The Platform Question: Power, Accountability and Global South
The Platform Question: Power, Accountability and Global South
CHAPTER 2
A Big Tech Accountability in Content
Moderation with Feminist Perspective
By Karen Vergara
On June 12, 2018, the meeting “Online Safety for Women” was
held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, organized by Facebook[1] and
managed through the company’s Security Policy and Programs
Management for Latin America. The event brought together
more than thirty Latin American organizations, mostly feminist,
linked to the defense of human rights and the prevention of
gender-based violence facilitated by technology. The oneday event was presented as a space for knowledge exchange
and network strengthening, along with the presentation of
Facebook’s female team in the area of Trust & Safety. The event
passed quickly, with endless presentations by the company
and little space for civil society organizations to express
their concerns and showcase their work. This highlighted the
tensions inherent in the relationship between technology
corporations and feminist organizations: while the former
appealed to grandiloquent discourses of social responsibility
and security at this meeting, the latter demanded structural
changes to the platforms that would effectively address the
multiple forms of violence faced by women and dissidents
in the digital space, as well as greater transparency in the
functioning of their reporting and complaint models.
As an NGO, we documented some of the main needs of civil
society organizations and activists at that meeting, which we
summarize briefly in the following points:
•
•
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A Big Tech Accountability in Content Moderation with Feminist Perspective
Real content moderators: a specific team to address the
main complaints related to digital sexual violence, genderbased violence facilitated by technology, and other types
of events with a high emotional and digital impact.
Reporting, complaint, blocking, and usage tutorial
channels that incorporate the Spanish language, as well
The event
“Online Safety
for Women”
highlighted
the tensions
inherent in the
relationship
between
technology
corporations
and feminist
organizations.
A Big Tech Accountability in Content Moderation with Feminist Perspective
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