This essay provides an overview of the current state of content moderation on social media platforms.
The question the essay addresses is why there are a number of unresolved issues in tackling dysfunctional content. The argument is that there are two intersecting new phenomena which make effective content moderation difficult: one is that social media platforms lack the gatekeeping of content that was characteristic of traditional news media.
The second is that the regulation of this un-gatekept content is still unsettled; it falls between social media companies that span the globe and the regulations or absence thereof bounded by nation-states.
To understand both, an analysis restricted to law and regulation is insufficient. Instead, it is necessary to examine the role of media systems in society in a holistic way, and in a way that distinguishes between gatekept media and the absence of gatekeeping or new forms of gatekeeping.
Such a broader account points to why the institutionalization of content moderation is likely to be a protracted and uneven process. The conclusion spells out how the tensions that have arisen with new media could be resolved, but also why they are likely to remain imperfectly resolved.
