Saving here as much for posterity as to share it, the following announcement for a position in Michigan's School of Information for the 2018-19 has appeared. Of particular interest to me, and likely to many readers, is the fact that the job as specifically mentions "content moderation" as an area of specialization. To my knowledge,… Continue reading First(?) Academic Job to Reference “Content Moderation” Appears at Michigan
Category: News
Carnegie Fellows 2018 – An Honor
It is with gratitude that I share with you the news that I am one of 31 recipients of the 2018 Carnegie Fellowship. This is a career-defining honor for which I am supremely grateful and by which I am deeply humbled. I was able to respond to the news this morning on Twitter, and then… Continue reading Carnegie Fellows 2018 – An Honor
Researching ICT Companies: A Field Guide for Civil Society Researchers (and everyone else!)
Interested in how to research ICTs, but finding it daunting? Nathalie Maréchal, of USC Annenberg and Ranking Digital Rights and I wrote this handy guide, with support from the Internet Policy Observatory - a fancy PDF version is now available! tl;dr: you don’t have to have insider status (and it may even be preferable not… Continue reading Researching ICT Companies: A Field Guide for Civil Society Researchers (and everyone else!)
PRI Science Friday: The Invisible Humans Who Sanitize the Internet
On Friday, March 10, I appeared on PRI's Science Friday program to discuss commercial content moderation (CCM). Along with me was Rochelle LaPlante, who has been working on CCM via microlabor platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk for over 10 years. Of particular interest was a caller who dialed in from Iowa to talk about his… Continue reading PRI Science Friday: The Invisible Humans Who Sanitize the Internet
CCM in the Atlantic connects phenomenon to key questions of democracy
I'm pleased to report that, after many, many months in the works, my article on commercial content moderation has appeared in the Atlantic today. The story has taken many forms over the past few months of work on it, and has undergone necessary evolutions in response to rapid developments in social media-related conversations, and public pushback… Continue reading CCM in the Atlantic connects phenomenon to key questions of democracy
Microsoft sued by Commercial Content Moderators (#CCM) in first-of-its-kind case
In a first-of-its kind case, a Washington state attorney has filed suit on behalf of two Microsoft employees who were exposed to disturbing and abhorrent content, all a part of the conditions of their work at Microsoft as commercial content moderators (CCM). According to the article reported in the McClatchy syndicate of newspapers, the two… Continue reading Microsoft sued by Commercial Content Moderators (#CCM) in first-of-its-kind case
At UCLA
After three years as Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) at the University of Western Ontario, I have made an institutional change. As of summer 2016, I have joined the Department of Information Studies, a part of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, at UCLA. I am an… Continue reading At UCLA
CCM on “The Agenda”
On March 22nd, I had the honor of appearing as a guest on TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin. I appreciated the opportunity to introduce the concept and existence of commercial content moderation to a wider audience. Here is the segment of the program in which I appeared.
Information Privacy and Libraries: Alison Macrina Visits FIMS
On Wednesday, February 3rd, FIMS welcomed Alison Macrina, of the Library Freedom Project, for an exciting and provocative afternoon of events focused on information and data privacy and library practice. Macrina, an MLIS-trained librarian, is a Knight Foundation grant recipient who devotes her time and energies to training librarians - and their patrons - in… Continue reading Information Privacy and Libraries: Alison Macrina Visits FIMS
Now available: New Publications on CCM; Google Glass, Race and Class; LIS, Diversity as Social Justice and Calls to Action;Digital Literacy
In the spirit of making academic work, so often cloistered in esoteric journals or inaccessible behind paywalls, accessible to all and in a timely fashion, I have begun the process of creating pre-production files of my upcoming publication. I have deposited these files in our open access institutional repository, Scholarship@Western. I intend to negotiate for… Continue reading Now available: New Publications on CCM; Google Glass, Race and Class; LIS, Diversity as Social Justice and Calls to Action;Digital Literacy