CJ Reynolds

Special thanks to Platforms & Society, the insightful anonymous reviewers, and Niels van Doorn for an exceptional editorial process in shepherding this article to publication.

Metas provide insight into what spurs changes to platform policies on Twitch and how unconventional stakeholders find a foothold in negotiating platform governance through the lens of platform culture.

Much like the adage that regulations are often written in blood, platform policies are often born from the wreckage of platform controversies.

For Twitch, metas provide a low-risk testing ground for new content. If well-received, platform policies can be adjusted to explicitly embrace such content. If rejected by platform users, policies can be enforced or adapted to remove the offending content and reaffirm the norms of platform culture.

For streamers, controversial metas are high-risk, high-reward endeavors. They put participating streamers at risk of being censured or banned, but also draw immense amounts of audience attention and can catapult small streamers into the ranks of the Twitch notorious.

I argue that, beyond entertainment, metas serve an agenda-setting function for the development of platform policies. By pushing the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable content on the platform, metas force public negotiations between stakeholders about who and what the platform is for.

In this article, I zoom in on the world of Twitch metas, or controversial content trends that drive attention on the platform. Specifically, I examine the fights that took place between streamers, audiences, and the platform over the hot tub meta, ASMR in yoga pants, and cryptocasino gambling.

Abstract for the new Platforms & Society article "Hot tubs, yoga pants, and gamba: Twitch's controversial metas as cultural negotiations of platform governance" by CJ Reynolds.

🚨New publication alert! This one was a personal favorite of mine to work on, including fun facts about such topics as streamers farting into microphones for money. “Hot tubs, yoga pants, and gamba” is out now and open access in Platforms & Society. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

The case study of Leon Valley demonstrates how social media can enable new modes of participatory politics and forge mediated connections to local places, even for people who are not actually locals.

First Amendment audits combine on-the-ground activism with clear and simple calls to action for viewers, helping to convert audiences into engaged participants and playing on media’s power to shrink both perceived distance and difference between groups.

Building on the idea of parasocial relationships, I argue that First Amendment auditors find activist success through building paralocal relationships between their audiences and the places they feature in videos.

To theorize paralocal relationships, I use the case of First Amendment auditors, activist content creators who film police and government officials as a means of testing and defending their rights to free speech and free press.

Paralocal relationships describe a sense of familiarity with and concern toward a place featured in media by viewers who have never been there.

My article is available here, open access, for New Media & Society: journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

Screenshot of the title and abstract for the paper "Paralocal relationships: Re-placing civic engagement for the social media age" by CJ Reynolds in the journal New Media & Society.

🚨New publication from my dissertation work! Examining the clash between First Amendment auditors and the police of Leon Valley, Texas, I theorize the development of paralocal relationships as a new form of civic engagement for the social media age. #openaccess

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...

YouTube creators challenge biased moderation with reaction videos, but may also legitimise platform authority. @blakeplease.bsky.social, @reynoldscj.bsky.social, Y. Kuperberg & O. Rothenstein analyse 115 videos, framing practices as aspirational platform governanc

Read: doi.org/10.14763/2025.1.1829

Infographic promoting the key concept from the paper. Text reads: "Aspirational platform governance: Public expression of the desire to influence content moderation policies and practices without established channels or guarantees of success. (Hallinan, Reynolds, Kuperberg, & Rothenstein 2025)" along with a QR code that contains a link to the article: https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/aspirational-platform-governance

What do creators do when they feel that social media platforms aren’t treating them fairly? Our study of a controversy about racism and bias on YouTube, out now #openaccess in @policyr.bsky.social, offers a new answer: they participate in aspirational platform governance doi.org/10.14763/202...

Cover image for a special issue on content moderation on digital platforms, featuring a coastal landscape and the title: ‘Content moderation on digital platforms: beyond states and firms’

Quote from A. Bellon & R. Badouard in a special issue on content moderation: ‘Content moderation encompasses a great diversity of actors. Users, NGOs, activists, journalists, advertisers, experts, designers and researchers are becoming more and more involved in moderation-related activities, apart from, in partnership with, or against public authorities and firms.’ The image features a coastal landscape background

[New special issue] #Contentmoderation on digital platforms: beyond states and firms! As content regulation becomes increasingly politicised, this issue edited by Anne Bellon & Romain Badouard explores the growing role of #civilsociety in #platformgovernance. ⅕

Read: doi.org/10.14763/2025.1.2005

It has been a privilege to get to think with the #DigitalValues crew since 2019. The theoretical framework we present here is a proper cumulation of our work, and relevant to anyone else interested in values, social media, and global communication. PS I am very proud of the figure’s aesthetics 👇

The power of values for understanding social media is also their curse: they are everywhere. In an #openaccess article in New Media & Society, the Digital Values team presents an analytic framework for systematically making sense of values in digital spheres: doi.org/10.1177/1461...

‘We’re like sitting ducks’: the right’s ‘war on woke’ has a well-tested playbook to take down academics The campaign against Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, has become a blueprint increasingly wielded against women and scholars of color

this playbook of citation plagiarism attacks www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... reminds me a bit of copyright callouts on Youtube which @reynoldscj.bsky.social and @blakeplease.bsky.social researched policyreview.info/articles/ana...

Title slide announcing the talk "Malcontents as method: How bad actors offer an alternative vision of good governance on social media" from Blake Hallinan and CJ Reynolds.

Your favorite [✨manifesting✨] academic duo @reynoldscj.bsky.social + I will talk about the role of creators, degenerates, and provocateurs [not mutually exclusive] in platform governance tomorrow for the behind-the-scenes series from @pgmt.bsky.social 3-4 pm CET

Register here: tinyurl.com/3v45nxr3

📣 Online Talk Series (15): @blakeplease.bsky.social & @reynoldscj.bsky.social - “Malcontents as method: How bad actors offer an alternative vision of good governance on social media”
🗓️January 28, 2025 🕛3-4 pm (CET) 📍Online Event

👉 Event & Registration: platform-governance.org/online-talk-...

@icaptc.bsky.social

Text reads: "Parasocial media: platforms that feature 1) asymmetrical relationships between different classes of users, 2) tiered access to content and/or communication, and 3) tools to directly monetize relationships."

!!Attention!! people who care about platforms, monetization, parasocial relationships, and/or idols: the exceptionally talented MA student @landrous.bsky.social and I have a paper for you, #openaccess in the fresh new journal Platforms & Society theorizing parasocial media doi.org/10.1177/2976...

Excited I get to present new (work in progress) research out of my postdoc project at the #AlgoSoc conference 🙃

WT “Competing Priorities: Identifying Value Gaps Between Public and Private Governance” with @blakeplease.bsky.social & @reynoldscj.bsky.social

Stay tuned & see you in Amsterdam!

The influencer lawsuit that could change the industry Behind the scenes of a court battle for the “clean girl” look.

www.theverge.com/2024/11/26/2...

"In her lawsuit, Gifford alleges that Sheil copied her, down to specific frames in videos. She claims that repeated pattern and Sheil’s uncannily similar content ultimately cut into Gifford’s own earnings."

Reminds me of the SSSniperWolf react persona drama

Act now to stop millions of research papers from disappearing Digital preservation is not keeping up with the growth of scholarly knowledge. Recognizing its causes is the first step to securing records everywhere for future generations.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"For example, a 2021 study found that a lack of comprehensive and open archiving meant that 174 open-access journals, covering all major research topics and geographical regions, vanished from the web in the first two decades of this millennium."