Creator Moderation

Content Creator like YouTuber or Influencers on Instagram nowadays could be a profitable job for many people who aim to earn money (advertising income from YouTube or Creator Fund from TikTok) from their content creation and sharing. However, being content creators does not mean absolute freedom of content creation, and also, making money on platforms does not indicate secure employment.

That is because creators live in creator moderation, where multiple sociotechnical mechanisms exert control beyond creators’ content to their careers such as income, visibility, audience engagement and more. For example, if YouTube deems a video is not advertiser friendly, it will place limited or no ads on this video. Then, creator will receive decreased or nearly no money from such video because they underperformed in viewing times, watching hours, and audience engagement. Even creators’ fanbase increment will be negatively impacted.

Currently, I have gained understanding of (1) the socioeconomic implications of creator moderation on creators, a paper published in CSCW’ 2021; (2) the perceived unfairness of moderation decision-making and algorithms, a CSCW’ 2022 paper; and (3) organizational bureaucracy challenge, where creators need to negotiate for their self-interests, a CSCW’ 2022 poster.