“Highly nuanced policy is very difficult to apply at scale”: Examining researcher account and content takedowns online

IF 4.1 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Policy and Internet Pub Date : 2023-11-06 DOI:10.1002/poi3.374

Aaron Y. Zelin

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Since 2019, researchers examining, archiving, and collecting extremist and terrorist materials online have increasingly been taken offline. In part a consequence of the automation of content moderation by different technology companies and national governments calling for ever quicker takedowns. Based on an online survey of peers in the field, this research highlights that up to 60% of researchers surveyed have had either their accounts or content they have posted or stored online taken down from varying platforms. Beyond the quantitative data, this research also garnered qualitative answers about concerns individuals in the field had related to this problem set, namely, the lack of transparency on the part of the technology companies, hindering actual research and understanding of complicated and evolving issues related to different extremist and terrorist phenomena, undermining potential collaboration within the research field, and the potential of self‐censorship online. An easy solution to this would be a whitelist, though there are inherent downsides related to this as well, especially between researchers at different levels in their careers, institutional affiliation or lack thereof, and inequalities between researchers from the West versus Global South. Either way, securitizing research in however form it evolves in the future will fundamentally hurt research.

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“高度细致入微的政策很难大规模实施”:检查研究人员的账户和内容在网上被删除

自2019年以来，越来越多的研究人员在网上审查、存档和收集极端主义和恐怖主义材料。部分原因是不同的科技公司和国家政府要求更快地删除内容，从而实现了内容审核的自动化。根据对该领域同行的在线调查，这项研究强调，多达60%的受访研究人员的账户或他们在网上发布或存储的内容从不同的平台上被删除。除了定量数据之外，这项研究还获得了关于该领域个人与该问题集相关的问题的定性答案，即技术公司缺乏透明度，阻碍了对与不同极端主义和恐怖主义现象相关的复杂和不断发展的问题的实际研究和理解，破坏了研究领域内潜在的合作，以及在线自我审查的可能性。一个简单的解决方案是白名单，尽管这也有固有的缺点，特别是在不同职业水平的研究人员之间，机构隶属或缺乏，以及来自西方与全球南方的研究人员之间的不平等。无论哪种方式，无论未来以何种形式将研究证券化，都将从根本上损害研究。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Policy and Internet Multiple-

CiteScore

8.40

自引率

10.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Understanding public policy in the age of the Internet requires understanding how individuals, organizations, governments and networks behave, and what motivates them in this new environment. Technological innovation and internet-mediated interaction raise both challenges and opportunities for public policy: whether in areas that have received much work already (e.g. digital divides, digital government, and privacy) or newer areas, like regulation of data-intensive technologies and platforms, the rise of precarious labour, and regulatory responses to misinformation and hate speech. We welcome innovative research in areas where the Internet already impacts public policy, where it raises new challenges or dilemmas, or provides opportunities for policy that is smart and equitable. While we welcome perspectives from any academic discipline, we look particularly for insight that can feed into social science disciplines like political science, public administration, economics, sociology, and communication. We welcome articles that introduce methodological innovation, theoretical development, or rigorous data analysis concerning a particular question or problem of public policy.