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Moderation of Deliberation: How Volunteer Moderators Shape Political Discussion in Facebook Groups?

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Social Computing and Social Media: Design, User Experience and Impact (HCII 2022)

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Abstract

Platform moderation policies are described as a “black box” because the reasoning behind them has remained opaque to users. This study investigates how moderation is enacted in Facebook groups, which are user-created and voluntarily administered social media communities hosted by a global platform company. By exploring one part of the complex moderation structure of Facebook, the volunteer moderators of Facebook groups, this study aims to find out how their moderation strategies shape political debate on social media. What are their strategies for dealing with problematic content and how do these strategies support deliberation and autonomy of participants? This qualitative study is based on thematic interviews for 15 volunteer moderators of Finnish Facebook groups with focus on political and societal topics. Based on the findings, this article discusses the extent to which the public debate on social media, currently shaped by the affordances and design choices made by global platforms, serves the benefit of general audience who is seeking political information from social media.

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Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Emmi Lehtinen for her valuable help in the analysis of research data. This study was funded by Academy of Finland, decision number 321608.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Research, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Sanna Malinen

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  1. Sanna Malinen
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Correspondence to Sanna Malinen .

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  1. Towson University, Towson, MD, USA

    Gabriele Meiselwitz

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Malinen, S. (2022). Moderation of Deliberation: How Volunteer Moderators Shape Political Discussion in Facebook Groups?. In: Meiselwitz, G. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media: Design, User Experience and Impact. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13315. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05061-9_43

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05061-9_43

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-05060-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-05061-9

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