When Curation Becomes Creation

It does not matter how that choice is made. Any choice is editorial.

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This OC is an okay summary of the current conundrum.

> ...despite intense scrutiny from the news media and grassroots movements of outraged users, platforms continue to operate, from a legal standpoint, on the friendliest terms.

But. These discussions of Section 230 are so weird. As though journalism, media, publishing, editorial began in 1996.

We'd all benefit if the people arguing about this stuff

- had some direct experience with publishing, editing, writing

- ditto moderation

- have at least read Herman & Chomsky's Propaganda Model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

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In the 1980s, we worried about "infoglut". How to take sips from a firehose.

I was a "thread blaster" (moderator) on CompuServe and then ran my own BBS network.

Stupid teenage me figured out the most import role in a digital era was editor. Filtering signal from noise. Choosing what was worth remembering. Gathering, organizing, interpreting the useful bits. (I couldn't even dream of stuff like altavista and spam filters.) Imagine my chagrin, learning about journalism years later, that I was reinventing the wheel.

I'm learning to just accept "kids these days" complaints are the norm. In other words, I became the grumpy old man.

But with hindsight, I really would have thought that The Establishment media would have competently defended their turf. They haven't even showed up. Maybe they still don't understand the true nature of the threat.

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In conclusion:

Facebook became editor with the newsfeed feature. What ever that algorithm is (or isn't) makes them responsible for the content.

Google was always editor.

Any media which uses recommenders to boost engagement is doubly responsible for their content. They are not simple transmitters of bits and bytes from A to B. They are not common carriers like telephone, cable, and postal services. Just the fact that Facebook employs human content moderators proves this.