Why does nobody talk about how platform ToS updates are basically shadow censorship?

I keep seeing people get upset about obvious content takedowns, but the real issue is when sites quietly change their rules. Noticed this on a smaller forum I'm on where they added a line about 'community harmony' to the terms. Now they delete posts that are critical but not technically breaking any rule. It's happening everywhere, not just big social media. Has anyone else caught a site doing this and actually got them to roll it back?

2 comments

2 Comments

wren8261mo ago

lol I mean sure it's annoying when forums get more strict but like... is it really that deep? most of the time the 'shadow censorship' is just them not wanting to deal with drama. the smaller the site the less they want to babysit endless arguments about stuff that doesn't matter. i've seen places add rules that sound scary but 99% of the time it's just to have a legal fallback if someone really goes off the rails. rolling stuff back barely ever happens because people just move on to the next drama instead of actually organizing.

terry_bailey351mo ago

Read somewhere that when a small forum owner adds a rule about "no personal attacks" or whatever it's usually because one specific person ruined it for everyone else, not some grand conspiracy. I've been on a few niche forums that got way stricter over time and honestly it was always because a handful of loud people couldn't stop fighting about stupid stuff like which version of a software was better or whatever. The whole "shadow censorship" thing gets thrown around way too much too, half the time it's just moderators deleting spam or off topic rants that nobody wanted to read anyway. Most people don't even notice the rules changing because they're too busy posting in their comfort zone to care.