Expanding the debate about content moderation: Scholarly research agendas for the coming policy debates

Content moderation has exploded as a policy, advocacy, and public concern. But these debates still tend to be driven by high-profile incidents and to focus on the largest, US based platforms. In order to contribute to informed policymaking, scholarship in this area needs to recognise that moderation is an expansive socio-technical phenomenon, which functions in many contexts and takes many forms. Expanding the discussion also changes how we assess the array of proposed policy solutions meant to improve content moderation. Here, nine content moderation scholars working in critical internet studies propose how to expand research on content moderation, with implications for policy

Physiological and molecular characterization of yeast cultures pre‐adapted for fermentation of lignocellulosic hydrolysate.

Economically feasible bioethanol process from lignocellulose requires efficient fermentation by yeast of all sugars present in the hydrolysate. However, when exposed to lignocellulosic hydrolysate, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is challenged with a variety of inhibitors that reduce yeast viability, growth, and fermentation rate, and in addition damage cellular structures. In order to evaluate the capability of S. cerevisiae to adapt and respond to lignocellulosic hydrolysates, the physiological effect of cultivating yeast in the spruce hydrolysate was comprehensively studied by assessment of yeast performance in simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF), measurement of furaldehyde reduction activity, assessment of conversion of phenolic compounds and genome‐wide transcription analysis. The yeast cultivated in spruce hydrolysate developed a rapid adaptive response to lignocellulosic hydrolysate, which significantly improved its fermentation performance in subsequent SSF experiments. The adaptation was shown to involve the induction of NADPHdependent aldehyde reductases and conversion of phenolic compounds during the fed‐batch cultivation. These properties were correlated to the expression of several genes encoding oxidoreductases, notably AAD4, ADH6, OYE2/3, and YML131w. The other most significant transcriptional changes involved genes involved in transport mechanisms, such as YHK8, FLR1, or ATR1. A large set of genes were found to be associated with transcription factors (TFs) involved in stress response (Msn2p, Msn4p, Yap1p) but also cell growth and division (Gcr4p, Ste12p, Sok2p), and these TFs were most likely controlling the response at the post‐transcriptional level

Countering Extremists on Social Media:Challenges for Strategic Communication and Content Moderation

Extremist exploitation of social media platforms is an important regulatory question for civil society, government, and the private sector. Extremists exploit social media for a range of reasons-from spreading hateful narratives and propaganda to financing, recruitment, and sharing operational information. Policy responses to this question fit under two headings, strategic communication and content moderation. At the center of both of these policy responses is a calculation about how best to limit audience exposure to extremist narratives and maintain the marginality of extremist views, while being conscious of rights to free expression and the appropriateness of restrictions on speech. This special issue on "Countering Extremists on Social Media: Challenges for Strategic Communication and Content Moderation" focuses on one form of strategic communication, countering violent extremism. In this editorial we discuss the background and effectiveness of this approach, and introduce five articles which develop multiple strands of research into responses and solutions to extremist exploitation of social media. We conclude by suggesting an agenda for future research on how multistakeholder initiatives to challenge extremist exploitation of social media are conceived, designed, and implemented, and the challenges these initiatives need to surmount

Comparative genomic and transcriptomic analysis revealed genetic characteristics related to solvent formation and xylose utilization in Clostridium acetobutylicum EA 2018

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Clostridium acetobutylicum</it>, a gram-positive and spore-forming anaerobe, is a major strain for the fermentative production of acetone, butanol and ethanol. But a previously isolated hyper-butanol producing strain <it>C. acetobutylicum </it>EA 2018 does not produce spores and has greater capability of solvent production, especially for butanol, than the type strain <it>C. acetobutylicum </it>ATCC 824.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Complete genome of <it>C. acetobutylicum </it>EA 2018 was sequenced using Roche 454 pyrosequencing. Genomic comparison with ATCC 824 identified many variations which may contribute to the hyper-butanol producing characteristics in the EA 2018 strain, including a total of 46 deletion sites and 26 insertion sites. In addition, transcriptomic profiling of gene expression in EA 2018 relative to that of ATCC824 revealed expression-level changes of several key genes related to solvent formation. For example, <it>spo0A </it>and <it>adhEII </it>have higher expression level, and most of the acid formation related genes have lower expression level in EA 2018. Interestingly, the results also showed that the variation in CEA_G2622 (CAC2613 in ATCC 824), a putative transcriptional regulator involved in xylose utilization, might accelerate utilization of substrate xylose.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Comparative analysis of <it>C. acetobutylicum </it>hyper-butanol producing strain EA 2018 and type strain ATCC 824 at both genomic and transcriptomic levels, for the first time, provides molecular-level understanding of non-sporulation, higher solvent production and enhanced xylose utilization in the mutant EA 2018. The information could be valuable for further genetic modification of <it>C. acetobutylicum </it>for more effective butanol production.</p

