blake hallinan

📘 New Publication: “Priorities and exclusions within Trust and Safety industry standards” - lead by @blakeplease.bsky.social, and in collaboration with our lab member @rscarlets.bsky.social.

👉 Read the full article #openaccess in New Media & Society: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

💥new paper out in New Media & Society💥
In this collaborative paper, led by @blakeplease.bsky.social, we compare Community Guidelines using the typology of harms from the Trust and Safety Professional Association to identify policy priorities and exclusions. Check out Blake’s thread for the deets👇

Ooo looking forward to reading this. Congrats!

Thanks ☺️ I look forward to seeing what you’re working on

Thanks also to the following podcasts for providing one-sided but important conversations that inspired our work: Moderated Content, @techpolicypress.bsky.social @lawfaremedia.org Ctrl-Alt-Speech with @mmasnick.bsky.social Views on First & Tech Policy Podcast with @corbinkbarthold.bsky.social 🙏

Many thanks to co-author dream team @reynoldscj.bsky.social @rscarlets.bsky.social Dana Theiler, Noa Niv, @omerrothenstein.bsky.social Isabell Knief + Yehonatan Kuperberg. This was a collaboration between @pgmt.bsky.social 😍 and the Participatory Platform Governance lab.

We conclude with a call for academics and practitioners to broaden the conversation around content moderation, especially regarding adult content and non-Western platforms, and we offer a replicable method for comparative policy research.

For example, the identity verification and speech restrictions on negative topics of webcamming platforms are closer to policies of Chinese livestreaming platforms than Western ones, leading us to discuss a tradeoff between sexual expression and broadcaster speech across live content platforms.

Both adult webcamming platforms and the Korean platform in our study (AfreecaTV, now SOOP) had larger shares of community-specific rules that did not align with the schema, revealing industry-sector and geographic exclusions within industry standards that sometimes intersect in interesting ways.

The commonalities between mainstream platforms (e.g., YouTube, Twitch) and alternative platforms (e.g., Rumble, DLive) are particularly surprising given the rhetorical positioning of the latter distancing themselves from the “censorship” of Trust and Safety teams and findings from earlier research.

A heatmap of the policy priorities of the following platforms: YouTube, Twitch, AfreecaTV, Kick, Rumble, DLive, Chaturbate, MyFreeCams, BongaCAMS, Stripchat, Streamate, and LiveJasmin, using the following policy categories: Violent & Criminal Behavior, Regulated Goods & Services, Offensive & Objectionable Content, User Safety, Scaled Abused, Deceptive & Fradulent Behavior, Community-specific Rules, and Other.

We find significant commonalities in the priorities of 12 diverse livestreaming and adult webcamming platforms, supporting the claim of growing consensus around industry standards within Trust & Safety, even among alternative and adult platforms that are typically not part of public discussions.

Priorities and exclusions within Trust and Safety industry standards - Blake Hallinan, CJ Reynolds, Rebecca Scharlach, Dana Theiler, Noa Niv, Omer Rothenstein, Isabell Knief, Yehonatan Kuperberg, 2025 Platform governance is simultaneously a matter of public concern and a professional calling for Trust and Safety, the nascent field tasked with setting and enfo...

How does the professionalization of Trust & Safety shape global content moderation practices? We compare Community Guidelines using the typology of harms from TSPA to identify policy priorities and exclusions, available #openaccess in New Media & Society: doi.org/10.1177/1461...

Congratulations! I am looking forward to following the work from this project.

Have you read Sue Burke’s Semiosis? I think that fits your description

Congratulations! I am looking forward to reading the fruits of this project. 😍

Congratulations Dr. Liu, what great news

Big congratulations!

Hey #ica25! You'll find me presenting Sunday at noon in the pre-constituted CLP panel "Platform Governance and the Tensions Between Public and Private Values" organized by @martinriedl.bsky.social & Samantha Bradshaw, w/ @robyncaplan.bsky.social & Philip Napoli. Come join us!

Loved the talk (and your paper on unbans)

CoreSite Acquires Historic Denver Gas and Electric Building - Mile High CRE Located at 910 15th Street in the heart of downtown Denver, the historic carrier hotel currently hosts CoreSite’s DE1 data center operations.

Article noting the ownership change and expansion plans: milehighcre.com/coresite-acq...

Accidentally found a data center wandering around for #ICA25 saw the beautiful exterior lights on a seeming empty building and had to know more

Let me know if you're around and want to meet up (or talk more about any of these projects 😉)

Opening slide for "Aspirational platform governance: How creators legitimize content moderation through accusations of bias"

Last but not least, I'll present aspirational platform governance and the work that talk about platform bias does (with side discussions of reaction videos, gamer culture, racism, and Slashdot's meta-moderation) from @reynoldscj.bsky.social Yehonatan Kuperberg and @omerrothenstein.bsky.social

Title slide for "parasocial media: the mass production of intimacy on a chinese pop idol mobile application"

I'll present parasocial media, co-authored with @landrous.bsky.social, and talk about the "idols you can meet" media format and the infrastructuring of intimate yet asymmetrical relationships for a @icaptc.bsky.social panel (full paper: doi.org/10.1177/2976... out in @platformsnsociety.bsky.social)

Opening slide for "The devil is in the details: specificaitons of governing principles in private & public goernance of AI"

@rscarlets.bsky.social will present the paper on policy specifications in AI governance on behalf of a team with @reynoldscj.bsky.social Vasilisa Kuznetsova @ckatzenbach.bsky.social + me in an excellent panel on platform governance from @ica-clp.bsky.social

Title slide for "Legal lore: The cultural transformation of copyright law and policy on YouTube"

I'll present Legal Lore, co-authored with @reynoldscj.bsky.social @bondykaye.bsky.social @landrous.bsky.social, at the pre-conference and make the case for what we can learn about law and the use of takedown tools from Wikitubia data

I'm off to Colorado this week for the #DebatingCreatorCulture preconference and the International Communication Association's annual conference #ICA25 with four co-authored projects on the docket: 1) Legal Lore, 2) Policy Specifications, 3) Parasocial Media, and 4) Aspirational Platform Governance 👇

Super Sad True Love Story from Gary Shteyngart

Governing the Digital Society Digital technologies have rapidly become integral to communities and societies, bringing both significant benefits and serious concerns. Issues such as misinformation, disinformation, online polarizat...

📢✨ New OA book out now with Amsterdam University Press: Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values, edited by José van Dijck, @kfvanes.bsky.social, @silvertje.bsky.social, & @fvandervlist.bsky.social. Access: www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

Oooo I have wanted to start that game but haven’t yet 🥲