Who cleans the public sphere? Sarah T. Roberts on commercial content moderation and digital labour

The research project Uncertain Archives (IKK) and the Digital Culture research network (IKK) invites Sarah T. Roberts, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University (Canada), to discuss digital labour and its attendant sociocultural, economic and ethical implications. Sarah T. Roberts has done extensive research on the little-known but extremely widespread practice of commercial content moderation (CCM), i.e. workers and firms, who screen content on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, OKCupid, Whispr etc. Sarah will offer us a rare insight into the invisible regulation of social media sites and the conditions of the CCM workers (among other things gained from her field work in the Philippines), who are dispersed globally, whose work is almost always done in secret for low wages by relatively low-status workers, and who review, day in and day out, often disturbing digital content.

Program

14-14.45: Lecture by Sarah T. Roberts

14.45-15.00: Coffee break

15.00-16.00: Questions and plenary discussion

For more information please contact: nannab@hum.ku.dk