"I Got Flagged for Supposed Bullying, Even Though It Was in Response to Someone Harassing Me About My Disability.": A Study of Blind TikTokers’ Content Moderation Experiences

Abstract

The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community has consistently focused on the experiences of users moderated by social media platforms. Recently, scholars have noticed that moderation practices could perpetuate biases, resulting in the marginalization of user groups undergoing moderation. However, most studies have primarily addressed marginalization related to issues such as racism or sexism, with little attention given to the experiences of people with disabilities. In this paper, we present a study on the moderation experiences of blind users on TikTok, also known as "BlindToker, " to address this gap. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 BlindTokers and used thematic analysis to analyze the data. Two main themes emerged: BlindTokers' situated content moderation experiences and their reactions to content moderation. We reported on the lack of accessibility on TikTok's platform, contributing to the moderation and marginalization of BlindTokers. Additionally, we discovered instances of harassment from trolls that prompted BlindTokers to respond with harsh language, triggering further moderation. We discussed these findings in the context of the literature on moderation, marginalization, and transformative justice, seeking solutions to address such issues.CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Empirical studies in HCI.

Content Moderation Justice and Fairness on Social Media: Comparisons Across Different Contexts and Platforms

“…These types of violations should be punished severely online or even have the police involved offline. Legal violation is more likely to cause psychological harm for individual entities, like harassment towards a specific group related to gender, race, identity, or disability [23,43]. Consequently, we suggest that both types of moderation strategies should be incorporated into the platform's moderation policymaking, and it is difficult to weigh which one is better and should be emphasized.…”

“…These content moderation policies guide human moderators and algorithms to remove offensive content and sanction offenders [6]. Many users complain their content has been removed by the platform without a clear explanation and frequently express confusion about what action has triggered a moderation action or account suspension [11,23,24], leading users to feel frustrated and leave [30].…”