scholarly journals The fabrics of machine moderation: Studying the technical, normative, and organizational structure of Perspective API

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 205395172110461
Author(s):  
Bernhard Rieder ◽  
Yarden Skop

Over recent years, the stakes and complexity of online content moderation have been steadily raised, swelling from concerns about personal conflict in smaller communities to worries about effects on public life and democracy. Because of the massive growth in online expressions, automated tools based on machine learning are increasingly used to moderate speech. While ‘design-based governance’ through complex algorithmic techniques has come under intense scrutiny, critical research covering algorithmic content moderation is still rare. To add to our understanding of concrete instances of machine moderation, this article examines Perspective API, a system for the automated detection of ‘toxicity’ developed and run by the Google unit Jigsaw that can be used by websites to help moderate their forums and comment sections. The article proceeds in four steps. First, we present our methodological strategy and the empirical materials we were able to draw on, including interviews, documentation, and GitHub repositories. We then summarize our findings along five axes to identify the various threads Perspective API brings together to deliver a working product. The third section discusses two conflicting organizational logics within the project, paying attention to both critique and what can be learned from the specific case at hand. We conclude by arguing that the opposition between ‘human’ and ‘machine’ in speech moderation obscures the many ways these two come together in concrete systems, and suggest that the way forward requires proactive engagement with the design of technologies as well as the institutions they are embedded in.

Author(s):  
Mitch Kachun

The Conclusion ties together the book’s main arguments about Crispus Attucks’s place in American history and memory. We do not know enough about his experiences, associations, or motives before or during the Boston Massacre to conclude with certainty that Attucks should be considered a hero and patriot. But his presence in that mob on March 5, 1770, embodies the diversity of colonial America and the active participation of workers and people of color in the public life of the Revolutionary era. The strong likelihood that Attucks was a former slave who claimed his own freedom and carved out a life for himself in the colonial Atlantic world adds to his story’s historical significance. The lived realities of Crispus Attucks and the many other men and women like him must be a part of Americans’ understanding of the nation’s founding generations.


Author(s):  
Darryl Jones

The importance and influence of food in the lives of animals has been studied is great detail in a vast number of species. This chapter outlines the many findings of this critical research that are directly relevant to understanding how the provisioning of food for garden birds may be affecting their lives.


2018 ◽  
pp. 109-124
Author(s):  
Annabelle Sreberny

One of the many transformations that is taking place across the Middle East and North Africa region is women's engagement with new communications technologies and their increasing involvement in public life. Despite the initial enthusiasms of the uprisings of 2011, the region is now in considerable turmoil and digital developments are only slowly rolling out across the region. Using Mouffe's notion of the “political” as what is put into public contention in a society, the chapter explores how women in various countries across the Middle East are using and appropriating these new communication tools, especially social media, finding their voices and setting new social agendas for action, many of which revolve around issues of the body and female presence in public space.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-156
Author(s):  
Daniel Šitera

This article addresses Richard Westra, Ian Bruff and Matthias Ebenau's responses to my prior review essay on their edited volumes. In my initial survey, I concluded that both volumes reinvigorate the radical potential of contemporary Comparative Capitalisms (CC) literatures, but warned against the tendency in critical research to trace capitalism solely at its worst. I posited that this pessimism undermines the volumes’ pedagogical potential and threatens to bring us to intellectual cul-de-sacs. The authors respond in different ways to this critical engagement: Westra provides a guideline to trace such an intellectual pessimism in the (neo-)Marxist political economy and points to the so-called ‘Uno approach’ as an alternative direction that opens our intellectual horizons to social change in (post-)capitalism. In contrast, Bruff and Ebenau regard my review as less monochromatic than other discussions of their research project but nevertheless assertively retort to my critique. This reply seeks to engage the aforementioned scholars in a discussion, while reconsidering the alleged pessimism of critical CC research as informed optimism. Such informed optimism must be found in a critical research that (i) is based on a deeper reflexive theoretical discussion rather than a one-sided deconstruction of mainstream scholarship; and (ii) derives from a holistic approach broadened by a human-centred perspective, which also exposes us to actually existing alternatives within as well as to (post-)capitalism. Given that such approaches are currently only implicit, the many ongoing crises of contemporary capitalism represent a critical juncture not only for mainstream, but also for critical CC research.


2020 ◽  
pp. 016224392090989
Author(s):  
Órla O’Donovan

In this article, I use a nineteenth-century anatomical collection of wax moulages, currently off-staged in the storage facilities in the university where I work, to think about the matter of human remains. Rather than seeing the gross pathology moulages as inert teaching resources, I propose they are agential assemblages, entangled in which are human remains, and that they can be included amongst the dead. I consider their capacity to perform pastpresence work, a particular kind of work of the dead that foregrounds erasures, such as the erasure of the many confined women suffering from syphilis whose bodies were used to cast moulages. This article considers how such pastpresence work might help us be response-able for uncared-for remains, such as the remains of “disappeared” women and infants who died in so-called Mother and Baby Homes, which have reappeared at the center of contemporary Irish public life. At a time when moulages are being reexhibited in museums internationally, I speculate about whether and how the collection might be restaged to perform subversive and utopian pastpresence work, destabilizing the erasures of conventional narratives of medicine and contributing to the crafting of a new and more careful order of things.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aloirmar José da Silva ◽  
Edna Gusmão de Goés Brennand ◽  
Maria Da Luz Olegário

