This month’s 47 was sparked by a conversation Felicity and I had about the evolving role of social media, and how much of it comes down to the choices we make in managing engagement. Hope you enjoy Felicity’s take on The New Editors. I’m looking forward to your feedback.
– Barbara
In March, I went to a talk by tech journalist Kara Swisher. You might know her as the no-nonsense voice of tech commentary. I submitted a question I’ve wrestled with more times than I can count:
“For those working on the frontlines of social media moderation, do you have advice for creating safe spaces, or should we just run?”
She answered.
Swisher didn’t sugar-coat it. Social media, she said, is far too easy to game. And most platforms don’t have the editorial will – or regulatory pressure – to keep people safe. The platforms doing it better? Reddit and BlueSky. Why? Because there are actual people making editorial decisions about who gets to contribute. They ban bad actors. They curate. There are governance structures in place. And there are consequences for not protecting users.
Her message was clear: social media works best when humans are in the loop, making judgement calls.
Which got me thinking about the role that social media professionals play in a world where for the first time, more Australians get their news via social media than traditional sources.
In newsrooms, editors shape what makes it into the world. Social media works differently.
Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin and Nicholas Diakopoulos note in Negotiated Autonomy: The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Editorial Decision Making, that journalists are negotiating between the logic of platforms and their own editorial autonomy. The algorithms are opaque, so publishers develop what the researchers called algorithmic folk theories to guide decisions.
We try to predict how they will allow the stories to land in the newsfeed, to varying degrees of success. But we can’t really control which posts people will see in their newsfeed. However once the stories do land on the newsfeed, that changes.
Social media teams shape that conversation. And it’s not just about moderation at the point of engagement – social media strategists look at this end to end.
A useful way to understand the role is as a Social Media Editor: someone who not only curates and gatekeeps but also anticipates how content will land in the newsfeed, how conversations will unfold, and what risks might derail the message.
In sectors like public interest, health, policy and community, this means shaping content so the message is clear, building safeguards against it being overtaken by misinformation, and actively steering the conversation toward constructive outcomes.
Reddit shows this more explicitly than most platforms. Subreddit moderators are known. They set rules. They maintain tone. That’s a deliberate shift away from algorithmic chaos toward community stewardship.
Shaping conversations isn’t just about what you post or the tone you use, it’s about the choices you make around engagement. Who do you permit into the discussion? What behaviours do you allow, and what do you shutdown? Having conversations with the wrong people means you can’t make space for the right ones. Blocking or discouraging engagement altogether is an editorial choice in itself but so is deliberately engaging with positivity.
For large organisations, this perspective matters. Too often, people working in social media are seen as junior staff members who post content, manage comments, report numbers. Social media teams certainly do this, but there’s more to the function. Many social media professionals are actually shaping narratives, protecting communities, and ensuring messages land without being drowned out by noise or misinformation.
Editors in newsrooms are trusted custodians of public discourse. Perhaps it’s time to consider social media professionals in a similar way. Thinking of them as Social Media Editors gives organisations a clearer picture of the strategic, end-to-end responsibility they carry, and why their role is central to reputation, trust, and impact in the digital age.
