We are proud to host our partners from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their participation is supported by the Tübingen-UNC strategic partnership initiative. More information about the strategic partnership can be found at https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/90523

UNC-Tübingen Partnership Panel

"Reconfiguring Justice and Equity: Content Governance Models for Platform Violence"

Online platforms have developed a series of technical and legal frameworks for moderating content, including the review and removal of content, and banning of repeat offenders. While consensus largely exists around the importance of mitigating and providing meaningful remedies for harms, content moderation practices, particularly in the Majority World, have not been able to effectively address and provide solutions for online harms that range from interpersonal harassment, image-based sexual abuse, spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation about human rights atrocities and public health interventions, election meddling, and hate speech. In addition, the consolidation of power in the hands of big tech companies, and the complex relationship that governments across the world have with social media companies often results in asymmetries in the sites, interactions, and vectors of online harm. With increasing violence, particularly towards racial, ethnic, and gender minorities on social media, this panel aims to provide interventions on rethinking platform regulation and content governance using a transnational lens not only to remedy the negative impact of harm on vulnerable communities but also to reimagine democratic, inclusive and just spaces for participation. We ask:
1.    What do platforms need to consider in thinking about justice and equity?
2.    How do content moderation policies benefit those with power?
3.    What are the relationships among content governance strategies and our conceptions of justice?
4.    How can we think about more equitable models of content governance?

Heesoo Jang is a Royster Fellow and a Richard Cole Fellow at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also affiliated with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Dr. Nanditha Narayanamoorthy is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a Siegel Family Endowment Fellow.  
Dr. Shannon McGregor is an assistant professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, and a senior researcher with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life - both at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.