Tag: digital technology

Content Moderation: Mediating Public Speech Privately

Social media constitutes a universe of more images, text and videos than can be humanly experienced, read, and heard. However, disinformation, terrorist content, harassment, and other kinds of negative content have made ‘content moderation’ one of the most pressing demands from large online communication platforms (“intermediaries”), such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Every single day, major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube receive thousands of requests to review or take down content that violates their internal policies or an external law. Sometimes they receive requests, both from the US government and foreign governments, for information on users, or to censor specific people and accounts. Content moderation can be defined as “the organized practice of screening user-generated content (UGC) posted to Internet sites, social media, and other online outlets, in order to determine the appropriateness of the content for a given site, locality, or jurisdiction” (Roberts 2017). The rules for content (read more...)

Hetero-Comfortable Avatars

Content warning from author: This post will have instances of sexism, transphobia, and sexual violence. I noticed a masculine voice near me say: “wow Wow WOW!” I turned my body to see a couple of masculine avatars looking at me, or rather looking at my breasts. I said nothing, afraid I might be “found out” — that my voice wouldn’t quite match what the body of my avatar “should” have. As my avatar stood there, blinking in silence, one of the masculine avatars got closer and began to rub my body, taking particular interest in my breasts. I looked down and shared eye contact with him, and he said “Don’t worry. It’s ok, it’s VRChat. This is what happens. You won’t really feel anything anyway.” The others did the same. (read more...)

Privacy and Piracy: Investigating Unauthorized Online Gaming


