From the perspective of platforms themselves, these proposals have a lot in
common. Regardless of their substantive mandates – to address content that is
misleading, hateful, or violent, for example – they all require similar operational
processes to comply. Platforms already have these processes in place to enforce
current laws and their discretionary Community Guidelines. Any new efforts to
regulate content online will likely build on existing systems, personnel, and
tools – and inherit both their strengths and their weaknesses. That makes it
important to understand those systems.

Reliable information about platforms’ content-removal systems was, for
many years, hard to come by; but data and disclosures are steadily emerging
as researchers focus on the topic and platforms ramp up their transparency
efforts. This chapter reviews the current and likely future sources of
information.
Social_Media_and_Democracy