The Effort in Keeping the Internet Clean

Contract workers in San Francisco, processing thousands of complaints a day. Sweatshops in the Philippines, where outsourced labor decides what’s obscene and what’s permissible in a matter of seconds. Teams of anti-spam engineers in Mountain View, adapting to the latest wave of bots. An unpaid moderator on Reddit, picking out submissions that violate guidelines. So much of the internet is garbage, and much of its infrastructure and many work hours are devoted to taking out the garbage. For t...

 How Online Platforms Can Encourage Good Behavior

The technical architecture of online platforms, on the other hand, should be designed to dampen harassing behavior, while shielding targets from harassing content. It means creating technical friction in orchestrating a sustained campaign on a platform, or engaging in sustained hounding. For example, what if, after your fifth unanswered tweet within the hour to someone who didn’t follow you, a pop-up asked if you really wanted to send that message? It also means building user interfaces that...