Social Media Platforms: Commercial Content Moderation

Facilitator: Nancy Nyland

The giant social media companies maintain that they are neutral platforms whose users provide and control their content, but their creation of a workforce of commercial content mediators says otherwise. The work of Dr. Sarah T. Roberts, who coined the term “commercial content mediators,” brings attention to the existence of a low-paid contract workforce that protects us from disturbing content even as it censors posts on a daily basis, following guidelines that are held as proprietary trade secrets by the social media companies.

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Social Media Platforms: Commercial Content Moderation