Content governance on social networking sites: Battling disinformation and upholding values

Abstract

Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have millions of users logging in every day, using these platforms for commu­ nication, entertainment, and news consumption. These platforms adopt rules that determine how users communicate and thereby limit and shape public discourse.2 Platforms need to deal with large amounts of data generated every day. For example, as of October 2021, 4.55 billion social media users were ac­ tive on an average number of 6.7 platforms used each month per internet user.3 As a result, platforms were compelled to develop governance models and content moderation systems to deal with harmful and undesirable content, including disinformation. In this study: • ‘Content governance’ is defined as a set of processes, procedures, and systems that determine how a given platform plans, publishes, moder­ ates, and curates content. • ‘Content moderation’ is the organised practice of a social media plat­ form of pre-screening, removing, or labelling undesirable content to reduce the damage that inappropriate content can cause