16. Real-Time and After-the-Fact Enforcement

Treat time-to-decision as a harm-dependent system budget.

Reader outcome

Set a detection latency budget and divide decisions among synchronous prevention, asynchronous investigation, and retrospective remediation.

Decision questions

• How does harm accumulate while the platform waits?
• Which evidence becomes available only after more activity?
• Can a reversible hold buy time without imposing final punishment?
• How do queues, review capacity, and delayed labels affect the real budget?

Evidence needed

• Fraud, scarcity, competitive integrity, and network-abuse timelines
• Value-of-information models
• Streaming versus batch operational costs
• Consequences of premature and delayed action