Seth Godin in this post ‘The inevitable decline of fully open platforms‘ shows how fully open platforms (i.e. without any content curation and filtering) fall pray to spammers and inappropriate content. Still, there is also a need to maintain some balance in the administration of the network so as to benefit from its full capability.
“The tension is simple: If a platform is carefully vetted and well-curated, it meets expectations and creates trust. If it’s too locked down and calcifies, it slows progress and fades away. […] Too much curation stifles creativity, opposing viewpoints and useful conversation. But no curation inevitably turns a platform over to quacks, denialists, scammers and trolls.”
Even on private social networks, such as the ones that can be implemented by large organisations, curation and administration is required. This is something that is often forgotten, and it is clear that it can sometimes be seen as purely censorship. The balance needs to be clearly set between removing offensive content and removing content just because it would not please the owners of the network. One does not want to end up like an autocratic regime where any content contrary to the currently acceptable political opinion is removed.
Debate rages whether the Facebooks, twitters and other social networks do curate sufficiently or too much; whether they use enough resources for that. The balance is not easy, but as any social network founder, curation is probably one of the most strategic activities when operating social networks.
