Tarleton Gillespie
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View article: AI red-teaming is a sociotechnical challenge: on values, labor, and harms
AI red-teaming is a sociotechnical challenge: on values, labor, and harms Open
As generative AI technologies find more and more real-world applications, the importance of testing their performance and safety seems paramount. "Red-teaming" has quickly become the primary approach to test AI models--prioritized by AI co…
View article: Generative AI and the politics of visibility
Generative AI and the politics of visibility Open
Proponents of generative AI tools claim they will supplement, even replace, the work of cultural production. This raises questions about the politics of visibility: what kinds of stories do these tools tend to generate, and what do they ge…
View article: Health and toxicity in content moderation: the discursive work of justification
Health and toxicity in content moderation: the discursive work of justification Open
Within academia, industry, and government, the terms 'health' and 'toxicity' are widely used to describe and justify decisions around online content and its removal. However, the meanings of these terms are assumed to be self-evident and t…
View article: The Fact of Content Moderation; Or, Let’s Not Solve the Platforms’ Problems for Them
The Fact of Content Moderation; Or, Let’s Not Solve the Platforms’ Problems for Them Open
Recent social science concerning the information technology industries has been driven by a sense of urgency around the problems social media platforms face. But it need not be our job to solve the problems these industries have created, a…
View article: Do Not Recommend? Reduction as a Form of Content Moderation
Do Not Recommend? Reduction as a Form of Content Moderation Open
Public debate about content moderation has overwhelmingly focused on removal: social media platforms deleting content and suspending users, or opting not to do so. However, removal is not the only available remedy. Reducing the visibility …
View article: IN(TER)DEPENDENCE IN PLATFORMED CREATION
IN(TER)DEPENDENCE IN PLATFORMED CREATION Open
In recent years, a variety of cultural industries have been transformed by platformization – a process in which technology companies serve as intermediaries connecting different parties (most importantly cultural producers and audiences) t…
View article: Making Sense of Metrics in the Music Industries
Making Sense of Metrics in the Music Industries Open
This article considers how media workers and organizations make use of the abundance of metrics available in the contemporary online environment. The expansion of audience measurement on digital music platforms, dashboard analytics, and th…
View article: Expanding the debate about content moderation: Scholarly research agendas for the coming policy debates
Expanding the debate about content moderation: Scholarly research agendas for the coming policy debates Open
Content moderation has exploded as a policy, advocacy, and public concern. But these debates still tend to be driven by high-profile incidents and to focus on the largest, US based platforms. In order to contribute to informed policymaking…
View article: Politicians, Social Media, and Digital Publics: Old Rights, New Terrain
Politicians, Social Media, and Digital Publics: Old Rights, New Terrain Open
In this interdisciplinary roundtable discussion, five scholars interested in political communication work through the democratic dilemmas created when privately owned social media platforms are used as digital public squares by elected off…
View article: Content moderation, AI, and the question of scale
Content moderation, AI, and the question of scale Open
AI seems like the perfect response to the growing challenges of content moderation on social media platforms: the immense scale of the data, the relentlessness of the violations, and the need for human judgments without wanting humans to h…
View article: Expanding the Debate About Content Moderation
Expanding the Debate About Content Moderation Open
In this paper, nine scholars consider how to expand research on Internet platforms’ content moderation. We consider research on encrypted platforms such as WhatsApp; on short-lived but briefly popular platforms; on cloud computing platform…
View article: Tiered Governance and Demonetization: The Shifting Terms of Labor and Compensation in the Platform Economy
Tiered Governance and Demonetization: The Shifting Terms of Labor and Compensation in the Platform Economy Open
Social media platforms have profoundly transformed cultural production, in part by restructuring the terms by which culture is distributed and paid for. In this article, we examine the YouTube Partner Program and the controversies around t…
View article: Introduction to Critical and Ethical Studies of Digital and Social Media Minitrack
Introduction to Critical and Ethical Studies of Digital and Social Media Minitrack Open
This minitrack hosts the best emerging scholarship from sociology, anthropology, communication, information studies, and science & technology studies addressing the most pressing critical and ethical concerns around DSM. Papers interrogate…
View article: Introduction: From Culture Digitally
Introduction: From Culture Digitally Open
This essay introduces the special issue of Social Media + Society curated by the editors of Culture Digitally and drawn from the community of Culture Digitally contributors.
View article: Platforms Intervene
Platforms Intervene Open
Social media platforms don’t just guide, distort, and facilitate social activity, they also delete some of it. They don’t just link users together, they also suspend them. They don’t just circulate our images and posts, they also algorithm…