Sexual Content Moderation Alexander Monea(1), Carolina Are(2), Hanne Stegeman(3), Rébecca Franco(3), Zahra Stardust(4) 1: George Mason University, United States of America; 2: Northumbria University, United Kingdom; 3: University of Amsterdam, Netherlands; 4: Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Despite popular understandings of the internet teeming with pornography and offering safe harbor for LGBTQIA+ content, social media platforms are cracking down on sexual expression and sex work online. This panel examines the role that content moderation and platform governance play in censoring sexual expression online and the communities that engage in it. It documents the impact that censorship, banning, shadowbanning, and demonetization have on internet communities and highlights potential alternatives for platform governance. Author 1 examines the pole dancing community on Instagram and the impact that banning, shadowbanning, and content takedowns have on its constituents. In particular, she examines the impact that Instagram’s new ‘Account Status’ feature has had on pole dancers’ labor to manage their visibility on the platform. Author 2 examines the role that early cisheteronormative content moderation practices have had on shaping the algorithmic imaginary of Queer TikTok. He shows that it has resulted in ‘algorithmic folk remedies’ – like ‘algospeak’ – that are still used by Queer TikTokers in attempts to avoid demonetization, shadowbanning, and/or deplatforming. Authors 3 and 4 examine erotic webcam streamers and platforms and document the ways in which webcam platform policies work to discipline the labor of erotic webcam streamers. Content moderation is leveraged to keep streamers on the platform and capture their revenue streams. Author 5 examines how new and emerging independent small-scale platforms and cooperatives moderate sexual content. She documents the incredible difficulty of maintaining an alternative, sex positive, business model in the current political and economic landscape.
