Platform Politics and Content Moderation
How do platforms intervene in the world around us? What kinds of politics do they enact? And most importantly - how do we ensure they are the politics we want?
The governance role of technology companies has been a running theme of my work in the past decade. I was one of the conveners of the Santa Clara Principles on Content Moderation, and helped set up the OnlineCensorship.org project to study and advocate for transparency around content moderation when tech companies would not divulge information about their operations publicly.
Here are a few articles I've published in this space:
Suzor, N.P, West, S.M., Quodling, A., and York, J. (2019). What Do We Mean When We Talk About Transparency? Toward Meaningful Transparency in Content Moderation. International Journal of Communication 13, 1526-1543. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/9736/2610.
West, S.M. (2018) Censored, Suspended, Shadowbanned: Researching User Experiences of Content Moderation on Social Media Platforms, New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818773059.
(Won best student paper, Media Industry Studies group at ICA)
Suzor, N., Van Geelen, T., and West, S.M. (2018) Evaluating the legitimacy of platform
governance: a review of research and a shared research agenda, International Communication Gazette. https://doi-org.libproxy2.usc.edu/10.1177/1748048518757142
West, S.M. (2017). Data Capitalism: Redefining the Logics of Surveillance and Privacy,
Business and Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650317718185
West, S.M. (2017). Raging Against the Machine: Collective Action on Social Media Platforms, Media and Communication, 5(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/mac.v5i3.989
West, S.M. (2017). Searching for the Public in Internet Governance: An Examination of
Infrastructures of Participation at NETmundial, Policy & Internet. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/poi3.143.
West, S.M. (2014). Redefining Digital Diplomacy: Modeling Business Diplomacy by Internet Companies in China. Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 9(4): 334-355.
https://doi.org/10.1163/1871191X-12341295.