One Style Does Not Regulate All: Moderation Practices in Public and Private WhatsApp Groups

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Shahid, Farhana, Agarwal, Dhruv, Vashistha, Aditya
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Shahid, Farhana
Agarwal, Dhruv
Vashistha, Aditya
author_facet Shahid, Farhana
Agarwal, Dhruv
Vashistha, Aditya
contents WhatsApp is the largest social media platform in the Global South and is a virulent force in global misinformation and political propaganda. Due to end-to-end encryption WhatsApp can barely review any content and mostly rely on volunteer moderation by group admins. Yet, little is known about how WhatsApp group admins manage their groups, what factors and values influence moderation decisions, and what challenges they face while managing their groups. To fill this gap, we interviewed admins of 32 diverse groups and reviewed content from 30 public groups in India and Bangladesh. We observed notable differences in the formation, members' behavior, and moderation of public versus private groups, as well as in how WhatsApp admins operate compared to those on other platforms. We used Baumrind's typology of 'parenting styles' as a lens to examine how admins enact care and control during volunteer moderation. We identified four styles based on how caring and controlling the admins are and discuss design recommendations to help them better manage problematic content in WhatsApp groups.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_08091
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle One Style Does Not Regulate All: Moderation Practices in Public and Private WhatsApp Groups
Shahid, Farhana
Agarwal, Dhruv
Vashistha, Aditya
Human-Computer Interaction
WhatsApp is the largest social media platform in the Global South and is a virulent force in global misinformation and political propaganda. Due to end-to-end encryption WhatsApp can barely review any content and mostly rely on volunteer moderation by group admins. Yet, little is known about how WhatsApp group admins manage their groups, what factors and values influence moderation decisions, and what challenges they face while managing their groups. To fill this gap, we interviewed admins of 32 diverse groups and reviewed content from 30 public groups in India and Bangladesh. We observed notable differences in the formation, members' behavior, and moderation of public versus private groups, as well as in how WhatsApp admins operate compared to those on other platforms. We used Baumrind's typology of 'parenting styles' as a lens to examine how admins enact care and control during volunteer moderation. We identified four styles based on how caring and controlling the admins are and discuss design recommendations to help them better manage problematic content in WhatsApp groups.
title One Style Does Not Regulate All: Moderation Practices in Public and Private WhatsApp Groups
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.08091