Historically, companies have invisibilized some media workers to maintain underlying infrastructural ideologies. Likewise, contemporary commercial content moderators (CCMs) are hidden to obscure tensions inherent in digital platforms’ neoliberal ideologies and data economies. Despite this, CCMs are increasingly demanding visibility and legal rights. However, companies are responding by crafting their own narratives about CCMs for different audiences. What representations do these companies create about CCMs, and with what effects? Using thematic analysis of three case study examples, I outline discourses of “heroic battles,” resilience and wellness, and humanness. These discourses naturalize underlying infrastructural ideologies and could impact future legal protections.
CarmiElinor. 2019. “The Hidden Listeners: Regulating the Line From Telephone Operators to Content Moderators.” Journal of International Communication13 (19): 440–58.
DowneyGregory. 2002. Telegraph Messenger Boys: Labor, Technology, and Geography1850-1950. New York, NY: Routledge.
11.
DowneyGregory. 2014. “Making Media Work: Time, Space, Identity, and Labor in the Analysis of Information and Communication Infrastructures.” In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, edited by GillespieTarletonBoczkowskiPabloFootKirsten, 141–65. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
12.
EdwardsPaulBowkerGeoffreyJacksonStevenWilliamsRobin; University of Michigan, University of Pittsburgh, University of Michigan, and University of Edinburgh. 2009. “Introduction: An Agenda for Infrastructure Studies.” Journal of the Association for Information Systems10 (5): 364–74.
FuchsChristian ed. 2017. Social Media: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed.Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
15.
GillespieTarleton. 2010. “The Politics of ‘Platforms.” New Media & Society12 (3): 347–64.
16.
GillespieTarleton. 2018. Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
17.
GillespieTarleton. 2020. “Content Moderation, AI, and the Question of Scale.” Big Data & Society7 (2): 1–5. doi:10.1177/2053951720943234
18.
GillespieTarleton. 2022. “Do Not Recommend? Reduction as a Form of Content Moderation.” Social Media + Society8 (3): 1–13. doi:10.1177/20563051221117552
19.
GillRosalindOrgadShani. 2018. “The Amazing Bounce-Backable Woman: Resilience and the Psychological Turn in Neoliberalism.” Sociological Research Online23 (2): 477–95.
20.
GorwaRobert. 2019. “What Is Platform Governance?” Information Communication & Society22 (6): 854–71.
21.
GorwaRobertBinnsReubenKatzenbachChristian. 2020. “Algorithmic Content Moderation: Technical and Political Challenges in the Automation of Platform Governance.” Big Data & Society7 (1): 1–16.
22.
HallStuartMasseyDoreenRustinMichael. 2013. “After Neoliberalism: Analysing the Present.” Soundings53: 8–22.
HumbertClemenceJosephJonathan. 2019. “Introduction: The Politics of Resilience: Problematising Current Approaches.” Reslience7 (3): 215–23.
25.
JacksonSteven. 2014. “Rethinking Repair.” In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality and Society, edited by GillespieTarletonBoczkowskiPabloKirstenFoot, 221–39. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
26.
JacksonSteven J.EdwardsPaul N.BowkerGeoffrey C.KnobelCory P.2007. “Understanding Infrastructure: History, Heuristics and Cyberinfrastructure Policy.” First Monday12 (6). doi:10.5210/fm.v12i6.1904
27.
JerezaRae. 2022. “I’m Not This Person’: Racism, Content Moderators, and Protecting and Denying Voice Online.” New Media & Society26 (8): 4454–4470. doi:10.1177/14614448221122224
28.
JerezaRae. 2021. “Corporeal Moderation: Digital Labour as Affective Good.” Social Anthropology29 (4): 928–43.
MansellRobin. 2012. Imagining the Internet: Communication, Innovation, and Governance. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
32.
MaryGraySiddharthSuri. 2019. Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley From Building a New Global Underclass. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
O’NeilCathy. 2016. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. New York: Crown.
35.
ParksLisaStarosielskiNicole. 2015. Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
36.
PinchevskiAmit. 2023. “Social Media’s Canaries: Content Moderators Between Digital Labor and Mediated Trauma.” Media Culture & Society45 (1): 212–21.
37.
PlantinJean-Christophe. 2019. “Data Cleaners for Pristine Datasets: Visibility and Invisibility of Data Processors in Social Science.” Science Technology & Human Values44 (1): 52–73.
38.
PlantinJean-ChristopheLagozeCarlEdwardsPaul N.SandvigChristian. 2018. “Infrastructure Studies Meet Platform Studies in the Age of Google and Facebook.” New Media & Society20 (1): 293–310.
39.
PlantinJean-ChristophePunathambekarAswin. 2019. “Digital Media Infrastructures: Pipes, Platforms, and Politics.” Media Culture & Society41 (2): 163–74.
40.
PoellThomas. 2020. “Three Challenges for Media Studies in the Age of Platforms.” Television & New Media21 (6): 650–57.
RobertsSarah. 2016. “Digital Refuse: Canadian Garbage, Commercial Content Moderation and the Global Circulation of Social Media’s Waste.” Media Studies Publications14: 1–11.
43.
RobertsSarah. 2018. “Digital Detritus: ‘Error’ and the Logic of Opacity in Social Media Content Moderation.” First Monday23 (3). doi:10.5210/fm.v23i3.8283
44.
RobertsSarah. 2019. Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
45.
RuckensteinMinnaTurunenLinda Lisa Maria. 2020. “Re-Humanizing the Platform: Content Moderators and the Logic of Care.” New Media & Society22 (6): 1026–42.
StarSusan LeighRuhlederKaren. 1996. “Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces.” Information Systems Research7 (1): 111–34. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23010792
