This archive report was first published on 11 July 2020.
On July 11, 2020, Twitch banned the Trump campaign's channel, citing its terms of service and community guidelines. This move highlights the arbitrary nature of social media companies' rules, which can be altered at any time.
These platforms present themselves as democratic spaces, but their rules are more akin to software updates or laws. They are authoritarian in nature, with policies and guidelines that can be changed without notice.
When social media companies use the term 'community,' they expect users to uphold a polite fiction. This concept is often applied to various social units, making it practically meaningless. Britney Gil, a researcher, wrote in Cyborgology in 2017:
Community is one of those words that gets applied to so many social units that it becomes practically meaningless.
However, as Gil noted in an interview, people do form communities on social media platforms like Facebook and Reddit. During periods of intense activism, social networks can provide space and amplification for pre-existing communities and facilitate the creation of new ones.
But hosting actual communities and providing spaces for activism only highlights the difference between how platforms use the term 'community' and its actual meaning. As Gil said, 'The story of the last century has been dissolving public spaces and replacing them with private spaces.'
