Petre, C., Duffy, B. E., & Hund, E. (2019). “gaming the system”: Platform paternalism and the politics of algorithmic visibility. Social Media + Society, 5, 205630511987999. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119879995
Summary
This article interrogates the discourse of “gaming the system” — the accusation platforms level at cultural producers who pursue algorithmic visibility through tactics like SEO, reciprocal linking, and automated engagement-boosting. Through three case studies, Petre, Duffy, and Hund argue that the boundary platforms draw between legitimate strategy and illegitimate manipulation is nebulous, continually shifting, and ultimately reflective of platforms’ material and economic interests rather than any coherent normative principle. Yet this boundary is framed in strongly moralizing language that casts accused producers as deviant and dishonest while positioning platforms as neutral, virtuous arbiters of authenticity. The authors name this dynamic platform paternalism: the capacity of platforms to issue rules and punishments unilaterally, framed as moral stewardship exercised in users’ own best interest.
Key Contributions
- Introduces and theorizes platform paternalism as a mechanism of platform power that layers moral authority onto structural and economic dominance.
- Reframes “gaming the algorithm” as a political, power-laden, and shifting accusation rather than a fixed, apolitical descriptive category.
- Identifies gaming accusations and crackdowns as an understudied governance mechanism, comparable to content moderation, for establishing and legitimating platform power.
- Documents the specific discursive repertoires — authenticity, organic/artificial, crime, and cheating — through which these boundaries are produced and policed.
- Shows how such discourse intensifies winner-take-all inequalities in platformized cultural production, harming resource-poor creators.
- Calls for democratizing the deliberative process by which platforms define manipulation, deception, and authenticity.
Methods
Comparative analysis of three heuristic case studies (“data outcroppings”) in which platforms accused producers of algorithmic manipulation: Google demoting Rap Genius for SEO link schemes (2013), Facebook demoting “engagement bait” (2017), and Instagram banning the botting service Instagress (2017). Cases were strategically selected to vary along the accused parties’ status and resources. The authors conducted qualitative content analysis of 105 news/technology articles (gathered via time-specified Google News searches) plus 7 official platform statements and creator guidelines, using inductive, grounded-theory coding in Dedoose to surface discursive boundaries, metaphoric language, invocations of authenticity, and producers’ responses.
Findings
- Platforms and press jointly construct a moral boundary between condemned “gaming” and permitted practice, anchored in the ideal of authenticity.
- Three recurring metaphor clusters frame visibility-enhancement negatively: organic vs. artificial (“unnatural links,” “artificially gain reach”), crime and deviance (“offenders,” “scam,” “Instagram mafia”), and games/cheating (steroids, “penalty box,” referees).
- “Organic” lets Google co-opt associations with virtue and neutrality while obscuring its own curatorial role; crime and cheating metaphors cast platforms as law enforcement or referees, hiding financial interests.
- Facebook exposed the arbitrariness of the boundary by recommending engagement-prompting “best practices” it later demoted as “engagement bait” within the same year.
- Platforms instruct creators toward an “authentic,” non-instrumental, artisanal approach while themselves valorizing automation and rapid scaling — a double standard that funnels activity toward paid promotion.
- Most articles held creators individually responsible; only a small subset questioned platforms’ structural incentives.
- Punishment consequences varied by resources: well-funded Rap Genius recovered, while independent Instagram creators struggled and turned to pods, which were themselves later disparaged and purged.
Connections
This paper extends critical scholarship on algorithmic visibility and the “algorithmic imaginary” Bucher2017-qh and on creators’ tactical sense-making and gaming of platform metrics Cotter2019-js, reframing those practices through the lens of platform power and moralized accusation. Its account of discursive boundary-work complements foundational work on platforms as curators and governors of visibility Gillespie2010-as, Gillespie2022-jx, as well as broader critiques of platform logics and the platform society van-Dijck2018-up.