Rules

The role of the admin is central in Facebook communities of memory sharing regarding regulation of the content and socialites. All the participants with no exception were asked about it and many referred to politics (in a wider sense) as a divisive topic that needed to be regulated. “I strictly forbid it; I’ve seen many groups closed down” Said one participant who is the admin and creator of one Facebook group. Also, the banning on content that depicts images from the 2000 onwards is frequent, since it is a common rule that content should belong to the 20^th century although this may vary from group to group. Any kind or spam and self-promotion is also immediately deleted. Admins and users do unpaid work to shape the experience to their own needs and ontologies. Facebook groups then are safe spaces where political polarization or aggressive advertising are regulated by the community. This was usually a key reason why all participants manifested their belonging to the groups.

Many of the lessons regarding the role of the admins were learnt in the first stages of the research, when trying to approach potential participants. On one occasion, a recruitment post led to the expulsion of a Facebook group. After contacting with the admins and collaboratively creating a post together where their explicit agreement was manifested, the community reacted in a very positive way, shifting from mistrust to enthusiasm towards the project.