Gerrard, Y. (2018) Beyond the hashtag : circumventing content moderation on social media. New Media and Society, 20 (12). pp. 4492-4511. ISSN 1461-4448
Abstract
Social media companies make important decisions about what counts as “problematic” content and how they will remove it. Some choose to moderate hashtags, blocking the results for certain tag searches and issuing public service announcements (PSAs) when users search for troubling terms. The hashtag has thus become an indicator of where problematic content can be found, but this has produced limited understandings of how such content actually circulates. Using pro-eating disorder (pro-ED) communities as a case study, this article explores the practices of circumventing hashtag moderation in online pro-ED communities. It shows how (1) untagged pro-ED content can be found without using the hashtag as a search mechanism; (2) users are evading hashtag and other forms of platform policing, devising signals to identify themselves as “pro-ED”; and (3) platforms’ recommendation systems recirculate pro-ED content, revealing the limitations of hashtag logics in social media content moderation.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in New Media & Society. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Algorithms; content moderation; eating disorders; hashtags; Instagram; Pinterest; pro-ana; social media; Tumblr |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Sociological Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 21 Jun 2018 11:50 |
Last Modified: | 20 Apr 2021 10:25 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/1461444818776611 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:132344 |
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Filename: Gerrard, Y - Beyond the Hashtag - AFC 2018-04-19.pdf
Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0