News and Research articles on Content moderation

Freedom of expression

Borderline speech: caught in a free speech limbo?

Amélie Heldt, Hans-Bredow-Institut

PUBLISHED ON: 15 Oct 2020

To ban content that might possibly violate their own content policies, social media platforms use the term 'borderline‘. This means categorising content as potentially unwanted (e.g. harmful, inappropriate, etc) and sanctioning legitimate expressions of opinion - hence putting lawful speech in a twilight zone.

Volume 8, Issue 4

Algorithmic governance

Christian Katzenbach, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Lena Ulbricht, Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
PUBLISHED ON: 29 Nov 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1424

Algorithmic governance as a key concept in controversies around the emerging digital society takes up the idea that digital technologies produce social ordering in a specific way.

KEYWORDS: Transparency, Automation, Politicisation, Regulation, Social ordering, Governance, Predictive policing, Content moderation, Algorithmic governance
Volume 8, Issue 2

Reading between the lines and the numbers: an analysis of the first NetzDG reports

Amélie Heldt, Hans-Bredow-Institut
PUBLISHED ON: 12 Jun 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.2.1398

The German Network Enforcement Act is an attempt to counteract the effects of hate speech on social media platforms. This paper analyses and evaluates the reports on the handling of complaints about unlawful content after its coming into force.

KEYWORDS: NetzDG, Speech regulation, Social media, Transparency, Content moderation