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Content Moderation

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Big Data

Synonyms

Community management; Community moderation; Content screening

Definition

Content moderation is 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. The process can result in UGC being removed by a moderator, acting as an agent of the platform or site in question. Increasingly, social media platforms rely on massive quantities of UGC data to populate them and to drive user engagement; with that increase has come the concomitant need for platforms and sites to enforce their rules and relevant or applicable laws, as the posting of inappropriate content is considered a major source of liability.

The style of moderation can vary from site to site, and from platform to platform, as rules around what UGC is allowed are often set at a site or platform level and reflect that platform’s brand and reputation,...

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Further Readings

  • Crawford, K., & Gillespie, T. (2016). What is a flag for? Social media reporting tools and the vocabulary of complaint. New Media & Society, 18 (3), 410–428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Galloway, A. R. (2006). Protocol: How control exists after decentralization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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  • Postigo, H. (2003). Emerging sources of labor on the internet: The case of America online volunteers. International Review of Social History, 48(S11), 205–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, S. T. (2016). Commercial content moderation: Digital laborers’ dirty work. In S. U. Noble & B. Tynes (Eds.), The intersectional internet: Race, sex, class and culture online (pp. 147–160). New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, F. (2005). Where the counterculture met the new economy: The WELL and the origins of virtual community. Technology and Culture, 46 (3), 485–512.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 300 Charles E. Young Dr. N., Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Sarah T. Roberts

Authors
  1. Sarah T. Roberts
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Correspondence to Sarah T. Roberts .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Policy, Government and International Affairs, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA

    Laurie A. Schintler

  2. School of Policy, Government and International Affairs, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA

    Connie L. McNeely

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© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

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Cite this entry

Roberts, S.T. (2017). Content Moderation. In: Schintler, L., McNeely, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Big Data. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32001-4_44-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32001-4_44-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32001-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32001-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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