We've been tracking the impact of social media content takedowns and account deactivations for many years. TOSsed Out highlights the various ways in which Terms of Service (TOS) and other speech moderation rules are unevenly enforced, with little to no transparency, against a wide spectrum of people.
Tossed Out
No Nudity Allowed: Censoring Naked Yoga
Most nude content is legal, and engaging with such material online provides individuals with a safe and open framework to explore their identities, build communities, and discover new interests. However, social networks and payment processors are intervening to become the arbiters of how people create and engage...
Facebook Treats Punk Rockers Like Crazy Conspiracy Theorists, Kicks Them Offline
Facebook announced last year that it would be banning followers of QAnon, the conspiracy theorists that allege that a cabal of satanic pedophiles is plotting against former U.S. president Donald Trump. It seemed like a case of good riddance to bad rubbish.Members of an Oakland-based punk rock band called...
When the Public is Private: Project Veritas Provocateur Wrongfully Suspended by Twitter
Since the 2016 U.S. election, political speech on social media—and how it’s moderated—has been a subject of much debate. Conservatives have repeatedly accused platforms of bias, while we’ve seen plenty of examples of wrongful takedowns from across the political spectrum. While many of the most talked-about conservative takedowns have involved...
Tough Nuts: Twitter Suspends Meme-Sharing Planters Accounts
Peanut fans were devastated last month when the brand Planters killed off their famous mascot in an advertisement, but had cause to celebrate when the company announced the birth of adorable Baby Nut, a new mascot, during the Superbowl.In the runup to the big game, Planters reserved several Twitter...
Twin Horror: Filmmakers The Soska Sisters Suspended Twice From Twitter
Jen and Sylvia Soska are identical twin filmmakers known as The Soska Sisters. The sisters specialize in horror and have a cult following, with more than 50,000 fans on Twitter. But in July 2019, they faced a horror of their own: Their Twitter account was suspended right after they released...
No Targeting Allowed: Christian Veterans' Ministry Denied Ad
The Mighty Oaks Foundation, a Christian organization conducting outreach to veterans, tried to post an advertisement on YouTube, but was met with a surprising message: "The following keywords violate Google Ads advertising policies." What sort of term might they have used to trigger such a message? As it turns out,...
Third Time's the Charm: Historian's Content Repeatedly Deleted, Finally Restored
Dan Arrows runs a YouTube channel called Three Arrows, known for publishing rebuttals to conservative arguments and investigating current hot topics through an historical lens. A year ago, he posted a video—entitled "Jordan Peterson Doesn't Understand Nazism"—in response to a talk by the controversial Canadian academic in which he...
Documentation of War Crimes Disappeared by Automated Tools
The Syrian Archive is a collective of human rights activists who are curating visual documentation relating to human rights violations and other crimes in conflict areas—much of which comes from platforms like YouTube—in order to support the work of investigators, journalists, and advocates. Its work and the work of...
Rapid Moderation Misses Key Phrase
After exposing a journalist for sexually harassing her via Twitter DM, journalist Talia Jane was the target of a mass reporting campaign designed to get her kicked off the platform. At first, the campaign succeeded: Jane received a permanent suspension as the result of a tweet in which she...
Facebook’s Ad Policy Prevents a Unitarian Church From Promoting a Black Lives Matter Concert Before the Concert Happens
In March of 2019, James Dargan, a soloist in the choir of the Unitarian Church of All Souls (and, full disclosure, a friend of this post’s author) was set to perform a recital called “Oh Glory.” Afterward the performance, he and Rev. Audette Fulbright would lead a discussion on “diversity,...
Beto O’Rourke Parody Account Suspended Until It Adds the Word ‘Fake’ to Its Name
One of the fun things about social media is the existence of parody and satire accounts. A person with a sharp mind can effectively use humor to puncture the manufactured public persona of politicians, actors, and other public figures. But there are numerous rules, intended for other purposes and definitely...
Explicitly Art or Sexually Explicit?
The Vulva Gallery is an educational project aimed at creating awareness of the diversity of women's bodies. Creator Hilde Atalanta (who uses "they/them" pronouns) accepts submissions in the form of photographs, then recreates them as paintings in an effort to comply with Instagram's rules. Nonetheless, Instagram deleted The Vulva...
