Media & Communication · Digital & Social Media
A topic within Digital & Social Media, itself one of 11 topics in that field and part of Media & Communication.
No prior grounding assumed.
Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media
Tarleton Gillespie · 2018
Argues platforms have always been in the business of moderating content despite marketing themselves as neutral conduits, and that this hidden…
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Content Moderation as Systems Thinking
Evelyn Douek · 2022
Argues content moderation should be judged as a whole system of interacting rules, appeals and enforcement rather than case by case, because a…
Primary sources and full treatments.
Algorithmic content moderation: Technical and political challenges in the automation of platform governance
Gorwa, Binns & Katzenbach · 2020
Surveys how platforms increasingly delegate moderation to automated systems, and argues the technical limits of those systems cannot be separated…
3 works
Tarleton Gillespie
Argues platforms have always been in the business of moderating content despite marketing themselves as neutral conduits, and that this hidden curatorial work is what actually defines what a social medium is.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Evelyn Douek
Argues content moderation should be judged as a whole system of interacting rules, appeals and enforcement rather than case by case, because a platform's individual decisions can each look defensible while the system they add up to fails.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Gorwa, Binns & Katzenbach
Surveys how platforms increasingly delegate moderation to automated systems, and argues the technical limits of those systems cannot be separated from unresolved political questions about who should decide what speech is permitted.
link checked 17 Sept 2026