Content moderation

Social media’s sexist assemblages

Bibliographic Data

ID12657014
AuthorsYsabel Gerrard (0000-0003-1298-9365, University of Sheffield, corresponding author), Helen Thornham (0000-0003-1302-6579, University of Leeds)
Year2020
Volume22
Issue7
Pages1266-1286
Publication date2020-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1461444820912540
OpenAlexW3041336306
LanguageEN
Citations received47
References cited43

This article proposes ‘sexist assemblages’ as a way of understanding how the human and mechanical elements that make up social media content moderation assemble to perpetuate normative gender roles, particularly white femininities, and to police content related to women and their bodies. It investigates sexist assemblages through three of many potential elements: (1) the normatively gendered content presented to users through in-platform keyword and hashtag searches; (2) social media platforms’ community guidelines, which lay out platforms’ codes of conduct and reveal biases and subjectivities and (3) the over-simplification of gender identities that is necessary to algorithmically recommend content to users as they move through platforms. By the time the reader finds this article, the elements of the assemblages we identify might have shifted, but we hope the framework remains useful for those aiming to understand the relationship between content moderation and long-standing forms of inequality

Content (measure theory · Content analysis · Media content · Moderation · Multimedia · Normative · Political science · Social media · Social science · Sociology · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology

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Open DOIOpen Access