This Thursday (16/02), researchers from the Internet and Social Media Studies Laboratory at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (NetLab UFRJ) participated in an online workshop on moderation of extremist content at the invitation of VOX-Pol – an academic research network focused on investigating political extremism in the virtual environment and how to combat it.
Content removal is now one of the main weapons in the global fight against disinformation and extremism. Despite being increasingly used as a tool in political processes, how effective these moderation practices really are is still up for debate. Therefore, the event aimed to address the subject over three presentations which were open to discussion.
Rose Marie Santini, Débora Salles and Bruno Mattos held the lecture “Recommending Instead of Taking Down: YouTube hyper-partisan content promotion amid the 2022 Brazilian general elections”, highlighting the disinformation and propaganda strategies of the Brazilian far right, as well as explaining how the conservative online media ecosystem operates in the country, especially within an electoral period.
The workshop also featured the participation of Katy Vaughan (Swansea University), with the talk “Moderating Borderline Content whilst Respecting Fundamental Values”, as well as Vivian Gerrand (Deakin University), who presented the research “Wellness and Conspiracy Theories: The promise and profile(s) of content takedowns” alongside James Fitzgerald (Dublin City University), an associate researcher at NetLab UFRJ, who led the activity.