AI & Society
Conservative, transgender, and Black social media users reported more content and account removals than other users
In a 2021 peer-reviewed study, conservative, transgender, and Black social media users reported having content or accounts removed more often than other users. Content moderation is the process platforms use to decide which posts and accounts to take down. The removals differed by group, and those differences mattered, according to survey data analyzed by researchers at the University of Michigan.
The study appeared in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, a peer-reviewed journal.
What did the study find?
The researchers used a mixed-methods design with qualitative and quantitative analysis of survey data. In their dataset, political conservatives, transgender people, and Black people experienced content and account removals more often than other users.
How did the removed content differ by group?
Conservative participants' removed content included material that was offensive or said to be offensive, misinformation, Covid-related content, adult content, or hate speech. Transgender participants' content was often removed as adult even when it followed site guidelines. Their removed content also included criticism of a dominant group, such as men or white people, or material related to transgender and queer issues. Black participants' removed content was often related to racial justice or racism.
The broader pattern was different. Conservative participants' removals often involved harmful content that was removed according to site guidelines to create safe spaces with accurate information. Transgender and Black participants' removals often involved content about expressing marginalized identities. That content was removed even when it followed site policies or sat in moderation gray areas, cases where a post does not clearly break or follow a rule.
FAQ
Which groups reported more removals?
Conservative, transgender, and Black social media users reported more frequent content and account removals than other users in the study's survey data.
Did the removed content look the same across groups?
No. Conservative removals were often tied to harmful content. Transgender and Black removals were often tied to expressing marginalized identities, and that content was often removed despite following site policies or landed in moderation gray areas.
What direction did the researchers discuss?
The researchers discussed ways to make content moderation more equitable for marginalized social media users. One proposal was to embrace and design specifically for content moderation gray areas.
Limits and what's next
These results come from one mixed-methods survey study, and the abstract reports no independent replication. The abstract does not state the sample size, the social media platforms involved, or the time period covered. Because the data are survey data, the study reflects what participants reported about their removals rather than direct observation of platform decisions. The authors discuss possible future work, including designing moderation for gray areas in the hope of more equitable moderation.
Source: Oliver L. Haimson et al., “Disproportionate Removals and Differing Content Moderation Experiences for Conservative, Transgender, and Black Social Media Users: Marginalization and Moderation Gray Areas,” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2021.