Addressing the Challenges of Content Moderation

Registration link: https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Yxytt1ipS4GqGNBpBE13fQ

Under the simplest framing, the content moderation challenges facing companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube boil down to drawing a line between acceptable and unacceptable content. But that framing masks a more complex set of questions including 1) what the goals of content moderation should be, 2) how by whom content moderation decisions should be made, and 3) how companies that operate globally should navigate the varying cultural and legal frameworks relating to the limits of acceptable online content in different jurisdictions.

To explore these issues, the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy (ITLP) is hosting an online panel discussion with Kate Klonick of St. John’s University and John Samples of the Cato Institute and Facebook’s content moderation Oversight Board, moderated by ITLP director John Villasenor.

The event will last one hour, and will include approximately 40 minutes of moderated discussion followed by 20 minutes of audience Q&A.

Panelist bios:

Kate Klonick is a professor at the St. John’s University School of law, where her research centers on law and technology, using cognitive and social psychology as a framework. Most recently she has been studying and writing about private Internet platforms and how they govern online speech. Professor Klonick has published in the Harvard Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, Southern California Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, as well as in the New York Times, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Guardian, Lawfare, Slate, Vox and numerous other publications. She is the author of a forthcoming New Yorker article on content moderation. Klonick holds an A.B. from Brown University, a J.D. from Georgetown, and a Ph.D. in Law from Yale Law School.

John Samples is a vice president at the Cato Institute. He founded and directs Cato’s Center for Representative Government, which studies the First Amendment, government institutional failure, and public opinion. Dr. Samples also serves on the Facebook Oversight Board, which hears appeals from content moderation decisions by Facebook and Instagram. Prior to joining Cato, Samples served eight years as director of Georgetown University Press. He received his PhD in political science from Rutgers University. Samples’ views expressed during this event are his own and do not represent those of the Oversight Board or of Facebook.