https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191111/23032743367/masnicks-impossibility-theorem-content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-to-do-well.shtml

As some people know, I've spent a fair bit of time studying economist Kenneth Arrow whose work on endogenous growth theory and information economics influenced a lot of my thinking on the economics of innovation in a digital age. However, Arrow is perhaps most well known for what's generally referred to as Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, which could be described most succinctly (if not entirely accurately) as arguing that there is no perfect voting system to adequately reflect the will of the public. No matter which voting system you choose will have some inherent unfairness built into it. The Wikipedia summary (linked above) of it is not the best, but if you want to explore it in more detail, I'd recommend this short description or this much longer description.

I was thinking about that theory recently, in relation to the ever present discussion about content moderation. I've argued for years that while many people like to say that content moderation is difficult, that's misleading. Content moderation at scale is impossible to do well. Importantly, this is not an argument that we should throw up our hands and do nothing. Nor is it an argument that companies can't do better jobs within their own content moderation efforts. But I do think there's a huge problem in that many people -- including many politicians and journalists -- seem to expect that these companies not only can, but should, strive for a level of content moderation that is simply impossible to reach.