![[assets/covers/platform-power.jpg]] Platform power is the structural authority that large internet platforms exercise over public discourse: the ability to amplify, suppress, or remove speech at a scale no prior institution has matched. The term ‘platform’ is itself part of the power; it implies a neutral stage rather than an editor with preferences. ## The world’s most powerful editor When Facebook removed the Napalm Girl photograph, a Norwegian newspaper described it as the act of ‘the world’s most powerful editor.’ The description cuts through the platform’s self-presentation precisely because editors are accountable (to readers, to proprietors, to professional norms) and can be argued with. Facebook’s editorial power operates at algorithmic scale with minimal transparency, and its decisions propagate globally without the checks that constrain any traditional editorial institution.[^coti-p10] The Prime Minister of Norway reposting the image in protest is an extraordinary moment. A head of government, trying to route around a private company’s content policy, and having her copy removed too. That is what scale looks like from the outside.[^coti-p10] ## A global platform, someone’s cultural standard Platform power has a political geography. Facebook VP Justin Osofsky invoked a ‘clear standard’ in defending the removal, but any standard applied globally is necessarily someone’s cultural standard elevated to universal policy. What is acceptable in one context may be prohibited in another; a global platform flattens that variation by fiat. The [[Content Moderation]] problem can never be fully resolved because enforcing consistency at scale requires abstracting away exactly the context that makes hard cases hard.[^coti-p11] ## Politicians and equal enforcement Platforms should hold politicians to the same rules as everyone else (if anything, higher). The Norwegian PM episode is one instance; Donald Trump’s treatment across platforms over a decade is the larger test case. The instinct to carve out special treatment for political figures (in either direction, immunity or targeting) is always a corruption of whatever principled framework the platform claims to operate. Equal enforcement is the test platform power perpetually fails, because it has no political upside and carries significant downside risk. ## Selected passages > ‘the world’s most powerful editor’ > > *Custodians of the Internet*, p. 10 ## Appearances - *Custodians of the Internet*, Tarleton Gillespie (2018), Ch. 1 ‘All Platforms Moderate’, pp. 10–11 [^coti-p10]: [[Custodians of the Internet (2018)]], p. 10 · *‘even the prime minister of Norway herself, reposted the photo to Facebook, only to have it quickly removed.’* [^coti-p11]: [[Custodians of the Internet (2018)]], p. 11 · *‘Cultural and legal prohibitions against underage nudity are firm across nearly all societies,’*