Conversation

I keep seeing mods and admin in social media groups post, starting off with saying 'speaking as a person and not a mod..' or 'speaking without my mod hat on..' etc.

It highlights to me that they don't understand how power works. Once you take a role with authority over others, you can't effectively speak to those others outside of that role.

Power isn't a coat you can just pop on and off when it suits you - in fact, the (attempted) 'popping on and off' of that is actually an exercising of that power.

I wish we had a more nuanced and in-depth analysis of power structures behind social media groups and mod/admin status.