this point it doesn’t feel like it’s going to.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this. The interface is a little bit dated, and the overall experience just feels less compared to Twitter or other major platforms.
I also believe that there was an aspect missed in the selling of Mastodon over the issue of ownership. Mastodon was pitched on a model of federated ownership, meaning there are many owners and you can choose which one you want to trust your data with. But as owners in-and-of themselves, there wasn’t any particular value emphasised on their ability to be responsible or ethical as custodians of users’ data.
Yes, it’s true that having the option to take your data and put it elsewhere is a good thing, and one current prevailing platforms don’t provide in the same way. But just having an out isn’t much of a selling point - who wants to be endlessly moving their data around every time they discover the manager of their data is doing a bad job?
As more people migrated to Mastodon, reports arose of confusion over guidelines for certain servers, and strange reasons provided for having content removed.
There seems to be an aspect missing from the piece around platform ownership. We, as users, care about how platform owners manage platforms - that they are managed ethically, responsibly and with the users’ needs in mind.
Intrinsically connected to this, is the framework with which platform owners communicate with users. We care about transparency and accountability.
But what could this framework be?
Answers in Unexpected Places
I wrote an article a little while ago on curation as an alternative to algorithm in how we discover digital content, and I did some exploration into the culture on Twitch, the streaming platform.
During my research, I came across a particular category of content that seemed to be quite popular at the time: Twitch unban appeals.
It wasn’t what I was looking for, but I was curious. I work as a moderator of a digital platform, so any new example of moderation is always something I’m keen to learn more about.
The format goes something like this: Twitch allows users who have been banned from a streamer’s ‘chat’ by moderators to submit an appeal to the streamer themselves, to have their ban removed. Streamers discovered a successful form of content was publicly reviewing a selection of these ‘unban appeals’ and deciding live, on stream, whether or not to repeal the ban.
What I find so interesting about this, is its revolutionary transparency. I have never come across a digital content moderation process that works anything like this. All content moderation is invariably opaque, and you are lucky to be provided with any explanation at all.
A process such as this doesn’t make all content moderation magically correct by some objective definition. But what it does do is humanise the process of moderation, and give users a clear, transparent understanding of the thought process that went into a decision.
These unban appeals are intended to be comedic, but I think they shine a light on a way forward for how platform owners, no matter how big or small, can develop a better relationship with their users.
I was chatting with a friend recently, and they made the observation that when a major platform makes a change that negatively affects the community of users, it is often hard to tell whether or not they have made the decision out of a lack of understanding of the community, or out of an actively business and economically-minded decision which disregards users.
I think this issue accurately summarises the need for this kind of transparency. Yes, it is vitally important the right people are in control of such powerful social spaces, but what makes this so important is understanding how they will wield that responsibility.
We should judge those we entrust our data and attention to by their ability to be accountable and transparent - as a minimum.
Thanks for reading! Remember to check out my collection on Clusta to see my research - for this article, and beyond…