Content Moderation and the Formation of Online Communities: A Theoretical Framework
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3589334.3645490.pdf
Size
935.14 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f60ed519bac4946ec1c4091287a4f50b
Author(s)
Dwork, Cynthia
Hays, Chris
Kleinberg, Jon
Raghavan, Manish
Date Issued
May 13, 2024
Publisher
ACM
Citation
Dwork, Cynthia, Hays, Chris, Kleinberg, Jon and Raghavan, Manish. 2024. "Content Moderation and the Formation of Online Communities: A Theoretical Framework."
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We study the impact of content moderation policies in online communities. In our theoretical model, a platform chooses a content moderation policy and individuals choose whether or not to participate in the community according to the fraction of user content that aligns with their preferences. The effects of content moderation, at first blush, might seem obvious: platform speech is restricted. However, when user participation decisions are taken into account, its effects can be more subtle --- and counter-intuitive. For example, our model can straightforwardly demonstrate how moderation policies mayincrease participation and/ordiversify content available on the platform. In our analysis, we explore a rich set of interconnected phenomena related to content moderation in online communities. We first characterize the effectiveness of a natural class of moderation policies for creating and sustaining communities. Building on this, we explore how resource-limited or ideological platforms might set policies, how communities are affected by differing levels of personalization, and competition between platforms. Our model provides a vocabulary and mathematically tractable framework for analyzing platform decisions about content moderation.
Description
WWW '24: Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference May 13–17, 2024, Singapore, Singapore
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3589334.3645490
