2019/07/19 by Shagun Jhaver, Iris Birman, Eric Gilbert +2 · 21 citations
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection #Social Media and Politics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1145/3338243
openalex publication_date 2019/07/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
What one may say on the internet is increasingly controlled by a mix of automated programs, and decisions made by paid and volunteer human moderators. On the popular social media site Reddit, moderators heavily rely on a configurable, automated program called “Automoderator” (or “Automod”). How do moderators use Automod? What advantages and challenges does the use of Automod present? We participated as Reddit moderators for over a year, and conducted interviews with 16 moderators to understand the use of Automod in the context of the sociotechnical system of Reddit. Our findings suggest a need for audit tools to help tune the performance of automated mechanisms, a repository for sharing tools, and improving the division of labor between human and machine decision making. We offer insights that are relevant to multiple stakeholders—creators of platforms, designers of automated regulation systems, scholars of platform governance, and content moderators.