Platform Gaslighting: A User-Centric Insight into Manipulated Realities in Online Content Moderation - interview transcripts

This is the repository concerning the interview connected to the above study, 12 interviews carried out with censored, marginalised content creators in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Australia and the USA.The linked study delves into communications dynamics between social media platforms and users as they negotiate the complexities of governance policies. Using Meta and TikTok as case studies, we reveal that gaslighting - traditionally associated with relationship abuse where one partner undermines the validity of the other's experience - is a pervasive platforms’ communications  strategy, manifesting in numerous instances where automated and human platform communications have directly contradicted users' experiences, evidence, and research. We analyse 36 diverse interview datasets and six public platform responses to governance issues, highlighting the systemic nature of this phenomenon within digital spaces. We therefore broaden the scholarly understanding of platform gaslighting by delving beyond shadowbanning and the isolated platform-to-user dialogue to explore a wider range of communications concerning governance. Our participants’ experiences show that gaslighting can be used to highlight corporate power imbalances in platform-user interactions, especially in situations of opaque governance following not just shadowbanning, but also de-platforming on the back of malicious flagging. Our dataset draws from seemingly disparate groups who share moderation experiences: Jewish creators engaged in combating antisemitism, Palestinian creators advocating for human rights, and sex-positive creators, whose expertise and stories are dismissed and belittled by platforms as a form of damage control in the face of adverse governance. We demonstrate how the dismissal or minimization of participants’ traumatic experiences by platforms' automated processes and human teams is weaponized to inflict epistemic injustice, consolidate power, and evade accountability

本仓库收录了与上述研究相关的访谈资料，共12次访谈，访谈对象为在英国、爱尔兰、意大利、澳大利亚和美国的受审查和边缘化的内容创作者。该研究深入探讨了社交媒体平台与用户在协商治理政策复杂性过程中的沟通动态。以Meta和TikTok为案例研究，我们发现，通常与关系暴力中一方削弱另一方经验有效性相关的“煤气灯效应”，已成为平台沟通策略的普遍现象，这在自动化和人工平台沟通直接与用户经验、证据和研究相矛盾的大量实例中得以体现。我们分析了36个多样化的访谈数据集和6份针对治理问题的公开平台回应，突显了这一现象在数字空间中的系统性。因此，我们通过超越屏蔽和平台与用户之间孤立对话的范围，深入研究更广泛的治理沟通，从而扩展了对平台煤气灯效应的学术理解。我们的参与者经历表明，煤气灯效应可以被用来凸显平台与用户互动中的公司权力失衡，特别是在治理不透明的情况下，不仅包括屏蔽，还包括在恶意标记之后被平台取消资格的情况。我们的数据集汇集了看似不同的群体，他们分享了内容审查的经历：犹太创作者在对抗反犹主义，巴勒斯坦创作者在倡导人权，以及性正向创作者，他们的专业知识和故事被平台轻视和贬低，作为应对不良治理的损害控制手段。我们展示了平台自动化流程和人工团队如何通过否认或最小化参与者的创伤经历，将其武器化以实施认知不公、巩固权力和逃避问责。