The Rise of Platform Bans — and Why They Don't Work

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(Reuters Photo)

Platform bans are almost impossible from a technical perspective, but they provide significant fuel for broader trade disputes and enable all sorts of domestic political posturing. Jesse Hirsh explains.
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With less than one month until the US presidential election, big tech is setting the terms of political speech. How might an ad hoc and disjointed approach to platform governance impact democracy? Experts respond. 

"Without appropriate transparency into practices and accountability for erroneous decisions, the moderation of our elections by private platform companies can erode, rather than protect, our democracies." — Samantha Bradshaw

"If having uniform standards across the industry emboldens platforms to actually commit to policies or helps with enforcement, then at this stage I'm in favour." — evelyn douek

"Regardless of whether the policies make sense or not, they come far too late. The rules have changed in the middle of the campaign." — Heidi Tworek

The COVID-19 pandemic follows the very typical disaster hype cycle — where emergency gives way to techno-solutionism, and unchecked scientific experiments get deployed at scale. In this article, Sean McDonald considers what we've learned about the rollout of public interest technologies during the outbreak of COVID-19.

Oct. 21 – 1:00 p.m. EDT (UTC–04:00): Join us for a virtual expert panel on the role of multinational corporations in a post-pandemic economy. Panellists will consider how government and industry efforts to recover from COVID-19 could reshape the corporation as we know it.

Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 – 8:45 a.m. EDT (UTC–04:00): Hosted by Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication, this two-day event gathers experts from around the world to find lessons for journalism practice and study in the future.
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