Fun drinking game for the next 9-12 months: take a shot every time a news article uses the phrase "Section 230" or "chilling effect on free speech" -- that way you'll be in the hospital with liver poisoning instead of having to keep up with all the TikTok news and court challenges
#SocialMedia#Disinformation#PlatformGovernance: "Social media engagements, such as likes and follows, have become crucial for driving algorithmic recommendations and underpinning platform economies. This has given rise to disinformation industries that focus on the production and sale of engagements, including Instagram followers—a phenomenon we term the “engagement as a service” market. However, this market poses significant challenges for empirical research as its operations remain obscured from the scrutiny of platforms, their users, and researchers alike. In this article, we propose a mixed-methods approach to make visible the relationship between the engagement market and platform governance, the latter of which increasingly aims to moderate account behavior in terms of authenticity and inauthenticity—what we refer to as “authenticity governance.” By developing this approach, we explore the relationship between the engagement market and platform ecosystems through three case studies: (1) engagement market responses to platform governance; (2) the evolution of engagement as a service; and (3) testing the quality of engagement as a service on Instagram. These investigations allow us to comprehend disinformation as an ongoing negotiation between the engagement market and authenticity governance. Overall, our three integrated approaches can help researchers move forward with the empirical study of disinformation markets that operate at the periphery of platform ecosystems. In short, this article presents a methodological outlook for analyzing (in)authentic engagements as a form of disinformation."
📢 "One Day in Content Moderation". How much content do social platforms remove and downrank in one day – and why? We have looked in the new billion-item "EU Transparency database". Our new report / blog post from @pgmt@zemki
#SocialMedia#ContentModeration#PlatformGovernance#OpenAccess: "We are pleased to announce the publication of our new special issue in Social Media+ Society on “Trust and Safety on Social Media: Understanding the Impact of Anti-Social Behavior and Misinformation on Content Moderation and Platform Governance,” edited by Anatoliy Gruzd, Felipe Bonow Soares, and Philip Mai.
The issue features eleven open access peer-reviewed articles that examine “the rise of anti-social behavior, misinformation, and other forms of problematic content within and across various social media settings, contexts, and user groups. The special issue featured work that emerged from the presentations and deliberations by interdisciplinary scholars at the 2022 International Conference on Social Media & Society, organized by the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. The issue explores two dangerous and interconnecting trends: the rise of anti-social behavior and the spread of misinformation online. Its aim is to help the public, policymakers, and platform operators better understand the factors contributing to the rise of these minacious trends on social media.”
The issue was truly a team effort. We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all contributing authors, reviewers and guest editors for contributing to the publication of this timely and in-depth issue and to SM+S publisher and journal editor Zizi Papacharissi for supporting the special issue from its inception to publication.
All articles are free to read and accessible at the links below."
For the offline component of the 4th edition of our teaching partnership, the Digital Constitutionalism Network is in Padova this week with brilliant students from University of Padova, Dublin City University and University of Bremen
The intensive week of lectures and group work in Padova builds upon the virtual component before the summer. To learn more about the Blended Intensive Programme coordinated by the Digital Constitutionalism Network, check out the blog post on the virtual part.
The BIP is organised by Claudia Padovani, Andrea Pettrachin, Edoardo Celeste and Dennis Redeker with contributions by various members of the Digital Constitutionalism Network, including Mauro Santaniello and Marianne Franklin