Talk Monday May 13- Sarah T Roberts "Doing the Internet's Dirty Work"

[J Whitson]

Dear Colleagues,

The first talk of the term in the CrySP Speaker Series on Privacy
<https://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/speakers/> will
be by Sarah T. Roberts <https://illusionofvolition.com/> from UCLA.  All
are welcome.

*Morning Q&A/Chat:  Sarah T. Roberts on CCM and the Research Process*
May 13, 2019  10:30am, in PAS 2030.
On Monday morning prior to the 2:30pm talk, Sarah is visiting the Sociology
and Legal Studies department for an open Q and A session about her research
process and her groundbreaking work studying commercial content
moderators.  We'll also dig into how social scientists, HCI, and humanities
researchers - particularly grad students - can better open up the black box
of technologies, exposing human engagement with/within digital systems such
as social media platforms.

*Afternoon Talk: Doing the Internet's Dirty Work: Commercial Content
Moderators as Social Media's Gatekeepers*
Sarah T. Roberts, UCLA
May 13, 2019 2:30pm, in DC 1304

Abstract:
Faced with mounting pressures and repeated, very public crises, social
media firms have taken a new tack since 2017: to respond to criticism of
all kinds and from numerous quarters (regulators, civil society advocates,
journalists, academics and others) by acknowledging their long-obfuscated
human gatekeeping workforce of commercial content moderators. Additionally,
these acknowledgments have often come alongside announcements of plans for
exponential increases to that workforce, which now represents a global
network of laborers – in distinct geographic, cultural, political,
economic, labor and industrial circumstances – conservatively estimated in
the several tens of thousands and likely many times that. Yet the
phenomenon of content moderation in social media firms has been shrouded in
mystery when acknowledged at all. In this talk, Sarah T. Roberts will
discuss the fruits of her decade-long study the commercial content
moderation industry, and its concomitant people, practices and politics.
Based on interviews with workers from Silicon Valley to the Philippines, at
boutique firms and at major social media companies, she will offer context,
history and analysis of this hidden industry, with particular attention to
the emotional toll it takes on its workers. The talk will offer insights
about potential futures for the commercial internet and a discussion of the
future of globalized labor in the digital age.


Bio:
Sarah T. Roberts, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the UCLA Department of
Information Studies, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.
Dr. Roberts was previously Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Media and
Information Studies (FIMS), Western University. She is a 2018 winner of the
EFF Pioneer Award and a 2018 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. Concerned with social
and economic equity and issues of power, control, and justice at the
intersection of our analog and digital worlds, her most well-known
research addresses what she calls “commercial content moderation,” which
involves the use of human labor and digital systems to filter content on
various digital platforms. Her book, Behind the Screen: Content Moderation
in the Shadows of Social Media, will be published by Yale University Press
in June 2019.


-- 
Dr. Jennifer R. Whitson
Associate Editor, Surveillance & Society
<https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/index>
Department of Sociology and Legal Studies / Stratford School of Interaction
Design and Business
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON, Canada
website <https://jenniferwhitson.com/> / twitter
<https://twitter.com/jen_whitson> / indie interfaces
<https://www.indieinterfaces.com/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artsservices.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/artsannounce/attachments/20190503/24103fd4/attachment.html>