I am honored to announce that I am a recipient of a 2018 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, based on my research to unveil the people and practices of commercial content moderation. I am deeply honored by this recognition, which came as a complete surprise, and honored to be sharing the 2018 award with two other recipients, Stephanie Lenz and Joe McNamee. I am also humbled by the incredible list of people who have received the award in the past, including internet innovators, activists, journalists, academics and my friend, computer scientist Ian Goldberg. I consider it a testament to the importance of content moderation studies and to all those who are engaged in both the practice and research of content moderation; we now constitute a nascent community and I’m proud to represent all of us.
With deep gratitude, thank you to those who nominated me and to those responsible for my selection. It is the recognition of a lifetime.