Panels

At the Social Media Moderation Summit, we are facilitating two panels focused on different areas of content moderation.

Panel 1: Challenges and Opportunities for Content Moderation

We invite researchers, industry professionals, and leaders to share insights, strategies, challenges of content moderation and Trust & Safety in current-day social media, discuss how to navigate these challenges, and the future direction of social media content moderation.

Panel Moderator

Yvette Wohn, PhD

Associate Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology

Panelists

Paul M. Barrett, J.D.	Deputy Director and Senior Research Scholar at NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law
Michael Ann DeVito, PhD	Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Communication Studies at Northeastern University
Daniel Delmonaco, PhD	Education and Research Librarian for the Health Sciences at Rutgers University Libraries

Panel 2: Enthusiasts to Protectors: Insights into Volunteer Content Moderation

Researchers are invited to this panel to discuss the current landscape of volunteer content moderation. This panel aims to facilitate a dialogue to share unique perspectives on the matter and discuss how to improve the user experiences of volunteer moderators, who dedicate their time and play key roles in upkeeping a safe environment and other users’ experiences in online communities widespread across diverse platforms/online areas.

Panel Moderator

Jirassaya Uttarapong

UX Researcher at the Social Interaction Lab, NJIT

Panelists

Jie Cai, PhD	Assistant Research Professor at College of IST, Penn State University
Shagun Jhaver, PhD	Assistant Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University
Kelly Cotter, PhD	Assistant Professor at Pennsylvania State University

About the Panelists

Panel 1

Paul M. Barrett, J.D.

Paul Barrett is a writer and editor. Since 2017, he has worked as the deputy director and senior research scholar at the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University’s Stern School of Business. At the Center, he has focused primarily on the effects of technology on democracy. He has published more than a dozen white papers and numerous opinion articles on the harmful side effects of social media platforms and generative artificial intelligence. His work has been covered by major news outlets, including The New York Times, The New Yorker magazine, The Washington Post, The
Guardian, and National Public Radio. Paul is a guest lecturer in undergraduate business and MBA classes at NYU and co-teaches a seminar each spring at the NYU Law School called, “Law, Economics, and Journalism.”

Before joining the NYU Stern Center, Paul worked for more than 30 years as a
journalist, primarily for The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek. At the Journal, he served at various times as the paper’s Supreme Court correspondent, page one special projects editor, and legal affairs feature writer. At Bloomberg Businessweek, he wrote cover stories on such topics as the firearm industry, military procurement, and environmental disasters. Paul has written four critically acclaimed nonfiction books that grew out of his
journalism, including GLOCK: The Rise of America’s Gun, which was a New York Times
Bestseller.

He holds an undergraduate degree in American History and a law degree from Harvard University. Paul lives in New Jersey with his wife, Julie Cohen, a documentary filmmaker, and their dogs, Toby and Zoe.

Michael Ann DeVito, PhD

Dr. Michael Ann DeVito (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Communication Studies at Northeastern University, where she directs the Sociotechnical Equity and Agency Lab. She is a qualitative, interpretivist researcher and designer who applies transfeminist and critical approaches to the study of how users and communities understand and adapt to the challenges of AI and machine learning-driven sociotechnical environments via folk theorization and communal sensemaking. Dr. DeVito is particularly interested in how marginalized communities leverage social technologies to address both externally-imposed inequity and intracommunity conflict, and often acts as a member-researcher within queer and transgender communities, employing her own positionality as a key tool in her grounded theory-based approach. Dr. DeVito holds a PhD in Media, Technology, and Society from Northwestern University, and frequently publishes in venues such as CSCW and CHI.

Daniel Delmonaco, PhD

Daniel Delmonaco is Education and Research Librarian for the Health Sciences at Rutgers University Libraries, where they are the library liaison to New Jersey Medical School. Delmonaco received a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Michigan and a Master of Information in Library and Information Science from Rutgers. Delmonaco researches health information seeking and social media with an emphasis on LGBTQ+ health, sexual and reproductive health, and healthcare provider experiences of content moderation.

Panel 2

Jie Cai, PhD

Jie Cai is an assistant research professor in Human-Computer Interaction at Penn State University. He is an HCI researcher dedicated to improving system design to ensure online communities are safe and inclusive, especially interactive media platforms like live streaming, short videos, and social VR. He employs various UX methods to understand human content moderators’ decision-making processes and collaboration practices. His work has been published at top HCI conferences such as ACM CHI and CSCW. His research on moderation in live streaming has received several Honorable Mention Awards at ACM CHI and recognition from Twitch. He also plays active leadership roles in the HCI community, serving on organizing committees for ACM CHI and CSCW.

Shagun Jhaver, PhD

Shagun Jhaver is a social computing scholar whose research focuses on improving content moderation on digital platforms. He is currently studying how internet platform design and moderation policies can address societal issues such as online harassment, misinformation, and the rise of hate groups. Jhaver is an assistant professor at Rutgers University’s School of Communication & Information in the Library & Information Science Department.

Kelly Cotter, PhD

Kelley Cotter is an Assistant Professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at The Pennsylvania State University. She received her Ph.D. in information and media from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in library and information science from Drexel University. Her research explores the social and ethical implications of data-centric technologies, particularly through the lens of collective processes of constructing meaning around them. She is the co-PI of an NSF project exploring how platforms discursively position volunteer moderators of local community groups and the skills, insights, and tools these moderators develop to preserve the quality of information and interactions in their groups. Dr. Cotter’s work has been published in New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, and the proceedings for the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI).