Backing In

This caught my eye...

"Social-media companies deny quietly suppressing content, but many users still believe it happens. The result is a lack of trust in the internet."

This isn't the way the world works. The causal chain works like this: Social-media companies deny quietly suppressing content, but there is a lack of trust in the internet. The result is many users still believe it happens.

Of course, I'm being nitpicky here with grammar and the order of things, but I still think that there's something important here. What's really happening is that certain people have an understanding of the way "the Internet," or, more accurately, their social media platform of choice, should operate, and they take deviations from that mental model that disadvantage them to be evidence of deliberate action against them. They don't trust the social media powers that be, suspecting corporate executives of collaborating with the enemy, as it were, and the result is that they believe that any part of the internet not run by a known ally can be turned against them.

Distrust comes from a violation of expectations. And a lot of people expect that not only will "the Internet" just work, but that they never do anything that may legitimately be considered over some or another line drawn in the content-moderation code. Because it's always someone else's fault.

Now it's true that many web services are opaque. I've had Blogger/Alphabet take down pictures that I've posted here without telling me... had I not had occasion to look at some old posts now and again, I might never had discovered the removal. Had I broken some rule, and Alphabet simply didn't bother to tell me? Or were they stored on some server that was disconnected along the way? Who knows? And even if I were given an explanation, how would I validate it? I can't read code.

In my case, it's not a big deal. I don't real on whatever pictures I happen to post to my blog for my livelihood, or to get out some message of dire importance. But there are a lot of people who have put themselves in a position that they rely on Twitter or TikTok or what have you. And to the degree that this reliance gives them the feeling that they are owed something, their sense of grievance when they don't receive it will fuel their self-important narrative that someone's gunning for them.