An autoethnography of automated powerlessness: lacking platform affordances in Instagram and TikTok account deletions

Abstract

Situated within the field of platform governance studies, this paper shares findings from an ‘autoethnography of automated powerlessness’, drawing from the researcher’s disempowering experience of being a heavily moderated social media user. Using theoretical frameworks blending affordances and World Risk Society theories, this paper contextualises my experiences of moderation of my pole dance instructor, activist and blogger account @bloggeronpole from February to October 2021 within social media’s broader de-platforming of nudity and sexuality, finding fallacies within platforms’ own affordances, which lack mechanisms to aid or rehabilitate de-platformed accounts. With little to no information from platforms about the details of their moderation, qualitative, ethnographic and autoethnographic explorations of their governance are all users currently have to fight and understand their puritan, patriarchal censorship of nudity and sexuality, which are often conflated with risk. This study concludes with recommendations for different options for better, more equal and community focused moderation.