Feminist Participation and Content Moderation Regimes: Tackling Systematic Exclusions Online

Drawing on feminist technology studies, intersectional feminist perspectives on participation online and recent studies in the field (Noble 2018; Díaz and Hecht-Felella 2021; Galpin 2022), I argue that the participation in using digital means to challenge existing power-structures must be reassessed against developments in moderation regimes, often installed in public-private partnerships. Here, a context specific analysis of exclusions from online participation is needed. While authoritarian regimes may use visible forms of censorship such as internet cut offs or blocking of websites and platforms, other more obscured forms of censorship including self-censorship and withdrawal from political online spaces resulting from digital violence also need to be investigated.