Workshop
Content Moderation on Decentralized Social Networks
Berkman Klein Center
Cambridge, MA
Primavera De Filippi, Amy Zhang

How do we moderate content on a social media platform? When we have centralized operators, the answer is easy: let’s ask the operators to moderate the platform. While efficient, this solution has lots of drawbacks, since it gives a private entity the ability to censor or filter content. The moderation might thus be geared towards the maximization of profit, rather than towards further the interests of society at large. We propose to think about the problem in a different way: look at different scenarios that operate according to specific constraints, in order to force us to think of different and potentially more creative solutions to resolve the issue of moderation. For instance, we could look at existing social media that operate on decentralized infrastructures (p2p networks, blockchain, etc) to try to find alternative moderation strategies. To do so, we will present the moderation techniques adopted by decentralized social networks, such as Steem.it, Synereo, DAOstack, etc. We will discuss their limitations and drawbacks, and then brainstorm with the audience to propose potential fixes or alternative moderation strategies that would work on these decentralized platforms (and thus cannot involve delegating the task to a centralized operator).

Special thanks to Sam Hart

Schedule

• 11:00–11:20 — Introduction
• Primavera provides a typology of moderation (global vs. local, imposed vs. requested, central operators vs. volunteerism) and infrastructure (decentralized, federated, centralized).
• Mindy introduces three decentralized social networks (Steem, Synereo, Scuttlebutt).
• Amy introduces three types of decentralized content moderation (Squadbox, Block Together, Heart Mob) on centralized platforms (Gmail, Twitter).
• 11:20–11:35 — Table Discussions
• On a decentralized platform, how would you combat harrassment that is private (e.g. direct messages) versus public (e.g. doxxing)?
• 11:35–12:00 — Group Discussion