[Commlist] CfA: Theorizing Platform Content Moderation: Power, Resistance, and Democratic Control

CfA: Theorizing Platform Content Moderation: Power, Resistance, and 
Democratic Control


-Conference: 2023 MANCEPT (Manchester Centre for Political Theory) 
Workshops (https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/mancept/mancept-workshops/ 
<https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/mancept/mancept-workshops/>).

-Deadline for submission of abstracts (300 words): 11thof June (any time 
zone).

-Dates/location of the panel: 11th-13thof September 2023. The panel will 
take place in Manchester (UK) but remote participation is also possible.

Platform content moderation has emerged as a novel form of mass speech 
governance, able to influence billions of people globally. Much of the 
growing scholarship on it focuses on describing moderation’s 
functioning, ambiguities, and technologies, and on how to hold platforms 
to constitutional values. Yet, despite its obvious political nature, 
content moderation remains under-theorized as a political practice.

This is puzzling as moderation rearticulates key concepts of political 
theory. Regardless of their unilateral ability to moderate, platforms 
often seek to appease some actors in the design and enforcement of their 
rules. These processes are hardly linear, though: not all voices, from 
all countries, at all times, are equally heard. While moderation has 
been used against authoritarian actors, it has also been shown to 
reinforce racist,  sexist, and neo-colonial structures, often to foster 
companies’ political and economic interests globally. This evidences the 
need to understand how moderation relates to representation, 
recognition, and plurality, which are closely associated with matters of 
justice, equality, and dignity. Similarly, it is unclear what resistance 
to these systems’ patterns of in- and exclusion might (and ought to) mean.

Two factors make platform content moderation challenging to address 
through usual normative frameworks, such as legal rights. Firstly, 
platforms are a peculiar kind of organization: globally operating 
corporations whose immense power is not anchored in processes of 
political legitimation (e.g., elections) or even a clear polity. Despite 
the legality of their moderation practices, which are often protected by 
so-called ‘safe harbour’ laws, these companies still owe us something 
morally – but what, exactly, and which ‘us’ is this? Further, much of 
moderation today is automated, commonly through machine learning 
algorithmic systems. As a consequence, the meaning of “objectionable” or 
“desirable”, or how to punish those who violate these definitions, may 
emerge not from direct human reasoning but from probabilistic 
calculations based on complexly constructed datasets. Whose voice is 
represented and silenced when thousands of data annotators, moderators, 
officers, and technologists play some role in the construction of the 
algorithms that identify and control, say, hate speech? How to account 
for the cascading layers of rules, institutions, and actors?

Workshop aims: This workshop aims to address the urgent task of 
theorizing platform content moderation. We especially invite scholars 
working from the perspective of radical democratic theory, democratic 
resistance, decolonial theory, and political economy to consider three 
broad questions:

(1)How should we conceptualize content moderation as a form of power, 
and in which ways does it differ from previous forms of speech control?


(2)What does proper resistance to moderation mean, and how can it tackle 
the multiple dynamics of in- and exclusion? And


(3)To what extent, and how, should democratic control over content 
moderation be organised?

How to apply: Send a 300-word abstract to (n.appelman /at/ uva.nl) 
<mailto:(n.appelman /at/ uva.nl)>. Thedeadline is 11thof June (any time 
zone).Full papers are not required.

When & where: Workshops will take place preferably in-person, between 
11th-13thof September 2023, in Manchester (UK). Submissions to present 
online will be considered.

Organizers:

-Naomi Appelman, IViR (Institute for Information Law), University of 
Amsterdam ((n.appelman /at/ uva.nl) <mailto:(n.appelman /at/ uva.nl)>


-João C. Magalhães, Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University 
of Groningen((j.c.vieira.magalhaes /at/ rug.nl) 
<mailto:(j.c.vieira.magalhaes /at/ rug.nl)>)


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