Este artigo analisa os principais aprendizados que o componente curricular Educação e Diversidade Cultural possibilitou aos estudantes do 3º Período do Curso de Licenciatura em Pedagogia, da Universidade Federal da Paraíba, sobretudo no que diz respeito às concepções de gênero e sexualidade. A estratégia metodológica utilizada foi a abordagem qualitativa, do tipo exploratória e descritiva. O material empírico foi produzido a partir de relatos extraídos da avaliação final realizada pelos estudantes. Os resultados evidenciaram como aprendizados a desconstrução de uma visão biologicista de gênero e de visões religiosas que naturalizam e essencializam as desigualdades de gênero. Quanto a sexualidade, os aprendizados incluem os muitos modos de vivê-la, o seu caráter transitório, a não identificação de gênero com comportamento sexual e a quebra de preconceitos em torno das identidades sexuais não hétero. De modo geral, os conteúdos estudados e debatidos em sala de aula foram reconhecidos como pertinentes ao universo escolar  e  cruciais ao processo educativo, ao trato pedagógico das diversidades e ao aprofundamento da democracia.Palavras-chave: Educação. Democracia. Diversidade Cultural.EDUCATION, DEMOCRACY AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY: from conceptions to learningAbstractThis article analyzes the main learning that the curricular component Education and Cultural Diversity made possible to the students of the 3rd Pedagogy Period Degree of Paraíba Federal University, especially with regard to conceptions of gender and sexuality. The methodological strategy used was the qualitative, exploratory and descriptive approach. The empirical material was produced from reports extracted from the final evaluation carried out by the students. The results evidenced the deconstruction of a biologicist view of gender and religious views that naturalize and essentialise gender inequalities. For the sexuality, learning includes the many ways of living it, its transitory character, the non-identification of gender with sexual behavior and the breaking of prejudices around non-heterosexual sexual identities. In general, the contents studied and debated in the classroom were recognized as pertinent to the school universe and crucial to the educational process, the pedagogical treatment of diversity and the deepening of democracy.Keywords: Education. Democracy. Cultural Diversity. EDUCACIÓN, DEMOCRACIA Y DIVERSIDAD CULTURAL: de las concepciones a los aprendizajesResumen Este artículo analiza los principales aprendizajes que el componente curricular Educación y Diversidad Cultural posibilitó a los estudiantes del 3º Período del Curso de Licenciatura en Pedagogía, de la Universidad Federal de Paraíba, sobre todo en lo que se refiere a las concepciones de género y sexualidad. La estrategia metodológica utilizada fue el enfoque cualitativo, del tipo exploratorio y descriptivo. El material empírico fue producido a partir de relatos extraídos de la evaluación final realizada por los estudiantes. Los resultados evidenciaron como aprendidos la deconstrucción de una visión biologicista de género y de visiones religiosas que naturalizan y esencializan las desigualdades de género. En cuanto a la sexualidad, los aprendizajes incluyen los muchos modos de vivirla, su carácter transitorio, la no identificación de género con comportamiento sexual y la quiebra de prejuicios en torno a las identidades sexuales no hetero. En general, los contenidos estudiados y debatidos en el aula fueron reconocidos como pertinentes al universo escolar y cruciales al proceso educativo, al trato pedagógico de las diversidades ya la profundización de la democraciaPalabras clave: Educación. Democracia. Diversidad cultural. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-24
Author(s):  
Anna Aslanyan

At present, the legal acts in force in the Republic of Armenia, the approaches enshrined in them, which refer to children with various developmental disabilities, the provision of equal social living conditions for the disabled, are not a necessary basis for effectively and objectively solving the many problems arising from the above reasons. Existing criteria are not decisive in terms of the impact of educational, social, and environmental factors and do not summarize all components of function and disability. Whereas an individual’s participation in public life is conditioned not so much by his or her health condition as by all the surrounding circumstances that positively or negatively affect the person’s activities. Taking into consideration all this the main aim of this paper to describe the existing classification and criteria in regards to its influence on speech therapy service provision.


Author(s):  
Tom Lodge

Biographical portrayals of Mandela have been strongly influenced by his own self-representations, beginning with his trial testimonies in 1962 and 1964. Authorized narratives about his life that were consolidated during the 1990s reflected Mandela’s political priorities at that time. In the unitary subject that these stories project—in the “unchanging man” whose story they told—their protagonist is a patrician-born aristocrat whose values and codes of behavior are shaped by his upbringing in the culture of a royal court. In important respects, though, this understanding of Mandela is at odds with earlier treatments of his life for which he had been a willing collaborator. Several of the biographical interpretations written in the early 21st-century draw upon archival evidence and prompt serious revisions of established or conventional understandings of Mandela’s life, particularly in terms of the validity of biographical investigations that emphasize consistency and order. Questions persist in the early 21st century as to whether Mandela’s experiences as a political prisoner and his role in constitutional negotiations will be subjected to such archive-based research, and whether the final stages of his public life will undergo an assessment.


2021 ◽  
pp. 13-29
Author(s):  
Bruce Ledewitz

There is a breakdown in American public life. Our divisions today go well beyond usual partisan differences. Despite the many aspects of American life that are going quite well, including finally reckoning with our national heritage of racial oppression, we are filled with frustration and distrust. Americans suffer from destructive partisanship amounting to political deadlock. Our system cannot work when the political parties refuse to work together. Both sides believe their political opponents want to destroy them. We cannot even agree on the simplest and most obvious facts or turn to common sources of information. We call this the death of truth. These overlapping conditions contribute to widespread anger and despair.


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