Social media responses and moderation

Social media platforms support a variety of post formats, from text to images to videos, but always include a text-based feature for responding to posts. This feature exists in two forms, which I refer to as responses as comments (RAC) and responses as posts (RAP), each implying a particular approach to moderation that affects the character of the platform.

Responses as comments (RAC)

On a responses-as-comments platform, responses are subsidiary to the original post, and are often referred to as comments. Comments are generally shown only when viewing the original post, and it is not usually possible to view a list of an individual user’s comments. Comments may also have less prominent notifications, with users being notified about replies to their comments but not about their comments being liked.

Responses as posts (RAP)

On a responses-as-posts platform, responses are themselves treated as posts, and are often referred to as replies. Only platforms that support text-based posts are able to treat responses as posts, and these platforms generally choose to do so.

Replies are shown both when viewing the original post and in locations such as:

Replies lack context when shown in these additional locations, but because replies are themselves posts they can be viewed directly. When viewing a reply directly the chain of replies leading to the original post is shown, along with any further replies to the reply itself.

Who can respond to a post?

Some platforms offer the ability to disable responses entirely for individual posts, in effect turning social media into something more like broadcast media. However, if this ability is not available, or not used, then anyone who can see a post is able to respond to it.

Post visibility is determined using a form of identity-based access control consisting of blocklists (allowing posts to be seen by all users except those on a specified list) and allowlists (allowing posts to be seen only by users on a specified list).

Most platforms support blocklists, with each user having a single list of other users that they have blocked. Blocking a user prevents them from seeing or responding to posts, any may or may not delete responses they made prior to being blocked.

Many platforms support a form of allowlist through posts that are only visible to a user’s followers, and some platforms also let users create more specific allowlists (sometimes referred to as close friends lists). This feature was particularly prominent in the now-defunct Google+ platform, where it was known by the name circles and was used to avoid context collapse.

Who can moderate responses?

While RAC and RAP platforms are similar in how they determine who can respond to a post, they have very different approaches to moderation of responses. These contrasting approaches are not consequences of the technical differences between RAC and RAP, but are instead motivated by the mental models of ownership they imply.

On a responses-as-comments platform, users are seen as owning both their original posts and the comments areas of those posts, giving them the right to delete comments that they don’t want to be shown. When I described comments as ‘subsidiary’ above, I chose this term due to its secondary sense of ‘controlled by a parent entity’: the original poster controls the comments.

On a responses-as-posts platform, users are seen as owning both their original posts and any replies they make to other users’ posts, so users have no right to delete other users’ replies. Moderation is the responsibility of the platform itself (or individual instances in the case of federated platforms), and a user’s influence is limited to reporting a reply to the moderators, who will assess whether it violates platform policies (which are often applied inconsistently).

Some platforms let users hide responses to their posts, but this feature behaves in different ways on RAC and RAP platforms. For example, on Instagram (a RAC platform), hiding a comment prevents all users except the commenter themselves from seeing it, in effect deleting it but without the commenter being aware this has happened. In contrast, hiding a reply on X (formerly Twitter, a RAP platform) results in a notice stating “Some replies have been hidden by the author” and a button to view the hidden replies, potentially drawing more attention to them due to the Streisand effect.

Consequences for the platform

Text-based social media platforms have a reputation for toxicity which is generally blamed solely on poor moderation. However, the effects of poor moderation are worsened by two design choices that are made out of convention rather than necessity: firstly, the choice to treat responses as posts, and secondly, the choice not to let users moderate responses to their own posts.

When we are aware of these choices and conventions we can question them, and propose alternatives that could serve us better.