I wrote this awhile ago, but it helps make sense of why content moderation is largely focused on mainstream platforms.

There are other opportunities for moderation across the tech stack, but infrastructure obfuscates... https://www.cigionline.org/articles/navigating-tech-stack-when-where-and-how-should-we-moderate-content

Now, defense against a coming insurrection depends on a corporate denial of service to Trump and his extensive network of disinformers.

If we had learned any lessons after the wave of deplatforming following Charlottesville, it would have been to create robust regulation

This is what I had to say about that moment...
"When discussions of content moderation take a turn for the technical, we tend to hear a lot of jargon about “the tech stack” (Figure 1). It is important to understand how the design of technology also shows us where the power lies."

"Most debates about content moderation revolve around individual websites’ policies for appropriate participation (level 1) and about major platforms’ terms of service (level 2)."

"On level 2, there is a lot of debate about how major corporations shape the availability and discoverability of information... it is difficult to enforce these policies given the enormous scale of user-generated content."

"For cloud service providers on level 3, content moderation occurs in cases where sites are hosting stolen or illegal content. Websites with fraught content, such as 8chan, will often mask or hide the location of their servers to avoid losing hosts."

"On level 4 of the tech stack, content delivery networks (CDNs) help match user requests with local servers to reduce network strain and speed up websites. CDNs additionally provide protection from malicious access attempts, such as distributed denial-of-service attacks..."

"Level 6 is a different story. Internet service providers (ISPs) allow access to the open web and platforms, but these companies are in constant litigious relations with consumers and the state."

"Lastly, on level 7, some governments have blacklisted websites and ordered domain registrars to remove them. Institutions and businesses can block access to websites based on content."

"Unfortunately, in this moment, a corporate denial of service is the only option for dismantling extremist and white supremacist communication infrastructure."

"Regulation to curb hateful content online cannot begin and end with platform governance. Platforms are part of a larger online media ecosystem, in which the biggest platforms not only contribute to the spread of hateful content, but are themselves an important vector of attack"