#BlackModerationMatters
Timeline: June 2023-Present
Institution: Center for Comparative Studies In Race and Ethnicity
Project Background:
Project Goals:
Controlling and preventing racist hate speech on social media requires countless content moderators. Content moderators are tasked to view and evaluate the most violent, disturbing, and exploitative content on social media (Chotiner 2019). Content moderation is a critical service that helps protect users of social media platforms and enforces social media safety. Following the murder of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, there was a great increase in racist hate speech online. Although companies modified their content policies to accommodate Black voices, these changes are ineffective when content moderation teams lack diversity. Ultimately, diversity in content moderation in necessary to amplify marginalized voices on social media platforms.
With this project, we hope to gain a better understanding of Black content moderators’ attitudes, perspectives, and insights in their roles as content moderators. Our main goal is to provide a platform for the voices of Black content moderators and elevate their concerns amidst their work. Through mixed-methods research, we hope to create a robust way for Black content moderators to speak to their experiences and relationships they form with their company. Another goal of ours is to ultimately create research and credible fin
Methods:
We have been working to develop a comprehensive, quantitative survey to address the needs, priorities, and attitudes of Black Reddit content moderators. In addition, we plan on scheduling in-depth interviews with survey respondents to get a better understanding of their perspectives. We plan to administer a ~20 minute survey for past and current Black content moderators to assess their motivations and attitudes towards Reddit specifically. Within the survey, respondents will indicate their interest in participating in a Zoom interview to expand upon their perspectives, which will be transcribed for analysis.
