Philosophical Implications of Content Moderation

What is the extent of social media users’ right to communicate in the digital public sphere? When platforms suppress accounts, demote content, or remove it from feeds, do users have a rightful claim against such practices? If so, what are they owed, precisely?

My work focuses on the moral acceptability of speech regulation and content moderation in privately owned digital spaces. Currently, I’m interested in so-called “soft” moderation interventions, that is, interventions that fall short of traditional forms of censorship. While the very concept of soft interventions suggests that these forms of moderation are benign, I contend that they can significantly set back the interests of speakers and listeners.

Recently, I’ve written on the justifiability of state interventions against misinformation.

This project is informed by the blossoming political philosophical literature on the digital public sphere and recent First Amendment legal scholarship. It is also nourished by discussions at PhilMod, an online speaker series I have founded and am currently organizing.

Democratic Values and Algorithmic Recommendation

A significant portion of my work relates to the political philosophy of AI and, more specifically, to the project of “aligning” recommender systems with democratic values.

Communication in the digital public sphere is mediated by recommendation algorithms that determine what items will be first displayed to users when they log in to their social media account(s). My work is guided by the belief that social media platforms’ ability to determine which speech is visible online greatly impacts democratic life and, for this reason, should be questioned and contested. It is part of a growing body of scholarship that criticizes engagement optimization as a content recommendation model.

In some of my work in progress, I discuss whether taking democratic equality seriously would require social media platforms to equalize online political speech. I’m also currently writing about the relationship between algorithmic filtering and authenticity.

Beyond this, I pay special attention to projects that aim to democratize the digital public sphere.

The Digital Public Sphere

My research projects belong to a tradition of philosophical reflection on what Jürgen Habermas once called “structural transformations of the public sphere.” I am especially interested in the transformations provoked by sudden changes in information technology (e.g., social media, generative AI, etc.). Although I have recently set aside my work in the history of philosophy to focus on the research projects described above, I plan to return to it in the next few years. Specifically, I would like to write a philosophical history of the public sphere. Figures of interest include John Dewey, Walter Lippmann, the Early Frankfurt School, Jürgen Habermas, Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt, Iris Marion Young, and Nancy Fraser.