Adaptation of Scheffersomyces stipitis to hardwood spent sulfite liquor by evolutionary engineering

Hardwood spent sulfite liquor (HSSL) is a by-product of acid sulfite pulping process that is rich in xylose, a monosaccharide that can be fermented to ethanol by Scheffersomyces stipitis. However, HSSL also contains acetic acid and lignosulfonates that are inhibitory compounds of yeast growth. The main objective of this study was the use of an evolutionary engineering strategy to obtain variants of S. stipitis with increased tolerance to HSSL inhibitors while maintaining the ability to ferment xylose to ethanol

Experimental evidence for scale-induced category convergence across populations

Individuals vary widely in how they categorize novel and ambiguous phenomena. This individual variation has led influential theories in cognitive and social science to suggest that communication in large social groups introduces path dependence in category formation, which is expected to lead separate populations toward divergent cultural trajectories. Yet, anthropological data indicates that large, independent societies consistently arrive at highly similar category systems across a range of topics. How is it possible for diverse populations, consisting of individuals with significant variation in how they categorize the world, to independently construct similar category systems? Here, we investigate this puzzle experimentally by creating an online "Grouping Game" in which we observe how people in small and large populations collaboratively construct category systems for a continuum of ambiguous stimuli. We find that solitary individuals and small groups produce highly divergent category systems; however, across independent trials with unique participants, large populations consistently converge on highly similar category systems. A formal model of critical mass dynamics in social networks accurately predicts this process of scale-induced category convergence. Our findings show how large communication networks can filter lexical diversity among individuals to produce replicable society-level patterns, yielding unexpected implications for cultural evolution

Platform governance: the transnational politics of online content regulation

Billions of people around the world use services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube every day to access information, engage in conversation, and stay in touch with friends and family. These hugely profitable and popular platforms for user-generated content, operated by large multinational technology companies, have in the past decade created complex systems of private regulatory standards that govern online behaviour and have a significant impact on the social, cultural, and political lives of their customers around the world. Where these systems --- which can be understood by International Relations (IR) scholars as an expression of private authority in global politics --- were once tacitly accepted or ignored by state actors, governments have in recent years increasingly sought to shape the rules and practices deployed by platform companies through various strategies. In some cases, governments have sought to `take back control' and re-assert state authority over this privately-managed domain, while in others they have opted rather to work directly with companies in more collaborative fashion. What explains the variation in how governments intervene in platform governance? The thesis argues that how governments seek to shape, challenge, or contest private platform rule-making can be understood as either fitting in within a collaborative or a contested strategy. Building upon literatures from transnational regulatory politics, the thesis explains variation between these two strategies as the result of an interplay between three factors: domestic demand for change, the ability to supply that change (regulatory capacity and transnational or domestic institutional constraints on that capacity), and normative understandings of an actor's appropriate degree of policy intervention. The plausibility of the argument is demonstrated empirically through three qualitative case studies of key regulatory episodes (the German NetzDG, the Australian AVM Act, and New Zealand’s Christchurch Call) in which different governments have deployed different strategies to affect platform rule-making.</p

Computational propaganda in Poland: false amplifiers and the digital public sphere

This report provides the first overview of political bots, fake accounts, and other false amplifiers in Poland. Based on extensive interviews with political campaign managers, journalists, activists, employees of social media marketing firms, and civil society groups, the report outlines the emergence of Polish digital politics, covering the energetic and hyper-partisan “troll wars”, the interaction of hate speech with modern platform algorithms, and the recent effects of “fake news” and various sources of apparent Russian disinformation. The report then explores the production and management of artificial identities on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks— an industry confirmed to be active in Poland—and assesses how they can be deployed for both political and commercial purposes. The quantitative portion of the report features an analysis of Polish Twitter data, and demonstrates that a very small number of suspected bot accounts are responsible for a disproportionally large proportion of activity on the sampled political hashtags. Furthermore, within this dataset, there appear to be twice as many suspected right-wing bot accounts as there are left-wing accounts. These right-wing accounts are far more prolific than their left-wing counterparts, with a tiny number of highly active right-wing accounts generating more than 20% of the total volume of political Twitter activity collected over a three-week period. Overall, the report provides evidence for a rich array of digital tools that are increasingly being used by various actors to exert influence over Polish politics and public life