Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Every tech platform has two policies about what they will allow: the policy that’s written, and the policy that’s enforced. Ideally there would be no gap between these, but in practice it almost can’t be helped.
To take one dumb example, the embryonic audio social network Clubhouse posted its first set of community guidelines the other week. One of these rules says “we prohibit the spread of or attempts to spread false information or news.” In theory, this means that only the truth is allowed on Clubhouse. Not a bad policy, really, but when you’re building a network that someday anyone will be able to use to essentially broadcast their phone calls, I imagine that Clubhouse will find it extremely hard to enforce. Of course people will…